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know down here. How can you ask me “Dock of the Bay” which hangs on Phil with themselves. When a B. B. King
to support a man who s publicly stated Walden ' s wall. It was his first. medley they’d recorded out of pure
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he doesn ' t like my kind?” Later, he • * frustration (at their own expense in
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adds a well-placed jibe: “McGovern? Zelma Redding lives on the 130 acre Muscle Shoals) was rejected by their
Hell, if I answered every call from his farm outside Macon her husband record company, they kissed Hollywood
people, I’d be on the phone with them purchased shortly before his death. The goodbye and headed home.
all day long. Why, just last week, George house is still cluttered with musical While recording in Muscle Shoals, the
said to me, ‘Phil, I’m gonna take all instruments; Otis Jr. does a pretty fair guitar player of the Hourglass had
your money and redistribute it. And I job of keeping up on guitar and drums. drawn the attention of session
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said, ‘Sure, George, you can take it all. Somewhere in the jumble sits a scratchy man- producer Rick Hall, who thought
Just leave me enough to get high every dub of “Just Like A Woman ” which enough of him to put him on a Wilson
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once in a while, or drunk sometimes, Bob Dylan submitted to Otis in 1966 Pickett session. He may have looked
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and I’ ll be happy.’” for consideration. (When the two met in strange to the conservative eye walrus
If Phil Walden was seen as the
archetype of the Southern •man - LA., Dylan confided in hushed tones moustache, flowing red hair and
left-over Hollywood pop-star clothes
that he had attempted to sing like Otis
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which, in a jet age way he is - many less on that tune.) but when Duane Allman picked up a
pleasing stereotypes might never have “I’m not going any place, " Zelma guitar, nobody was inclined to
come to be. Barely thirty, he retains just stated warmly but firmly.”1 going to be complain.
enough boyish charm and enthusiasm to right here. I can leave for two or three ••*
offset the hard calculation that is a days, but then I ' m ready to come back “Duane Allman actually gave the
natural part of his job. Walden seems home. Everybody here is like, you song ‘Hey Jude’ to Wilson Pickett,”
most at home with a smile on his face, know, one family. Otis was born in remembers Phil Walden with a smile.
and prefers to dress casually - usually Dawson, Georgia, but he grew up here. “He brought it in and played it and
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in jeans and some kind of print shirt. He He never thought of leaving Macon. Wilson started singing ' hey jew and
seldom wears suits of any kind. Everybody said,“Well,Otis is getting big, then said ‘I don’t think Jerry Wexlcr’s
Long before Capricorn Records was he 's not gonna stay in that small town.’ gonna like me singing that; running
even a tentative idea, Phil Walden was But he loved this farm and he loved down his religion. ‘No, no,’ we told
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getting an education in rock and roll. Macon; this is where he wanted to be. " him, ‘it’s ‘hey, Jude * the name of a
He d crossed over the tracks many times And then her face lights up as she person, a name of a man. * ‘Shit,’ said
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to catch a glimpse of some “real music” remembers: “We had an all- night Wilson, 1 ain’t singing no fag songs ... *
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the frenzied R&B of which Little barbecue out at the farm in 1967. A He sang it though, and that single
Richard was only an advance warning. convention was being held in Atlanta, established Duane as a session guitarist. **
On one such night, he happened across and we invited all the disc jockeys. •••
Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers and There were six Greyhound busloads and When the smoke cleared, Duane
was knocked out by the power and all the cars we could fit on the property. Allman had become Atlantic ’s most
finesse of their lead singer. The singer We had a bar set up, and to feed distinctive session guitarist, compiling
was Otis Redding, and this is really everybody we killed 5 hogs, 2 cows credits that probably would have
where the Phil Walden story begins. and... we just had everything . We even qualified him to play on God ’ s next
Much to the dismay of the white had a show - we had Sam and Dave, single. Walden took over his manage-
populace of Macon, Walden became Otis ' Arthur Conley, all of the artists were ment when the urge to put together
manager and set about breaking him there. Why, everybody came! It was another band couldn’t be ignored.
into a market which felt safer with beautiful • •• They took it slowly. An early group
watered-down substitutes. In the * * * (with Paul Hornsby and John Sandlin of
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standard tradition of one night at-a time The walls of Phil Walden ' s office arc Hourglass, and Berry Oakley) featuring
barnstorm tours (a formula to which proof enough that he has never been Duane as guitarist and singer didn’t
Walden has adhered in breaking all his one to put all his eggs in one basket. work out, but when he returned to
acts since) Otis quickly commandeered While he was building Otis, he was Macon some months later with a new
the R&B charts. What remained was the developing other artists as well. There band, the situation had improved
white market, an area whose barriers seems to be a gold record everywhere drastically.
had steadfastly protected the young and you look - “Soul Man " by Sam and This new band, which had come
innocent from anything as earthy as Dave, '“ When A Man Loves A Woman " together in Florida, was a six man unit:
Otis Redding. by Percy Sledge and Arthur Conley’s Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson
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Walden approached the problem by “Sweet Soul Music " (written and on drums, bassist Berry Oakley, brother
entrenching Otis in Europe, perhaps produced by Otis) everywhere you Gregg Allman on keyboards and vocals,
hoping that the phenomenon might be look. The loss of Otis was felt deeply on and Duane and Dicky Betts on guitars.
more readily accepted if it came by way all levels, but it merely closed one In reaction to the image consciousness
of a foreign port. Europe received Otis chapter in Phil Walden ’ s book and which had caged the Hourglass, the
with a passion which bordered on ushered in another. Allman Brothers Band (as they were
mania; Live in Europe remains the » # • called) dealt in what can best be
definitive document of R&B excite- At approximately the same time as described as pure music. They took
ment. Appearances hack home at the Otis’ death, another kind of death was their blues and country , roots and
Whiskey A Go Go and Monterey Pop taking place on the West Coast. There, a expanded upon them to produce a new
introduced the man to the emerging group of five young Southern musicians synthesis. Their music had the earthy
youth culture, and they welcomed him called the Hourglass were being appeal of those forms, but the band ’s
with open arms and no reservations. strangled by the music business in ways orientation was toward complex but
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A plane crash in 1968 resigned Gtis they weren t even aware of. Dressed up well-defined jams.
Redding to history before he d even in somebody else’s idea of what a Months of woodshedding produced a
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begun to make his contribution. He groovy rock and roll band should be, tight and powerful first album, which
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never even saw the gold record for they weren t making it on the charts or sold only moderately well. Following
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