Finally, he was down to only two remaining songs, “My Cross to Bear” and “Dreams.” As fate would have it, both songs were met with raves, and the band sat down and worked up “Dreams” on the spot, a song that would re- main an audience favorite throughout their career.
They began intense rehearsals and
started writing. It wasn’t long before Gregg had come up with even more Allman staples, including “Whipping Post,” and after the band gifted him with a Hammond B-3 organ, “Black Hearted Woman” and “Every Hungry Woman.” Phil Walden was a busy man in 1970, heading up Capricorn Records, No Exit Publishing, Redwal Music, Phil Walden & Associates Management, Aura Publicity, and Public Re- lations, as well as being in a partnership with Tony Joe White's Swamp Fox Productions. Besides all of this, he was managing the ca- reers of several artists including Clarence Carter, Johnny Taylor, Percy Sledge and oth- ers. Of course, he was now also managing The Allman Brothers Band. The Brothers became
the flagship band of the new record label, and Walden and Fenter set about finding and signing other bands that pos- sessed that same energy and blend of musical stylings. They signed Mobile, Alabama r&b group Wet Willie; Spar- tanburg, South Carolina coun- try rockers The Marshall Tucker Band; and Cowboy, a Florida group that built their sound around vocal har- monies that pre-dated those of West Coast group The Eagles. Legendary studio engi-
neer Tom Dowd was recruited for some of the label's biggest albums and was later quoted as saying there were the "Five
M's" of the music industry: Miami, Manhat- tan, Muscle Shoals, Memphis and Macon. Macon was quickly rising up the list. The al- bums released during Capricorn's era that spanned the 1970s earned nine platinum album awards, 17 gold album awards, and five gold single awards. Although many groups contributed to the success, the first band mentioned in discussions about Capricorn would inevitably be The Allman Brothers Band.
“I arrived in Macon around the time
the Brothers were working on their first album,” Johnny Sandlin said in the book A Never-Ending Groove: Johnny Sandlin’s Mu- sical Odyssey. “It was being recorded in New York because the studio in Macon wasn’t quite ready.” The first Capricorn release was titled
The Allman Brothers Band, released on the Atco/Capricorn label in November 1969. •
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