One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band Read Online Free Page A

was expecting or used to dealing with.
    HALL: I called Phil and said, “I can’t do it. It’s not me. I’m doing Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett and all these great people and I want to go in and get it on, not wait around for these guys. Do you want to buy the contract and the tracks we cut with him?”
    LANDAU: Rick was a brilliant record producer, but a very dark person, very intense, very old school, very straight. There was no cultural connection between him and Duane. Phil was clearly a more appropriate fit. He was a very charismatic guy who just had it. He wanted to be big in the pop/rock world, and he saw Duane as the means to do that.
    HALL: Phil and [Jerry] Wexler [of Atlantic Records] came down and asked how many sides I had cut. I said, “About seven or eight.”
    Wexler said, “What will you take for them and the contract?”
    I said, “What will you give me?”
    He goes, “How about eight thousand?”
    Being a negotiator myself, I countered with, “It’ll take ten.”
    Wexler said, “Fine,” and wrote me a check for $10,000.
    And the rest is history.

 
    CHAPTER
    1
    Beginnings
    P HIL W ALDEN INTENDED Duane’s new band to be the centerpiece artists on his new Atlantic-distributed label, Capricorn Records. He also signed Allman to a management contract. Duane now had a record label and a manager wrapped up in one charismatic figure.
    The first member of his new band was the drummer born in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, as Johnie Lee Johnson, then calling himself Jai Johanny Johanson and soon to be known by a single name: Jaimoe.
    JAIMOE: I had been playing with rhythm and blues artists like Clarence Carter, Percy Sledge, and Arthur Conley and I was done with that whole scene. The people who became stars treated their musicians just like they were treated—like dogs. I decided that if I’m going to starve to death, at least I’m going to do it playing what I love: jazz music. I was moving to New York City.
    I had played on a songwriting demo of songs written by my friend Jackie Avery, and he got them to Duane to consider, having heard he had signed with Phil and was putting together a band.
    JACKIE AVERY JR., songwriter: I went to Muscle Shoals during a Wilson Pickett session and Duane was sitting in Studio B playing a dobro, with his legs crossed, one leg way up on the other kneecap, wearing big cowboy boots. I was struck by how different he was; he was a free spirit who just didn’t give a damn. I played him this demo, with Johnny Jenkins singing “Voodoo in You” and two other songs.
    He listened to the whole thing, then spit in a cup—I think he had some snuff—and all he asked was, “Who’s the drummer?”
    I went back to Georgia and Jai was playing at some roadhouse in the woods with [blues guitarist] Eddie Kirkwood and I told him that I thought he should get over to Muscle Shoals, that I thought this guy was going to be something.
    JAIMOE: Avery said, “I ain’t never heard nobody play guitar the way Duane does” and he had seen Guitar Slim and many other great ones, so that convinced me to go talk to Duane before going to New York and starving to death.
    AVERY: Jaimoe packed up his drums and he and I scraped together $28 for a bus ticket and put those drums on a bus and off he went.
    JAIMOE: I got to Muscle Shoals and rattling around my head was something my friend Honeyboy Otis had told me: “If you want to make some money, go play with those white boys. They’ll pay you.” I saw the guys getting ready to go to work. I knew them all from being there with Percy Sledge and I asked, “Hey, where’s Skyman?”
    “Oh, he’s in Studio B getting ready to do a session.”
    I walk in and see this skinny little white boy hippie with long straight hair, and I said, “Excuse me, you must be the guy they call Skyman.” He looked at me and said, “Yep, and you’re Jai Johanny Johanson,” and we shook hands. He went to do a session and I set up my drums in a little studio, playing