More than just being a social marker, though, these shows -- recorded in New York on March 12th and 13th, 1971 -- remain the finest live rock performance ever committed to vinyl. From Duane Allman's big, fat bottleneck slide-guitar lick, which jump-starts the first track (Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro
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Blues"), to Berry Oakley's chugging, Harley-engine bass line that gives the twenty-three-minute closer ("Whipping Post") its haunting momentum,
At Fillmore East captures America's best blues-rock band at its peak. The musicians trade licks as though they're tribal-dancing together, not just cranking out great rock & roll. The two drummers, two guitarists, organ and bass players lock together on instrumental tracks such as "Hot 'Lanta" and the classic "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" with the grace and passion of the tightest jazz musicians.
At the centerpiece of At Fillmore East is the duo of brothers Gregg and Duane Allman. Never has a guitarist shown as much emotion as Duane does with his squalling slide work, and never has a singer equaled that emotion as Gregg does in his slurred warble on T-Bone Walker's gorgeous "Stormy Monday." It would never happen like this again: Less than six months after the release of At Fillmore East, the remarkable Duane Allman died in a motorcycle crash. But this document remains, and it continues to serve as a soundtrack for college dorms more than three decades after its release.
MARK KEMP
(RS 902 - August 8, 2002)
If you've never heard the version of "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" on this live album, then you need to set the volume to 100 and wait for Duane Allman to come blazing in with such ferocity, you'll want to tear your teeth out because he's not around anymore. Then there's an hour of the best blues-rock band ever, nailing everything in sight.
This is the archetype. Before it, Southern rock as a separate genre was an amorphous curiosity. After it, redneck hippies with chops were entitled to all the worship that had previously been thrown at Brit hippies with chops. And what chops the Allmans laid on an unsuspecting world in 1971. Although the electric guitar has gone in many exotic directions since, the contrast between Duane Allman quavering on slide and Dickey Betts burning in standard tuning can still drop the jaw of anyone with a non-arthritic "wow" reflex and the time to listen. And time is a problem here. We need to start lobbying Congress for a four-hour workday and longer vacations, just to appreciate the mountainous jam that is "Mountain Jam" (33:39). A cool and fitting moment worth waiting for in the almost-as-mountainous jam "You Don't Love Me": Duane quotes "Joy to the World" in the denouement. Joy indeed.
