Great Moments on Video №5: The Allman Brothers Band - The Same Thing
(Austin City Limits TV Show, November 1, 1995)
The Allman Brothers Band - The Same Thing
(Austin City Limits TV Show, November 1, 1995)
Straight-up performances of Chicago blues rarely make for particularly great video moments — the music is usually predictable, and the performers usually care more about getting the vibe right than putting on a feast for the eyes. Similarly, The Allman Brothers Band, despite being one of the greatest live acts in «roots-rock» music, are usually best appreciated when heard rather than seen. There is only a tiny handful of poor quality footage of them from their legendary days with brother Duane (most notably this chunk from a show at the Fillmore in 1970), and much of the post-Duane material ranges from capturing them in a sloppy state on a bad day to steady, reliable footage-for-the-fans, where you can admire the professionalism and discipline but don’t often get to be caught up in the fun of it.
There are exceptions, though, and for some odd reason, the one performance I constantly catch myself coming back to, over and over again, is not a ʽWhippin’ Post’ or a ʽMemory Of Elizabeth Reed’, but this straightforward rendition of the old Willie Dixon blues called ʽThe Same Thing’, whose best-known version was arguably recorded by Muddy Waters thirty years before this particular show. It was a regular presence in the band’s setlist through the early years of their comeback period in the 1990s (you can find a high-quality audio version on their 2nd Set live album from the same years); later, after the departure of Dickey Betts, it would be resurrected once again, with heavy support from a brass section, but it would never again sound as jaw-droppingly awesome as it does here.
The Allmans’ comeback may not have resulted in a ton of new classics (although those early 1990s albums are generally a lot of fun), but as a stage band, they never sounded that good ever since brother Duane hit the skies, largely due to the fresh blood of Warren Haynes — the guy who had the rare talent to inventively push the old musical genre forward while generally staying firmly within the established formula; meanwhile, Gregg Allman and particularly Dickey Betts were the remaining anchors of the band’s former greatness. (As much as I like and respect Derek Trucks, it is impossible not to notice that after he replaced Dickey, the band became a fairly different entity altogether). That said, Dickey was not always a reliable anchor, with his constant substance abuse problems and general instability — hard to believe after you see him giving out 100% like he does here, I know, yet there had to be a reason why he was sacked in the end.
In any case, it’s great to have aural and visual memories like these; and for what it’s worth, The Allman Brothers Band live before a small audience in a TV or radio studio feels like a better proposal than The Allman Brothers Band live in a stadium environment, or even in a club environment, because the one thing they do have in common with art- and prog-rock is that it pays off to quietly sit and attentively watch these guys play while your jaw slowly sinks to the floor, rather than use every opportunity to just headbang. There are so many subtle nuances, so much intricate dynamics going on between all the players, it’s almost like a crime to miss it, and if you’re there to simply «have a good time», you’re not getting your money’s worth. (There’s another video of them doing ʽThe Same Thing’ out there, from Woodstock ’94, and while technically it’s also a great performance, it just doesn’t have the same magic for me as this one does — let alone the actual festival goers, most of whom either don’t give a fuck or are unable to give a fuck due to the general shittiness of the circumstances).
Which is all fine and well, but why this focus on the old Willie Dixon blues thing rather than the band’s original material? They did do ʽBlue Sky’ and other classics on the same show, after all. I’m not exactly sure — I’m largely just following the call of the heart on this one — but I think it may have something to do with the challenge factor. It’s like, "let’s pick a classic — any classic — and show them how it can be creatively transformed and adapted, plus we’ll play it with so much energy, we’ll just have to blow their socks off!" In a way, it’s an even bigger challenge than convincingly running through your own decade-old songs. But yet another reason, now that I think about it, may simply be that the Allmans rarely, if ever, wrote any «deep dark blues» numbers themselves — as creators of original material, they could have the angry rockin’ vibe, the friendly country vibe, the dreamy psychedelic vibe, the soulful vibe... yet dark, suggestive songs with creepy sexual overtones, they didn’t really do that on their own, but they could put their own twist on them, and that’s exactly what they do here. I pretty much get a «devilish» vibe from this performance, which is a rarity between me and the Allmans.
Although both in terms of lyrics and the original vibe, ‘The Same Thing’ is all about the magic and the terror of the phenomenon of sexual attraction ("must be the same old thing that makes a preacher man lay his Bible down" was a pretty risqué line for its time), the Allmans, as usual, do not seriously play up the sex connotations — they aren’t Bad Company or AC/DC, after all, and dark blues, to them, is more about badass spiritual expression than seducing the ladies in the audience. And this is one hell of a spiritually badass performance! Here’s just a brief list of all the specific twists and turns that seduced me into becoming a huge fan of this version.
0:06 — after the brief guitar-only intro, the percussion (from the band’s two regular drummers and one extra percussionist) subtly increases in volume, going from soft to kick-ass in a couple of seconds. Great way to set and resolve some suspense at the very beginning.
0:29 — that little inquisitive "twang?..." Dickey adds as a counterpoint to the main riff. Lesser bands would just be content to diligently deliver the melody, but Betts would be bored with this, he’s being a bit of an impatient schoolboy jiggling in his seat all over the performance, and on occasion, even infects the generally more disciplined Haynes with his impatience.
0:42 — more bad boy stuff from Dickey, a lead flourish out of nowhere to mark his place right before Warren begins to sing. (At 1:20, Warren responds with his own lead line in between the first two lines of the second verse — "hey, I can ad-lib too, Dickey, you know!")
1:52 — probably the single most original musical twist they added to the original version, with that series of 5-6 strong beats where the entire band, guitars, organ, bass, drums, releases the bluesy tension. I’ve been listening to this over the original so long, I’d even forgotten that ‘The Same Thing’ was really one of Dixon’s variation on the theme of the earlier and much better known ‘Spoonful’ — because the Allmans have rearranged it so much — but this "whole!... world!... fight’ng...! ’bout!... that same thing" is a good reminder that the "same thing" is indeed the same thing as the proverbial "spoonful of your precious love".
2:05 — there’s something unexplainably graceful about Dickey’s fingers moving across the strings as he finally launches into his first solo. It’s not just a case of "every note matters", even though it does, it’s sort of a "caressing meticulousness" thing where he looks like the big daddy dog and each string is a little puppy receiving a playful bite from daddy. Weird comparison, I know, but I’m temporarily out of better metaphors.
2:28 — ever heard or seen Dickey sustain a single note so perfectly for about four seconds without letting up? That playful bite lasted a bit longer than could have been expected! (And it’s nice to have him return back to it, albeit for a much shorter interval, on the symmetric second line).
2:53 — Warren begins his lead in a completely different style from Dickey (as befits the general two-guitar philosophy of the Allmans), but tips his hat to continuity by starting it off on the very same phrase with which Dickey ended his solo. Just a few notes, but a whole lot of mutual respect between the two guitarists.
3:45 — after two verses of beautifully fast, fluent, as-inventive-as-possible soloing within the strict 12-bar format, Warren achieves true orgasmic release on that final top-string wail, bringing the entire audience to a cheer. It’s like the perfect landing of a parachutist or a gymnast, where the final triumphant gesture blows the lid off the kettle.
5:19 — watch Dickey launch into his second solo with total "you-ain’t-heard-the-last-of-this" abandon. It actually seems as if he’s getting a bit out of control here, at around 5:40 the solo even starts getting off rhythm and breaking up in odd downward dissonant cascades, from which it takes him about ten seconds to get it up and glue it back, resorting to a favorite device ("when all else fails, there’s nothing a fast series of arpeggios won’t cure"). Sure enough, Warren may be the more technically gifted and the more complex of the two players, but watching Betts get into weird situations and find his way out of them is actually even more fascinating to me.
6:20 — both guitarists finally get back into total sync for the coda (Dickey "convinces" Warren to go along with him for the final riff). The tale of two brothers, the wise elder one and the naughty prodigal one, thus comes to a satisfying happy end.
And as far as I’m concerned, it was an actual musical journey, rather than just a regular performance of an old generic blues standard — one that deserves to be both heard and seen, so thanks a lot to Austin City Limits for preserving it for us. Really, there’s just as much «show» and «theater» going on here as there might be in any dazzling glam-rock or arena-rock performance — you just have to look for it — but it’s all so much more meaningful than the average dazzling glam-rock performance, too.