ALBUM: Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas (1976)
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$
In hindsight I would have bought the Live at Fillmore East album, considered by many critics to be one of the best live rock albums of all time. And it had Duane Allman, who later died in a motorcycle accident.
But at age 15, I probably didn’t know all that and just bought the latest Allman Brothers release, Wipe the Windows, a collection of concert songs from the early to mid-1970’s. It may suffer from Fillmore comparisons, but it isn’t bad. ‘Wasted Words,’ ‘Southbound’ and ‘Rambling Man,’ recorded at various times and venues are tight, sometimes searing renditions.
A 17-minute workout of ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’ brings up a comparison debate I’ve had about jam bands, specifically between the Bros and the Grateful Dead.
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, an instrumental takes up a whole side of this double record, propelled by twin guitars and the amazing keyboards of Chuck Leavell (later of Sea Level).
I carry the Southern banner high in this debate because if I’m going to listen to jam bands (yes the Allman Brothers were a jam band), I’ll take the Bros over the Dead any time.
One of my favorite, and possibly the best reviewer I’ve ever read, is Robert Christgau. The NY-based critic could do more in three sentences to destroy a musician’s conceits or identify or exalt a band’s glory.
But I disagree with him on the Bros. v the Dead.
He wrote in his excellent Consumer Guide: “But even if Duane Allman plus Dickey Betts does equal Jerry Garcia, the Dead know roads are for getting somewhere. That is, Garcia (not to bring in John Coltrane) always takes you some place unexpected on a long solo. I guess the appeal here [with the Allmans] is the inevitability of it all.”
Now first off, I don’t buy the fuzzy math. I don’t believe Garcia = Duane Allman + Dickey Betts. Duane may have died before he was 30 but one listen to the album “Layla and other love songs” dispels the notion that Duane needs Dickey Betts to help him in a guitar fight with Garcia.
Now I’m in favor of going to unexpected places. But for Deadheads (and I’ve know many having lived in Marin County for a decade) every Garcia lick must have seemed a new path – that is, until the acid wore off.
With the Bros, especially when Duane was still with us, the guitar rides took us down backroads and small time Southern byways. We rolled, brothers and sisters, down Highway 41.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.