“Dark End of the Street.” Duane had recorded it with Clarence Carter when he was working on the staff down there in Muscle Shoals. He was always on me to do that song, and my voice just wasn’t that thick. I mean, James Carr first did it. It takes a big, fat “Moon River” type voice.(Laughs) I didn’t have the voice for it at the time he wanted me to cut it.
Besides that one, what are your fa- vorite tracks on the album? I know that’s like asking you which is your fa- vorite child. (Laughs) Yeah. I like the new version of “Whipping Post.” “Silence Ain’t Golden Any- more,” that’s a good ol’ Scott Boyer song. It’s like you said, it’s hard for me to name specific favorites.
I like the country one, “Memphis in the Meantime.” John Hiatt is a great song- writer too, isn’t he? He is, and a helluva guy too.
Out of all the songs you’ve written, what is your favorite? I guess it’s probably “Queen of Hearts.” Your favorite album? Probably Idlewild South. Lots of good songs on that one.
There’s a massive tape trading commu- nity happening these days. What are your feelings on the taping of shows for trade and the effect on record sales? Well, at first we were kind of concerned about it. Then we did like a survey. It doesn’t hurt our record sales at all, and I think it’s really a great thing. I really do. It’s kind of like - Hell, it’s better than baseball cards, because you can listen to ‘em. (Laughs) Some of them are really great, and if you ran them through a compressor, you could probably release them. But the way people are going about it, just having them for there own listening use, I think it’s as cool as it can be.
I really believe it helps record sales in a way. It certainly helps build on the leg- end of the band. Right. I agree.
With almost thirty years of gigging be- hind you, are there any shows that re- ally stand out in your mind? Yeah. A couple of ‘em stand out. Certainly the closing of the Fillmore stands out. I once took out a 28-piece orchestra and cut what became my second solo record. It was called Gregg Allman Tour ‘74. It was recorded at Carnegie Hall. And you put a Fender bass in Carnegie Hall- the place is built for the spoken word. You put an electric bass in there, you’ve got a problem, man. We used one 12” speaker cabi- net for the bass. It was like a Vibrasonic. And one 8” speaker for the lead guitar. We had six horns, six violas, seven violins, seven cellos. We had the orchestra leader and everything. I want to do that again, now that I’m old enough to do it. I’d like to do it right.
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