"What kind of ancestor will you be?" Earth School, belonging, and why history liberates

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Episode Overview Richard Josey and I have been in conversation for close to twenty years. He began his history career at Colonial Williamsburg as a pre-teen, portraying free and enslaved Africans well before we openly discussed the impact of interpretation of the enslaved experience on the interpreters themselves. Richard built Collective Journeys as a practice for helping institutions move from transactional to relational. He coined my current favorite phrase Earth School and built his business around the question, What kind of ancestor will you be? Richard holds his ideals and values without preaching them—until a moment in the conversation when the full weight of what he has built lands without warning. Our Crossroads Richard and I have a lot of shared experience. We’re historians, southerners, history museum professionals, girldads, and Gen Xers who came up in the museum field at a moment when community truly came to the fore. We have had rough starts and gotten tighter because of them. History is our common language; intentionality our shared practice. I wrote Play All Night during one of the hardest stretches of my life. Richard’s concept of the good ancestor was alive in me during that writing, even before I had the language for it. You cannot spend two years inside Duane Allman’s story without asking what kind of ancestor you intend to be. The Conversation We started with Outkast and the Dirty South—what that sound meant to a generation of Black Southerners who heard themselves in hip-hop for the first time. For Richard, it carried the sounds of the 70s—Bootsy, Parliament-Funkadelic, and the jams his mother played around the house. And of course, there are parallels to the Allman Brothers’ influence in the South in their own era. We talked about Earth School—Richard’s concept that life is always in session, that the lessons do not stop, and that resistance only means you learn them harder later. He came to his ADHD diagnosis at fifty. He came to therapy late. Earth School is the framework he built for people ready to understand why they put the coat on. The question underneath all of it came from Elder Dave Lewis of the Dakota Nation, “What kind of ancestor will you be?” Richard heard it at a conference and felt everything shift. He put it on a three-by-five card by his bed. It became T-shirts, mugs, canvas bags, a book chapter, a reorientation of his entire practice. Intentionality is a big part of the Earth School toolkit, as is community, which Richard describes as something fluid, relational, internal. “You and I don’t talk every day,” he told me, “but you’re still core to my community.” Community doesn’t require constant presence. It requires showing up with intention when the moment comes. We closed on belonging—why Richard moved away from DEI language not because he abandoned what it stands for but because he watched it get weaponized. Belonging is the end game. Inclusion is the mechanism. Representation matters and is also insufficient without intentionality. History is liberation. This episode brought to you by the paid members of LLtABB. Upgrade now and support the Conversation from the Crossroads. 🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505]🍄 BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505] Resources * Bob Beatty, Play All Night: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East—https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505 [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505]. * Richard Josey, Collective Journeys https://collectivejourneys.org [https://collectivejourneys.org] * Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, https://anacostia.si.edu [https://anacostia.si.edu/]. * Drive-By Truckers, [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0eIXb5QX_DZyu8yoI6p6v8QvJRUbQJTI&si=J4KE4UoFr66k9-QB]Dirty South [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0eIXb5QX_DZyu8yoI6p6v8QvJRUbQJTI&si=J4KE4UoFr66k9-QB](2004). * John H. Falk, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2009). * Randi Korn, Intentional Practice for Museums (2018). * Outkast, “Jazzy Belle,” [https://youtu.be/8p8CWpoOOdE?si=sHHr4ODDTukls1Dv] ATLiens (1996). * Susie Wilkening and James Chung, Life Stages of the Museum Visitor (2009). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

"All music is soul music" Lamar Williams Jr. on recording and touring with Oteil and life within the Allman Brothers family

Episode Overview Lamar Williams Jr. is the son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, and he’s spent two decades building his own place inside the Allman Brothers’ extended musical family. I talked with him about The Offering, the long-gestating album with Oteil Burbridge recorded in Iceland, and about the lineage that carried him from Macon’s church choirs to Butch’s Les Brers, the Big Band of Brothers, and touring/recording with New Mastersounds, North Mississippi Allstars, and the Allman Betts Revival. Our Crossroads We are Lamar lost his father young and our shared experience of grief and carrying someone’s memory forward came up directly in our talk. I’ve seen Lamar live multiple times in a variety of settings. He’s one of my favorite singers of the Allman Brothers canon, perhaps my favorite. When you listen to the conversation, you’ll hear why. Lamar is not only a fantastic vocalist, he’s a student of the craft. His voice is his instrument. Overlooked is his how much love he puts out into the world as a lyricist and singer. I certainly gravitate to that presence. The Conversation The Offering. Lamar’s latest project began a decade ago when Allman Brothers’ bassist Oteil Burbridge picked up a banjo at home while his wife spent a year in Africa working with gorillas—just exercises to keep himself busy and learn the instrument. Williams heard them in Burbridge’s basement studio, told him “I hear something all over it,” and took the instrumentals to his writing partner, the late Victor Clark. After the ABB closed up shop, Dead & Co. pulled Burbridge away for a decade. Lamar, Oteil, and friends finished it in Iceland, near Akureyri, the same coast where Williams had already recorded twice with the New Mastersounds. Singing onstage with the Allman Brothers Band. This is a great story. Riding to the Beacon Theatre with Gregg Allman and godfather Chank Middleton, Allman quizzed Williams on songwriting and planted the idea that he needed a writing partner. Hours later, Chank pointed him out to Gregg before the ABB’s set that night; Allman’s only response was, “Come see me at halftime.” Lamar tells the full story. Lamar Williams Sr. Jaimoe and Lamar’s pops grew up together on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. They essentially learned to play music together. Lamar was the obvious choice when Berry Oakley died in 1972, when Butch Trucks cut the audition short and announced something to the effect of “As far as I’m concerned, this decision is made. We’ve found our bass player.” Williams Sr. died in 1983 of lung cancer linked to exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. His son shares a very specific memory of him—walking on his back while he watched sci-fi on the floor after returning from tour. Lamar Jr.’s favorite moment from his pops? His father’s upright bass on “Ponyboy.” Upgrade to a paid membership for previews of Conversation from the Crossroads episodes. Les Brers, Big Band of Brothers, Trouble No More, Allman Betts Revival. Butch Trucks built a band around Williams on impulse after a Roots Rock Revival gig: “We’re going to start a band now, and I want you to be in it.” That became Les Brers, with the ABB rhythm section of Butch, Jaimoe, and Marc plus Jack Pearson alongside Burbridge—Williams’ formal entry into the Allman Brothers family. He later toured with Big Band of Brothers, the jazz ensemble reworking the catalog with Jaimoe on drums, and says his approach to singing it comes from refusing to imitate—reverting to the church tradition he grew up in instead. The New Mastersounds and North Mississippi Allstars. Williams joined the New Mastersounds after sitting in at a Peter Levin benefit show in Denver. He became their first vocalist in eighteen years. Years later, Luther Dickinson watched Williams cover an ailing Charlie Starr on “Come and Go Blues” at an Allman Betts Family Revival show, and the two went on to record North Mississippi Allstars’ Set Sail. It earned a Grammy nomination. His father’s words. In a 1974 Downbeat interview, Williams Sr. called the Allman Brothers Band “a religion”—six musicians lifting each other into something that resists categorization. Williams points to The Offering’s closing track, his version of Earl King’s “Time for the Sun to Rise,” first played for him by Luther Dickinson, as the record’s clearest expression of that same patience. We talk specifically about this version of the song with Luther Dickinson. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0krZBOfjNs] And here’s Lamar Sr.’s full quote about the Allman Brothers, Macon, the South, and music: Lamar Williams grew up with Jaimoe Johanny Johanson in Port Gulf, Louisiana (Gulfport, Mississippi). It was through Jaimoe’s recommendation and a subsequent audition that Williams entered the band. I asked him if he was accepted into the band immediately. “It was a thing of adjusting to their particular style of music. I feel that musicians are able to . . . if you have to play country and western, then you’re going to play country and western; if you’re going to play jazz, you’ll adjust to that. Now, you take cats who are not real musicians, then they’re hung up in one particular bag, a lot of other things they’re not hip to.” Do you have any idea what the term “southern blues” means? Well, I can relate to “down home,” you know. Musicians who come up in the South, musicians who come up on the West Coast, the East Coast, anywhere. That environment affects their heads. In most cities you have a whole bunch of other static going on. Down South, living in a small town, Macon, you have a lot of time to put into it. You have a lot of time to check out other stuff, to check out a lot of stuff in your head. The whole South is laid back, that’s where atmosphere comes from. I’ve met cats who come down from New Jersey and New York to try to get some of that southern thing to rub off on them. What is the special quality that the Allman Brothers Band has that makes them so popular? To me it’s a religion. For instance, I can feel just blah, but when I get on that stage, there’ll be so much energy flowing from the other five cats that they just lift me in a real strong spiritual way, till I don’t know how tired I am. It becomes a real strong spiritual thing to get to the point where the six cats on that stage, their job is to produce a sound, the Allman sound. But I don’t think it can be put in any particular category. We play the first and second numbers, all that time we’re feelin’ each other out, where everybody’s head is. As it goes up, everybody gets into a thing with each other. I can feel incredible vibes on that stage. Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505]🍄 Resources Lamar Williams Jr. * www.lamarwilliamsjr.com [https://www.lamarwilliamsjr.com/] * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lamarwilliamsjr/ [https://www.instagram.com/lamarwilliamsjr/] North Mississippi Allstars, Set Sail (2022) Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr., The Offering (2026) The New Mastersounds, Shake It (2019); The Deplar Effect (2022) Playlist Here’s a sample of some of my favorite Lamar Williams Jr. cuts. The Youtube playlist is the most complete as two of these tracks are only available there. An additional two are missing from Spotify altogether. Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ynZBaHQYICG9fVb9N1Kmq?si=S8pkh0f_Rf265WHTmI5Ykg&pi=p_N0SSOXSU6Rj] Tidal [https://tidal.com/playlist/ce710422-39b4-412f-a06e-2253fbf00e2d] Youtube [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRfqHNDF7ziM&si=vj6ikFlJGoW5H5vM] * “Trouble No More (live)” - Allman Betts Revival & Slash (Youtube only) * “Love and War (Live from Mexico)” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Country Road” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Set Sail, Part I” - North Mississippi Allstars & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Cold as Ice” - Lamar Williams Jr. * “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ (live)” - Big Band of Brothers w/ Jaimoe(!!!) & a sit-in from Oteil Burbridge (Youtube only) * “Authentic” - North Mississippi Allstars & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Peace and Understanding” - Peter Levin, Lamar Williams Jr., Eric Krasno & Marc Quiñones * “Love They Deserve” - The New Mastersounds & Lamar Williams Jr. * “I Can Hear My Train Calling” - Joshua C.S. & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Everyone & Everything” - Eddie Roberts, George Porter Jr. & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Let Me in from the Cold” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Meet You in the Sunshine” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Days of Summer” - Lamar Williams Jr. * “Gonna Get in My Way” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Shake It” - The New Mastersounds & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Time for the Sun to Rise” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr. * “Time for the Sun to Rise” - Lamar Williams Jr. & Luther Dickinson Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. 🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall 🍑PEACH🍑PALS🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa LLtABB swag [http://merch.longlivetheabb.com/] This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

9. Juli 20261 h 18 min

"I wasn't famous. I wasn't almost famous. But I was there." Chris O'Dell on working with the rock & roll trinity: the Beatles, the Stones, and Dylan

On Global Beatles Day (June 25, 2026), I’m ABBsolutely thrilled to bring you this episode with Chris O’Dell, who was on the rooftop the day of the Beatles’ last performance. It’s far from her only incredible encounter with rock & roll. Though podcast episodes are typically pre-released for paid members of Long Live the ABB, putting this behind a paywall was inappropriate on Global Beatles Day. Thank you to paid members of the community for making this work possible. Episode Overview Chris O’Dell answered phones at Apple Corps in 1968, added handclaps on “Revolution 9,” sat mere feet from the Fabs on the Savile Row rooftop, and lived at Friar Park with George Harrison and Pattie Boyd. She toured with the Rolling Stones, ran the Rolling Thunder Revue for Bob Dylan, and got sober raising a son in the middle of all of it. Leon Russell wrote two songs for her and George Harrison wrote one. Throughout her stories, Chris is both thoughtful and humble about her role as a “collector of experiences” in rock’s halcyon days. Our Crossroads We meet at the Beatles, the most significant group of their era not only because of their music, but because of their influence. The Beatles were Mom’s favorite band. I discovered them through her record collection. They were my first favorite band and have remained in my listening repertoire nearly all of my 55 years. Chris fled Tucson for Los Angeles and joined the rock & roll circus. Chris was very much aware of Duane’s role on Layla, and unaware of Wilson Pickett’s “Hey Jude” with Duane. We also share more than music: my own family’s history with addiction and recovery mirrors the years Chris spent learning to understand the disease, getting sober, and becoming a therapist herself. These crossroads run from Tulsa to Tucson, L.A. to London, Muscle Shoals to Macon, and everything in between. This was a truly delightful Conversation from the Crossroads. The Conversation The Beatles. Chris necessarily didn’t set out to work for the Beatles. She went to London at the invitation of Derek Taylor, a Beatles’ insider who served as their publicist. Soon after arriving in London, she added handclaps on “Revolution #9,” was there when John and Yoko made their first public appearance as a couple, and earned a job with Apple. She was one of only three non-Beatles/crew/film crew on the rooftop at Apple on January 30, 1969, the Beatles’ last-ever performance. She remembers the cold more than anything: January wind, no shelter, watching the street below as Londoners realized what they were hearing. Songs. Chris calls songs “gifts,” and she would know, having had three written for her. The first two were by Leon Russell, “Pisces Apple Lady” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgaxpkY80qQ] and “Hummingbird,” [https://youtu.be/rokNTY_qLC4?si=mdXhA3V8MCs2mFjp] a relationship she discusses here. The third, George Harrison’s “Miss O’Dell” [https://youtu.be/K1Xb6HtWwes?si=mxzpHpTLm7TtRCee] was the flipside to his #1 hit “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth).” Pattie Boyd and George Harrison. Pattie Boyd set the terms of their friendship early, “You can be my friend, or you can sleep with George, but not both.” They have remained friends ever since, including the period when Eric Clapton used Chris as cover to spend time with Pattie. Chris ended up finding the London flat where Eric and the Dominos stayed after returning from Miami recording Layla. Jim Gordon. O’Dell had a brief affair with drummer Jim Gordon. She was unaware the drummer had attacked Rita Coolidge on the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, only learning of it after Gordon chased her around a London flat with a knife. Had Robert Stigwood not happened to arrive unannounced, Chris feels certain he would have killed her. Gordon was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent decades in a psychiatric prison after brutally killing his mother. She feels empathy for Gordon, noting his genuine kindness, but not overlooking the underlying danger nobody had the language for yet. Women in rock & roll. Chris built space for women in rock & roll beyond the traditional role of muse. By her own count, she worked with more bands than any of the male road managers of her era. Chris is blunt about her experience as a woman in the music business working on two continents. The British end of the business treated her well. The American side was rougher. She never once had a problem with a musician. The friction always came from production crews and/or management: a gauntlet of misogynistic executives, managers, and agents. Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time [https://www.missodell.com/podcast/]. Chris has been telling her story for years. In 2009, she published Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved. A documentary, Miss O’Dell: From Backstage to the Frontlines of Rock History, appeared in 2025. And in 2026 she launched a podcast in conjunction with the Church Studio in Tulsa called Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time. Her guests have included Pattie Boyd, Leon Russell biographer Bill Janovitz, photographer Henry Diltz, Beatles’ hairstylist Leslie Cavendish, among others. 🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505]🍄BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505] Resources Chris O’Dell * BOOK: Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved [https://www.amazon.com/Miss-ODell-Nights-Beatles-Clapton/dp/1416590943] (2009). * DOCUMENTARY: Miss O’Dell: From Backstage to the Frontlines of Rock History [https://www.missodell.com/documentary/] https://www.missodell.com/documentary/(2025) * PODCAST: Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time [https://www.missodell.com/podcast/] Paid members of the Long Live the ABB community get early access to Conversation from the Crossroads episodes and playlists. Playlist Here’s a Youtube playlist of music Chris O’Dell is associated with. [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPlOl6RoMwz4&si=EuIkerRxc9q_U_pG] “Hummingbird” - Leon Russell “Pisces Apple Lady” - Leon Russell “Miss O’Dell” - George Harrison “Layla” - Derek & the Dominos “Something” - The Beatles “Hey Jude” - The Beatles “Hey Jude” - Wilson Pickett Rooftop Concert - The Beatles (live 1969) “Hummingbird” - B.B. King “One More Cup of Coffee” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975) “Tangled Up in Blue” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975) “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975) “Tumbling Dice” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972) “Sweet Virginia” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972) “Dead Flowers” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972) Brought to you by: 🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty 🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Kevin Harper, John Delaney, Terri, Mike Clark, Brent Pruner, Irishbeatz, Allen Barnes, Baileys Mike, sswoger, Bob Johnson, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Caroline Doolittle, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Jcsarphie, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Bob and Laura, Gary Smith, Wiszowa, Cwktwo, Hlnbkt, Cabinetsales, Art Dobie, Stanleyglennie8, Danbookin, charlie2541 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

25. Juni 20261 h 25 min

"What kind of ancestor will you be?" Earth School, belonging, and why history liberates

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