The Allman Brothers story is a story of the South. And that is also my story.

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

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]

"Please don't confront me with my failures. I'm aware of them" Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul

The livestream failed miserably. John & I recorded the conversation anyway. Episode overview John Lynskey returned to the Crossroads to talk through Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul. The movie documents well by Gregg’s duality as a singer of a jam band who hated long guitar solos, his late-career rebirth in sobriety, his long career fronting the Allman Brothers Band, and Jimmy Carter’s friendship. The conversation Gregg’s catalog. John walked through the duality at the center of Gregg Allman’s career—lead singer of the greatest jam band of all time who hated guitar solos, a shy man hated to be alone who got married seven times. We traced his writing from “Dreams” and “Whipping Post” through “Just Ain’t Easy” and “Demons,” lauding Southern Blood as a career closer John compares to the Beatles ending on Abbey Road. The Hammond, underrated. John makes the case that Gregg’s organ playing gets overlooked the way David Crosby’s vocal gets overlooked in CSN—everything rests on it, and nobody notices until it’s gone. Jaimoe and the brotherhood. Duane heard something in Jaimoe nobody else heard. John’s point: Jaimoe could have been any color and it wouldn’t have mattered, because the only thing that mattered was the music. We talked about how that ideal gets flattened by cynicism over time, and how the documentary resists that flattening. Michael Lehman’s late-career rescue. We each credit manager Michael Lehman with giving Gregg the stability—professional, financial, personal—that he never had earlier in his career. Lehman helped Greggg release several solo records, produced the amazing All My Friends tribute at the Fox, the Dan Rather interview, and the memoir that had been stalled for years. “Queen of Hearts” becomes “Desdemona.” When he presented “Queen of Hearts” to the band for the Brothers & Sisters sessions, Butch Trucks told Gregg the song “just doesn’t sound like us.” It pissed Gregg off who made it a centerpiece of Laid Back instead. Without that rejection, John argues, “Desdemona” never lands on Hittin’ the Note. The eighties solo years. John’s favorite Gregg period: small crowds, no money, the Toler brothers in the band, Gregg singing the blues against an unforgiving musical of Flock of Seagulls and Depeche Mode because he had to play, not because anyone was paying him to. Berry Oakley’s death and the leadership vacuum. Oakley was the logical successor after Duane died. He couldn’t do it. Gregg wasn’t suited to it either. Dickey became the band’s leader by default, in John’s telling.. Jimmy Carter. The friendship between Carter and the band survived the Scooter Herring trial because, as John puts it, Carter never stopped being Gregg’s friend even when it cost him politically. We discussed whether the federal sting was aimed at Carter’s candidacy—a theory both Butch Trucks and Dickey Betts independently floated to John. 🍄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] Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. 🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty 🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 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 Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, 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 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]

The 1993 return of "Mountain Jam"

I had no idea what I was walking into when I saw the Allman Brothers Band for the first time, November 13, 1993. I walked in expecting moldy oldies; I left with my mind blown. My life has truly never been the same. I caught the second of a three-show run through Florida. I had no idea Dickey had just returned from a leave of absence. The band was fierce, powerful. Dickey was simply outstanding. Warren and Woody blew me away. I was ecstatic. The setlist featured only songs from the original band and songs from the Warren & Woody era. Several—“All Night Train” “Temptation Is a Gun” “Change My Way of Living” “Back Where It All Begins”—had been recorded for Where It All Begins but were yet to be released. The show ended in reverse order of the Fillmore East recordings, “Mountain Jam” and “Whipping Post.” Recall that “Mountain Jam” is holy to me. [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/p/mountain-jam1] What I didn’t know was it was only the band’s second full “Mountain Jam” in nearly 20 years. (The first was the night before in Gainesville.) I’d hoped to hear “Mountain Jam” that night, not realizing had I caught any other show from 1989 to May 2000 I had no idea the band wouldn’t keep playing a song THAT good every chance they could. (Little did I know…) A staple of the original band’s sets since Jacksonville in March 1969, “Mountain Jam” stayed in the repertoire on the 1972 5-man band tour. The band played it throughout 1973. There are notable versions with the Grateful Dead, including at Watkins Glen in July and New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. But “Les Brers in A Minor” and “Jessica” were more common as a show’s extended romps. Then, with the exception of a few times in 1979 and tease in “Jessica” that began in the Warren & Woody era, “Mountain Jam” fell out of the lineup for good. Why? “Dickey flat-out refused to play it,” says John Lynskey, Resident Historian of the Big House Museum in a clip from our recent [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/p/crossroads-lynskey2]Conversation from the Crossroads [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/p/crossroads-lynskey2]. Dickey agreed to do so in November 1993 as a concession to his bandmates, to see if they still had the magic. They did. I heard it with my own ear. Here’s my full conversation with John where we talk about this and much more The Summer of Mountain Jam “Mountain Jam” returned to the setlist for good in summer 2000 following the band’s bitter divorce with Dickey Betts. Jimmy Herring subbed for Dickey that summer and the music he and Derek Trucks made together was truly sublime. Here’s one example, from the archives of my dear friend, the late Jules Fothergill: Derek Trucks- There were two or three nights where we really just let go. Right before the drum solo in “Mountain Jam” we detuned and went all the way out. Sometimes Oteil would go with us and sometimes he wouldn’t. There was one night though, I believe at the PNC Arts Center, when all three of us went and there was just no hope of coming back. It was funny because I think Gregg said something about it on the bus and then came back about twenty minutes later and said to me, “Don’t worry, me and my brother we used to have fights about that all the time. He loved going out. But you guys do whatever you want to do.” It was funny. It was worth it. 🍄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] Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. 🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty 🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Chris Harvey, 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 Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, 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 LLtABB swag 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]

Spend money on experiences, not things

Greetings from Stockholm. We’re visiting our daughter Tyler, who’s here for a study abroad. While touring Scandinavia, this adage/wisdom from my cousin Brad came to mind. Here’s the full conversation: Thanks for reading, y’all. Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. MUSHROOM MAGICIANS (Founding Members): Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty PAID MEMBERS: Chris Harvey, 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 Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, 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 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]

Greetings from Earth School

The Unending Conversation The first time I encountered Kenneth Burke’s concept of the Unending Conversation was in 1997. It was my first semester of graduate school in a class called, Modern Rhetorical Theory. I’ve carried the ideal that life is an unending conversation ever since. It’s a central precept of my teaching, my writing, my way of seeing the world. The good thing is, I’m surrounded by people who do likewise. Earth School This video is from an upcoming episode of Conversation from the Crossroads with Richard M Josey [https://substack.com/profile/134691672-richard-m-josey], my pal and fellow maker of good trouble. He hipped me to his term, Earth School—the idea that a life well-lived means continuing to learn, to grow. People get it instantly when I use the term Earth School. It’s not something I have to explain. I offer it to you as a way to think about the kind of ancestor you want to be. Music is the ultimate unending conversation This is very much true for the Allman Brothers and extended family of bands/musicians. The core of this publication is in my subhead: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture. Long Live the ABB is the lens I use to explore those ideas. Here’s one example of that in action, my comments on a Karl Paulnack’s truly magical “2003 Address to the Parents of the Freshman Class”—Why Music Matters: The Unending Conversation [https://www.longlivetheabb.com/p/why-music-matters]. 🍄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] This episode brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. 🍄 MUSHROOM🍄 MAGICIANS 🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty 🍑 PEACH🍑 PALS🍑 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 Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, 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 Thanks for joining me on the journey. Until next time… 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]