Hartford, CT’s long-running soul and blues program, Greasy Tracks, hosted a very special four-hour broadcast honoring the late Gregg Allman yesterday on WRTC, based at Hartford, CT’s Trinity College. The radio program, hosted by Chris Cowles, has been broadcasting for more than 20 years, and has interviewed and paid tribute to countless music legends, including Gregg’s late brother, Duane Allman (hear the Greasy Tracks Duane Allman special here).
The Gregg Allman special goes in-depth on Allman’s Grammy-nominated posthumous final album, Southern Blood, including interviews with Allman’s guitarist/music director Scott Sharrard, percussionist and bandmate from Allman Brothers Band and Gregg Allman Band Marc Quiñones, veteran sax player Art Edmaiston (who joined Allman’s band in 2015), manager Michael Lehman, and Allman’s lifelong best friend Hewell “Chank” Middleton, as well as a variety of recordings of Allman from throughout the years,
As the special’s announcement explained about Southern Blood:
Of the 10 tracks on Southern Blood (Rounder Records) — regarded by many as his best-ever solo work — eight were covers painstakingly selected by Allman, manager/confidante Michael Lehman and producer Don Was. Allman and Lehman began the planning stages for the project in 2015 with a focus on defining Allman’s life, a pseudo-narrative, if you will, in music.
Despite his rapidly declining health, Allman and his crack touring band had time booked at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and over a nine-day span in March 2016, recorded the album. … While Allman had originally planned on recording additional originals for the release, his condition prevented that and there were days, according to some of the musicians on the sessions, that Allman was only able to work for four hours at a time. In some cases, the band would lay tracks down and Allman would later add vocals to the lineup of interesting covers penned by Bob Dylan (“Going, Going, Gone”), Tim Buckley(“Once I Was”), Willie Dixon (“I Love The Life I Lead”), Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter(“Black Muddy River”), Lowell George (“Willin’”), Jackson Browne (“Song For Adam”),Jackie Avery (“Blind Bats and Swamp Rats”) and the great partnership of Alabamans Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn (“Out Of Left Field”).
You can listen to the four-hour special below, courtesy of Greasy Tracks: