Duane Allman introduces the song, snapping his fingers to mark time (you can clearly hear this in the remastered CD version). Duane was a dirty hippy but there is something very southern gentleman in his voice: "A song Dickey Betts wrote from our second album....uh, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed...ready gentlemen? 1..2..3..."
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Remembering Elizabeth Reed Redux
I ran across an excellent YouTube video of the classic Fillmore East live version of the Allman Brother's "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed." It's actually video footage of another night overlayed on the original sound track. There is no extant footage of that live version that I know of. I am in love with this song, having written about it at length once before: link It haunts me somehow.
Duane Allman introduces the song, snapping his fingers to mark time (you can clearly hear this in the remastered CD version). Duane was a dirty hippy but there is something very southern gentleman in his voice: "A song Dickey Betts wrote from our second album....uh, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed...ready gentlemen? 1..2..3..."
Duane Allman introduces the song, snapping his fingers to mark time (you can clearly hear this in the remastered CD version). Duane was a dirty hippy but there is something very southern gentleman in his voice: "A song Dickey Betts wrote from our second album....uh, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed...ready gentlemen? 1..2..3..."
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Nice version. Great way to start the work day!
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right about the haunting too. Nice minor progressions much more reminiscent of a jazz jam session than a rock tune.
Calypso: Allow me to distill this song to what I hear:
DeleteIt begins with Dickey Betts' haunting guitar which sound like a violin. The video gives the impression that it was Duane, but in fact it was Betts, the song writer, off camera.
Then follows (1m26s) a perfect unison harmonizing between both Duane Allman and Betts, including a guitar duet which goes through an abrupt tempo change around 2m39s.
Around the 3min mark comes what is like an open parenthesis--it sounds like a bell tolling and it signals a break from unity after which solos appear. Betts is first at 3m10s. He continues, alone, until around 5m40s when Duane Allman reappears to join briefly to signal the solo change to Gregg Allman. The organ solo pulls back both guitars and during this time you can more clear hear Berry Oakley's bass lines.
Duane Allman than reappears in harmony at 7m40s, signalling another solo change before ripping off into his own solo.
(Dickey's and Duane's guitars sound alike but you can always tell Duane because he plays more lickety split than Dickey did--picking more notes per measure--whereas Dickey always sustained his notes)
Duane solos for a few minutes and perhaps would have ended after the first "ululation" and wind down at about 10:43 as on studio version. His solo seems to flicker and almost go out but then he blows life into it again and gives a "second" solo. The true climax of the song then builds and peaks with a layla-esque pleading until 11:40. Then the rhythm instruments pull together and harmonize, signaling a brief percussion solo. After this comes the second open parenthesis I mentioned. It reappears and tolls the closing of the solos and then total unity again and the song abruptly ends.
Oh, you chemists ... always about the structure! :)
DeleteGood analysis though. Thank you.
Thanks. Calypso. Note that the very last note is strangely upbeat.
DeleteI'm in touch with people who are introducing me to this music. They lend me dozen of their cds to add to my iTunes and I'm listening to them now and then.
ReplyDeleteI read his autobiography and it was very interesting to say the least.
ReplyDeleteTroop, Duane didn't leave behind an autobiography -- just a collection of recordings and stories about him. It was up to others to put it together. There is a decent biography by Randy Poe out there which I mentioned here
DeleteThanks for that.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, I thought that was jazz fusion. I wasn't very sophisticated.
I might add that things haven't changed much since then.
If you read elsewhere on the song you find that it was Coltrane and Mile Davis influenced.
DeleteIt's really very high art.
ReplyDeleteI think so too, L. Thanks!
DeleteI'd hang around you more but I'm breaking from politics for a while. Speaking of which...when the hell are you going to run for something in CA? You got my vote.