The 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers Band is being marked by the new career retrospective Trouble No More: 50th Anniversary Collection. The set pays tribute to the Southern rock pioneers and their extraordinary body of work, and is available as a 10LP or 5CD box.
The retrospective is produced by Allman Brothers Band historians and aficionados Bill Levenson, John Lynskey and Kirk West, and contains no fewer than 61 Allman Brothers Band classics, live performances and rarities spanning their 45-year career. It has seven previously unreleased tracks, going from the beginning of the band’s story until the end.
The Allmans’ original 1969 demo of the Muddy Waters song ‘Trouble No More’ opens up the set, offering a new introduction to the magical combination of Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, Dickey Betts, Duane Allman, Jaimoe and Gregg Allman that came together that year. It was the first demo recorded for the debut album that started their emergence as one of the most important and creative bands in rock history.
At the other end of the collection, the set concludes with a live performance of ‘Trouble No More’ from the Allman Brothers Band’s last show at the Beacon Theatre in New York, which brings the retrospective full circle.
Trouble No More: 50th Anniversary Collection is arranged chronologically and thematically to represent all of those line-ups, grouped into five distinct eras representing the various stages of the band’s recording and performance development. They’re divided by the group’s stays on Capricorn, Arista and Epic, as well as their own Peach imprint.
The first disc, The Capricorn Years 1969 – 1979 Part I, covers the band’s beginnings, with the unreleased ‘Trouble No More’ demo and highlights of their self-titled debut album such as the landmark ‘Whipping Post’; standouts from their sophomore set Idlewild South such as the classic ‘Midnight Rider’; and tracks from the legendary Live At Filmore East album including the celebrated ‘Statesboro Blues’ and the 13-minute instrumental epic ‘In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed.’
The Capricorn Years 1969 -1979 Part II has songs from the double album, Eat A Peach, made with tracks recorded with Duane Allman in 1971 before his tragic death such as ‘Blue Sky’ and ‘Melissa.’ The band are also heard in a variety of live settings on this disc includes songs from the chart-topping Brothers and Sisters such as the Dickey Betts composition and hit single ‘Ramblin Man.’ There’s also a previously unreleased outtake of ‘Early Morning Blues,’ which eventually morphed into ‘Jelly Jelly.’
The Capricorn Years, 1969-1979 Part III/The Arista Years, 1980-1981 opens with live performances from their historic Summer Jam show of July ’73 with the Grateful Dead. 1975’s Win, Lose Or Draw is represented by such as the moving title track and their version of Muddy Waters’ ‘Can’t Lose What You Never Had. The reunion of original members that led to 1979’s Enlightened Rogues prompts the inclusion of ‘Crazy Love,’ ‘Can’t Take It With You’ and others, then comes their move to Arista Records for 1980’s Reach For The Sky and 1981’s chapter-closing Brothers Of The Road.
The Epic Years, 1989-2000 reflects the period in which another revitalised line-up, featuring new guitar recruit Warren Haynes, flourished as a seven-piece. Seven Turns became their first album together in nearly a decade, from which comes ‘Good Clean Fun,’ and there are tracks from 1991’s Shades Of Two Worlds. Other highlights of the period include ‘Low Dirty Mean’ from the 1992 live album Play All Night: Live At The Beacon Theatre, a rare live performance of Robert Johnson’s ‘Come On Into My Kitchen’ and songs from 1994’s Where It All Begins. The unreleased ‘I’m Not Crying’ ends the disc.
The collection concludes with The Peach Years, 2000-2014, spanning various new changes in line-up, such as Betts’departure and the arrival of guitarist Derek Trucks. The latter features on the previously unreleased 2000 recording ‘Loan Me A Dime.’ There’s also a newly-released live performance of ‘Desdemona’ at the Beacon Theatre in 2001, which featured on the Allman Brothers Band’s final album, Hittin’ The Note, in 2003.
Two unreleased tracks from the 2005 annual stand at the Beacon Theatre are included, and as mentioned, the collection culminates in a live ‘Trouble No More.’ “In those four minutes,” writes Lynskey, “45 years came pouring out of the speakers; 45 years of superior blues/rock music, created by incomparable musicians. The final notes echoed through the theatre early in the morning of 29 October, 43 years to the day that Duane Allman died.”
