Spend money on experiences, not things

"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]

"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]