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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what

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you here weekday afternoons on the Drive. Alan Paul is the author of a

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New York Times bestseller of One Way
Out, The Inside Story of the Allman

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Brothers Band, The Definitive Book on
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Band,

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and Texas Flood, The Inside Story
of Stevie Ray Vaughan. His newest

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creation drills down and does a deeper
dive into the Allman Brothers and Brothers and

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Sisters, the Allman Brothers Band,
and the inside story of the album that

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defined the seventies. Welcome, Alan
Paul, Thank you, thank you very

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much for having me. Well,
let's start with Allman Brothers and the history

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of the Allman Brothers because not one, but two generations have passed since the

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release of this album. That is
true. Yeah, I mean, the

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album just stands at test of time
and it's not my graduation. It's not

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a cliche to say that, because
the factors are celebrating its fifty at the

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anniversary and it still sounds great and
we still listen to it now. I

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know that the rambling Man from this
album is one of the most played classic

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rock titles. I don't know that
it got as much airplay then as it

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does now. Well I get your
point, and if you take it in

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total, that's certainly true. But
it did get a lot of airplay in

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seventy three, and I'm sure you
remember and for some of the listeners remember

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at that time, when a song
became a hit, it could really get

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a lot of hit play. I
mean, you couldn't go anywhere in nineteen

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seventy three thousand wearing that song every
half an hour on the rating was it

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was pretty ubiquitous. But but yes, point taking it has again, like

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I said, it has really stood
the test of time because it's still goods

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played all the time fifty years later. It's ironic because the band at some

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point it's almost embarrassed by that song
because you know, they parted the race

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with pickybet in two and who wrote
and sang it. The song was so

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associated with him, so they quit
playing it for the most part. A

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couple of very rare occurrences were Ward
Haynes saying it and it's sort of stated

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from the memory of the band like
they wanted to, you know, memory

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hole it and it's kind of crazy
because it is such a great song.

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And that also, you know,
way is why I wanted to write this

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book, because it's not just that
song, but that whole album and that

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whole era when they were the most
popular, which is sort of oddly being

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overlooked and pushed aside in the band's
history, and I want to directify that.

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Well. Also, radio at that
time was different than it is now.

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You didn't you didn't have so many
divisions within formats as you do today.

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So here was what we now consider
a rock song. But it made

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it onto the top forty charts,
right, It made it actually to number

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two. It was held out from
being number one by schars hat Breed,

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which is sort of crazy and and
ironic considering that you know, a year

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later Greg and Share Greg Alman and
Share would be a couple and you know,

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married before two long. But it's
just one of those peculiarities of pop

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culture history. That's what happens after
you remember why I never ramble man with

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Nuther too. Alan Paul is here. He's the author of the New York

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Times bestseller It's It's called the Allman
Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band and the

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Inside Story, the album that defined
the seventies, Brothers and Sisters, one

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of the big albums from that era. And I'm speaking of that, that

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relationship between Share and Greg and the
child on the cover of the album.

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I think a lot of people mistakenly
assume that that's Elijah Blue. Yes,

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Eliza Blue was not born yet.
Gregor Grego shared, I had not even

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met yet at the time of the
album release. It's actually Bereer Truck,

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who is the son of Butch Truck's
Olmen Brothers drummer. Yeah. They also

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a lot of rumors say it's Derek
Drugs, whose valors first cousin, and

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but his nephew also was not born
yet. In nineteen sevent Victory, what

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was it about their studio, Capricorn
that that became so distinctive for them?

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Well, Capricorn was a unique situation. It was located in Macon, Georgia,

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which was really sort of the middle
of nowhere at that time. It's

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about eighty miles south of Atlanta,
and it was pretty isolated. They were

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based there because Phil Waldon, who
was the founder owner of the label,

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was from Macon, as was Otis
Redding, and Phil Walden had been Otis

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reading as manager. They started working
together when they were teenagers. And in

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nineteen sixty seven, when Otis Redding
died in that horrible plane crash, Phil

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Walden was berest and he was looking
for what he was going to do next.

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And he had one a Moneric pop
festival with Otis, and he saw

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what was happening, you know,
Jimmy Hendrick's experience, who the grateful dad,

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the mamas and the papas and on
and on. I mean it was

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the first great rock festival. And
he saw the crowd, he saw the

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kids, and when Otis was gone, he realized, you know, he

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had to get into that. He
had to head into rock, and he

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discovered Dwayne Alman signed him, and
then Dyne put together on the Alms with

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this band, and then they in
turn put Capricorn and make it on the

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map. And what's interesting is that
Brothers and Sisters is the first album they

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recorded entirely without Dwayne Alman, who
died halfway through the recording of E to

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Peach. So he's on half of
VA to Peach, He's not on the

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other half. And it was the
first album that they recorded at home.

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It may make at Capricorn Studios.
So it was the first post dyne album,

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was the first making album, and
I think that really helped him to

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create this new sound for the first
time. I think they really sounded like

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a making band. And that was
also partly because Dicky bettis stepping more to

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the ford. He had a little
bit of country leading, so he started

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hearing that come out most most liveably
of course in ramble Man. So Making

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and Typricorn were just central to this
whole the album. I mean, you

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can't separate them. It wasn't just
a studio where they happened to record it.

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If that makes any sense. Oh, it makes plenty of sense.

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And I'm wondering too, because they
were such a show band, the Allman

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Brothers, and we're talking to Alan
Paul, who's written the book The Allman

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Brothers Band and The Inside Story,
the album that defined the seventies, which

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is Brothers and Sisters. They had
performed so much live and we're so used

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to at least it seems to me
listening to them over and over and over

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again as I have, they seem
to be used to their own improvisation.

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They knew when when the guitar was
going to go in a certain direction,

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and they followed them. And it
seems to me that a recording session with

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the Allman Brothers must have been just
like a big jam session with a tape

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recorder rolling. Well. Sometimes you
have sometimes no on this album, and

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Dickie that Sasses in the book,
he said this to me in an interview

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that he thought this was the first
time they really used the studio in the

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way that you know, more polished
studio bands do, and Nderman is a

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great example if you really listen to
it. I think there's like twelve guitar

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tracks, so that one really wasn't
a jam. And Jessica was a really

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carefully constructed song. Now, I
think where the live performance of jam they

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really came in is that they didn't
have to like labor over Jessica. It

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was a very carefully composed piece,
but when they played it, they played

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it live like a jam. So
a little bit of a combination of both

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and brothers and sisters was the first
time, I think where they really really

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buckled down in a studio and created
something that was very different than they would

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have just done live. Did they
have a particular producer that they worked with

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who maybe suggested things here and there
about track to track editing or anything like

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that. Yeah, So their first
two and a half records, the first

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two where the first three and a
half records, if he kept alive,

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I feel where he's all done with
Tom Dowd, who was the great producer

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from Atlantic Records, and he was
sort of like a father figure to him.

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That he was based in Miami,
And as I said, they recruited

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this one in making and it was
done with Johnny Sandlin, who had been

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a close friend of the band,
had engineered most of their other albums,

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so he was certainly very familiar,
and I think on this album his role

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was more being almost like a counselor
keeping everyone going, keeping it. They

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were certainly the enter a point where
there certainly left some success. They were

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having money, the drug problems were
getting worse. They weren't all in the

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studio at the same time, and
Johnny could just sort of keep them on

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track because he was an old friend, and he was of course a great

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engineer and soundman, so I think
his production help was more, yeah,

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guys, here's what you need to
do. Just keep it over on the

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same page and moving and then of
course doing expert production. You can tell

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him kind of a geek for that
thing, for that kind of stuff.

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Allman Brothers Band and the inside story
of the album that defined the seventies.

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It is out now and Alan Paul
is the writer of it. If you

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love this behind the scenes stuff,
you'll you'll love this. And the Almond

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Brothers. I mean, I guess
an argument could be made they kind of

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developed Southern rock. Yeah, well, they came to really dislike the title

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because they thought it was limiting it
in because you know, they didn't you

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know, is Elizabeth read Southern rock? Is Melissa? They thought it was

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limiting. But at the same time, they really really did the inspiration and

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in a way, i'd say it
started on this album sonically. I mean

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Random Man's self bound those spit into
that southern rock field more than some of

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their earlier stuff did. But I
think an even bigger part of it wasn't

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a particular sound as which is just
the inspiration. All these great Southern musicians

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were seeing their success, and then
the record labels were seeing their success.

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So I mean, Leonard Skimnard was
kicking around for five years and couldn't get

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it. D I mean, and
eventually when they put their demos out,

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the very first demos they recorded had
you know, three Bird and other things.

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Of course not as polished and finished, but pretty darned good. I

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mean, they could have put out
a record anytime, you know, from

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nineteen seventy or whatever on. They
weren't able to do it until nineteen seventy

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three. And I think a lot
of them that did have to do with

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the Allman Brothers success in record labels
saying you know, hey, let's go

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see who else is down there.
These guys are so good, there must

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be another band or two kicking around. Makes sense. Alan Paul Brothers and

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Sisters is the album that he writes
about in The Allman Brothers Band or The

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Inside Story, the album that defined
the seventies. Thanks for doing all the

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hard work on this and bringing this
to light. Thank you very much.

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Thanks for having me and I just
finished reading a great biography of Leon Russell,

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So paulso has been on my mind, so extra happily teach today.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and

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remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation