No grass is growing under the feet of Gregg Allman since The Allman Brothers Band called it a day in 2014. (Read our recently posted Q&A with him by Dennis Elsas here.) He’s been active on the road with his new backing band and won kudos for his recent live album, Back to Macon, GA. And all in spite of a number of serious health issues he’s had to contend with.
Gregg has now begun recording a new studio album, his first since 2011’s Low Country Blues. He’s tracking it at FAME Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals, AL, where classic records by Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Otis Redding and many others were made. (For more on the centrality of the small Alabama city in recording historic popular music, the 2013 Muscle Shoals documentary is a must see.) Producing is Don Was, whose credits include work with The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Bonnie Raitt and numerous other notables.
Excitement about the new Allman album is running high within his camp. Just posted on Gregg’s website (here) is this note from his lead guitarist and musical director Scott Sharrard (along with photographs from the sessions like the one above by Matthew Butler).
“[A]fter many miles on the road, a live album and so many internal band changes I now find myself getting ready to fly to Muscle Shoals this Thursday to begin work on Gregg’s first studio album with his own band since the 1980’s (Searching for Simplicity and Low Country Blues were done with mostly studio sidemen instead of Gregg’s touring band). Not only that but we are recording at Fame studios, the rosetta stone of soul music. We are also lucky enough to have Don Was at the helm as Producer, who has already proven himself to be the down to earth maestro that we had all hoped for. I’ve been hearing Gregg sing the songs we wrote together as well as the new cover he’s doing of my song ‘Love Like Kerosene’ for a couple years now. I couldn’t hope for a better setting or band to realize these tunes as well as the cover song ideas that Don, Gregg and I and the band have come up with.”
This summer, Allman will be hosting an expanded slate – from one to five – of his Laid Back Festival at various locales across the nation (see his itinerary for those and other concert dates as well as purchase tickets here). Don’t be surprised if he previews songs slated for the album at his shows.
