Style: country rock, blues rock
Label: Epic
Year: 1998
Home: Georgia
Members: Gregg Allman ~ keyboards/acoustic guitar/lead vocals
Dickey Betts ~ guitars/lead vocals
Jaimoe, Butch Trucks ~ drums
Warren haynes ~ guitars/b. vocals
Allen Woody ~ bass/b. vocals
Marc Quinones ~ percussion
Johnny Neel ~ keyboards/b. vocals
Duane Allman ~ lead guitar
Berry Oakley ~ bass
This is so unexpectantly good I ended up giving it away as a gift ... if that doesn't say something what more do I need to say? I picked this up purely out of curiosity & I'm glad I did. Most people probably won't turn to the 90's when it comes to checking out or revisiting the ABB catalog, if folks even realize they were still recording in the 90's. This littles ten track collection aims to change that by gathering highlights of their 90's output on Epic. & according to reviews of the albums it does indeed gather the highlights, though the selected songs are but the tip of the iceberg & there are many that could easily be included here. As the band didn't have a lot of major commercial hits in the 90's, as compared to their peak 70's days, this collection just lifts a couple tracks from each album to give a short & sweet taste that is meant to inspire further exploration of the individual albums. It doesn't pretend to be comprehensive, nor does it focus on one album to the detriment of another, a common problem with hits collections. Two tracks apiece are culled from their strong bluesy comeback "Seven Turns", the improvisational heavy yet reflective "Shades Of Two Worlds", & the reflective "Where It All Begins", plus single tracks from "An Evening With The ABB" & "An Evening With The ABB: Second Set". For those not familiar with later era ABB this collection will immediately get you yearning for an additional ten tracks, if not to go to the albums themselves. It also includes two bonus tracks in a live acoustic rendition of "Midnight Rider" from 1992 & "Every Hungry Woman" live from 1970 featuring the late Duane Allman, previously unreleased. They're welcomed but sound a bit out of place as both disrupt the flow & lack the clean studio sheen, but a greatest hits collection always needs something for the old fans to buy it. The songs here might not be familiar to the casual listener but if you like the ABB of yore there's no way you can go wrong with this as the feeling is still there along with their identifiable mix of blues, country & rock. In many ways this doesn't sound like a collection of 90's tunes but a remastered collection of 70's band. Slide guitar king Duane Allman might have died but the band kept on making great music that shouldn't be ignored because of his death. He might have been a strong part of the sound but he was actually just a part of the bigger picture at the end of the day. The blues number "Good Clean Fun" opens the album with the chorus "looking for some good clean fun". This could be a summation of the ABB experience via the later days. It's fun & the songwriter remains as strong as ever & these songs can easily be held up against their more famous hits. ABB churn out the blues as strong as any white boy band & will have you playing air guitar along with their endless cascading & intertwining solos. For those who only know the ABB from their 70's heyday & see them as forgotten has-beens it's doctors orders to check out this album & get up to date. They never stopped creating & there's no reason to stop listening. After hearing this it'll only be sad to discover that they would only do one more studio album in 2003, Hittin The Note, sans Dickey Betts, & it ended up being considered one of their best in two decades ... but time had already moved away from them & relegated them to the nostalgia backyard swamp heap.
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