The Allman Brothers are one of the seminal southern blues/rock bands and have had a past of ups and downs that involved loss and conflicts. Founding member Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971. Berry Oakley died in late 1972 from another motorcycle accident. Personality differences and drugs did the rest for a number of years. Gregg Allman was persona non grata for many years for testifying against a friend of the band because of federal drug charges against him.
They still work today with three original members and other musicians.
DREAMS is a four CD boxed set covering their career. All permutations of the band and some solo work. Unless otherwise attributed, all songs were released as by The Allman Brothers band
DISC 1:
Shape of things – The Allman Joys
Spoonful – The Allman Joys
Crossroads – The Allman Joys
Cast Off All My Fears – Hour Glass
Down In Texas – Hour Glass
Ain’t No Good To Cry – Hour Glass
BB King Medley – Hour Glass
Morning Dew – The 31st of February
God rest His Soul – The 31st of February
I Feel Free – The Second Coming
She Has Funny Cars – The Second Coming
Goin’ Down Slow – Duane Allman
Dreams
Don’t Want You No More
It’s Not My Cross To Bear
Trouble No More
Dreams
DISC 2
Statesboro Blues
Hoochie Coochie Man
Midnight rider
Dimples
I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts of Town
Revival
One More Ride
Whipping Post
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
Drunken Hearted Boy
DISC 3
You Don’t Love Me/Soul Serenade
Blue Sky
Little Martha
Melissa
Ain’t Wasting Time No More
Wasted Words
Ramblin’ Man
Southbound
Jessica
Midnight Rider – Gregg Allman
One Way Out
Long Time Gone – Dickie Betts
DISC 4
Don’t Lose What You Never Had
Come And Go Blues – The Gregg Allman Band
Bougainvillea – Dickie Betts & Great Southern
Can You Fool – Gregg Allman & Woman
Good Time Feeling – Dickie Betts & Great Southern
Crazy Love
Can’t Take It With You
Just Ain’t Easy
In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Angeline
Things You Used To Do
Nancy – Dickie Betts
Rain – Gregg Allman
I’m No Angel – The Gregg Allman Band
Demons – The Gregg Allan Band
Duane’s Tune – The Dickie Betts Band
It’s a fine set if one likes the band.
Here’s my two favorite numbers, perhaps the best known Brothers/Gregg Allman songs. At least for me.
The 1928 version of THE RACKET, a silent produced by a twenty-three year old Howard Hughes, was one of the nominees for best picture(though it was called Most Outstanding back then) at the very first Academy Awards ceremony. It lost out to Wings. The film was directed by Lewis Milestone who two years later directed All Quiet On The Western Front and was based on a play that opened on Broadway in 1927 ans closes shortly before the film came out. It starred Thomas Meighan as Captain McQuigg, an honest cop intent on bringing down a powerful bootlegger named Nick Scarsi(Louis Wolheim, who went on to appear in All Quiet On The Western front). But Scarsi owns every corrupt politician and judge in town.
Scarsi wants to move in on a rival bootlegger’s territory and is pushing his own candidate for the coming Mayoral election. Both the rival and McQuigg get word of the plans and at a party all attend for Scarsi’s son, who the father has kept away from the rackets, Scarsi shoots and kills the rival. Even though a gun is found in the rival’s handkerchief, that he was holding up toward Scalsi, MCqigg has him arrested and he’s out almost before the ink dries on the paperwork.
Tired of messing with MCQuigg, unable to scare him off, Scarsi uses his influence to get the cop transferred out into the sticks.
A blond nightclub singer named Helen Hayes(Marie Prevost) tries to move in on the son, Joe(George Stone), at his party and is warned off by Nick, calling her a gold digger. He doesn’t like women, always having trouble with them. Joe of course pays no attention and hooks up with Helen. They drive away and Joe clumsily tries to put some moves on Helen. She rejects him and gets out. A cop comes along, wanting to help the young woman and Joe drives hurriedly off, clipping a woman in the process, and gets arrested for hit and run.
McQuigg has his in to get at Scarsi.
A quick word about the son Joe. George Stone played him all wrong. Supposedly an innocent kept away from the bootlegging business, both Stone’s look and acting style made him seem like a sleazy little creep.
The rest of the film plays out with scheming politicians, Scarsi murdering the cop who arrested his son, and an ending unsatisfying to most involved. Except the politicians.
Howard Hughes went on to remake THE RACKET in 1951 with Robert Mitchum playing McQuigg and Robert Ryan playing tyhe bottlegger, Nick Scanlon this time. Need to find this one as it had a few other notables in significant roles. William Talman and Ray Collins are better known for their roles as Hamilton Burger andTragg of the Perry Mason series. Willian, Conrad also plays a cop.
A final note. Long thought lost, a print was found after Hughes’ death in his film collection. It’s the only original copy left. It was restored by University of Nevada, Las Vegas film department and first broadcast on Turner in 2004.
For the latest in overlooked films and related matters, as always, check in on Todd Mason on Tuesdays over at SWEET FREEDOM.
Another fine collection from the guys at Beat To A Pulp. David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker have gathered together a mix of old and new stories, crime, P.I., western, and even a science fiction piece. One thing they all have in common are interesting, well written tales that grab one’s attention.
Terrific writers here: Kieran Shea, Wayne D. Dundee, pulp writer Paul S. Powers, Jedidiah Ayres, Eric Beetner, Matthew C. Funk, Tom Roberts, Edward A. Grainger, BV Lawson, Jay Stringer, Jen Conley, Charles Boeckman(a story from the early fifties), and Robert J. Randisi.
Well known characters appearing in stories: Joe Hannibal(set while he still lived in Rockford, Illinois), Cash Laramie(an older Cash). and Nick Delvicchio.
Nice set of tales I read in two sittings over coffee. Love these early morning reads.
This one can be found HERE. For a short time, the first book in this series is offered free HERE. Do yourself a favor and pick up both.
I’m getting flooded with spam once again. This time it all seems to be dumpster rentals. Every time I turn on the computer, I’ll have from five to ten of them in the spam queue.
Despite the title, there is no Django in the movie. As was the fashion of the time, filmmakers rode the coattails of a popular feature. Sergio Corbucci’s DJANGO was the hot film and before it played out, there was a total of thirty, maybe more, unofficial “sequels” to the Franco Nero character. Instead, here the hero played by spaghetti veteran Anthony Steffen plays a bounty hunter named Reagen. Some versions replace the J with an I in the title sequence.
This film doesn’t hesitate to borrow from a number of genre films. Steffen constantly has his hat at an angle on his head identical to that worn by Nero in the original film and even a scene or two shot with him at that same head angle of the Django film poster. They even rip off Eastwood. Let’s see, poncho, riding in on a mule early in the film to get close to some gunmen he wanted. There is some nice framing on the scene with shots of two men arm wrestling, Reagen riding in on the mule in the arch formed by their arms, then the same angle between a man’s legs.
It’s a mash-up of different styles. The opening pure spaghetti western, the rest a more traditional western. The music by Carlo Savini gives the film a more serious tone at times. It does have plenty of violence and action though.
The plot here is Reagen has recovered the loot from a bank robbery by the Jim Norton(Frank Wolff) gang a few years before. The men he killed in that early scene were part of the gang. The story was that Norton had been killed in a gun fight some time before. The rest of the gang they wanted and to be sure that Norton was dead. It was known that Morton had a twin brother named Trevor(again, Wolff), an honest farmer up in Montana.
Reagen heads up to check it all out. He has to be careful as they don’t like bounty hunters In Montana and have been known to hang them. reagen also knows there’s near war up there between the ranchers and the farmers that are beginning to use barbed wire to close off their land.
Reagen enters the territory only to find a lawman dead, shot from his horse, one leg still caught in the saddle. He takes the badge and wears it as he enters town, with the intent to tell everyone about the dead lawman(but why confuse things by wearing the badge), he keeps getting cut off by the Mayor and local judge, assuming he’s the new law sent for after the last was murdered. He succumbs as he needs to stay quiet while he searches out Trevor Norton and tries to learn anything he might known about his brother.
The head of the ranchers is Amos Brandsbury(Alfonso Rojas), a charismatic man who is forcing the violence. Some of the ranchers want peace, there’s plenty of land, but he gets them to go along and plans to wipe out the farmers. He already knows Reagen is not the sheriff, he had the man killed and the pair who did the job swear they put a bullet in his head. He wants to see what sort of angle the new “Sheriff” is working.
Reagen gets some suspicion when he meets Trevor Norton. Though seemingly a meek, mild-mannered man, he has soft hands for a farmer. He’s already meet the man’s niece, Sally Norton(Gloria Osuna), daughter of the late outlaw recently arrived home from boarding school and rescued her from some hoorawing cowboys. An attraction is there between them.
The final showdown is pure spaghetti with a high body count, gunfire, and buildings burning.
The director is listed as Leon Kilmovsky, but conventional knowledge has that assistant director Enzo G. Castellari did the bulk, if not all the direction. He went on to direct eleven others in the spaghetti genre.
Geffen is effective to a degree here. Not the greatest actor of the time, he did better playing the lone. stoic, man of few words hero.
Not bad though.
Here’s the trailer, not in English, but the fun viloence and action plays the same in any language:
Gabriel Du Pre, the Metis part time lawman is back in this second book in the series, along with his colorful cast of characters. Madeline, his lady, his two daughters, Jacquleine and Maria, his rich recovering friend, Bart, and old Benetsee, the hard drinking old Metis Prophet who sees things before they happen. I posted on the first book HERE.
In this one, a serial killer is at work in the D.C. area and Du Pre is in town at the invitation of a representative from the Smithsonian, Paul Chase, to play at a festival for nearly forgotten music from all over the country.
He’s playing his fiddle on stage when screams interrupt and he spots a scared horse bolting in the crowds and rushes to talk it down, in his calm coyote French. It belongs to a young Cree woman, one of the singers from Canada, and she’s found stabbed with a stone knife, the tip broke off in her wounds.
The second woman is choked with a cord made of seal skin. Also of Indian blood. The third victim, another Indian woman, is killed with a war club.
Du Pre returns home to Montana, agreeing to record some of his songs for Chase for preservation in the Smithsonian.
Then Chase calls again, inviting him on a canoe trip along the old trade routes in Canada, Not wanting to go, he finally agrees when old Bentesee urges him to go. It doesn’t take long for him to realize Chase is nothing more than a rich glory hog. The whites on the trip keep to themselves, not speaking to the Indian members and barely speaking to Du Pre and the guides. They bail after three days, then Chase suddenly shows up at the end when the newspapers are there for interviews.
Over the next months, the murders continue. Two small girls, stabbed, aman stabbed. Du Pre, who hates flying, makes several more trips to D.C., talking with police. Chase has involved him when it comes out he was dating the first victim, he claiming it was Du Pre, who doesn’t even know what the woman looked like.
Benetsee seems to be encouraging him to find the killer. You will know him when you see him. It’s already become apparent to Du Pre that he’s met the killer at some point. Chase? He doesn’t seem to have the smarts for such. Still. Another at that first festival likely.
Gabriel Du Pre is one of the most original characters I’ve read in a long time. I’ve read two now and look forward to more. While these books contain a mystery, they are more character studies of a people, the Metis, and one gleans a lot of information about them in these pages.
For more forgotten books, Patti Abbott is back gathering this week. Check out her blog, on Fridays, HERE.
