Skydog – The Shoals Experience

On August 28 through the 30th, “Skydog – The Shoals Experience,” a three-day festival, will be held at The Renaissance Shoals and The Shoals Convention Center in Florence, Alabama. The festival is named for Duane Allman. Wilson Pickett started calling Duane “Skyman” at first, which later became “Skydog,” because of how Allman played slide guitar, making bird sounds.

It was Allman who talked Pickett into covering The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. Pickett also recorded “Mustang Sally,” “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Funky Broadway,” and others, produced by Rick Hall. Those tracks featured the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section—Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Johnson, Tommy Cogbill, Junior Lowe, Roger Hawkins, and The Muscle Shoals Horns.

Allman did some great work in Muscle Shoals during his time there, and The Allman Brothers really came together in Muscle Shoals and in Decatur, AL, where legendary ABB producer Johnny Sandlin was from. The band The Hourglass consisted of Sandlin, Duane and Gregg Allman, Pete Carr, and Paul Hornsby. All of the members of that band went on to become legends.

Carr later became lead guitarist at Muscle Shoals Sound, playing on Paul Simon’s “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon,” and he also played the iconic guitar solo on Bob Seger’s “Mainstreet.” Sandlin produced several Allman Brothers albums, including Live At The Fillmore East, Brothers and Sisters, Eat A Peach, and 1975’s Win, Lose or Draw. He also produced Gregg Allman’s fabulous solo album Laid Back, which featured a more bluesy version of “Midnight Rider” with Chuck Leavell on keys and a horn section.

Hornsby produced many artists for Capricorn Records, such as The Charlie Daniels Band and the Marshall Tucker Band, and Hornsby played the beautiful piano solo on the album version of MTB’s “Heard It In A Love Song.”

The lineup of artists for Skydog – The Shoals Experience is unbelievable: Jackson Dean, Wet Willie featuring Jimmy Hall, Maggie Rose, Spooner Oldham, musical director Scott Sharrard of Little Feat, who also played guitar with Gregg Allman—Gregg recorded his last studio album, Southern Blood, at FAME Studios with Don Was producing—Mike Farris, Gary Nichols, who won a Grammy for his work with The SteelDrivers—Nichols replaced Chris Stapleton in that band—The FAME Gang, and The Secret Sisters.

The lineup also features Bay Simpson and The Family, which features Bay’s half-brother Dylan LeBlanc, a wonderful recording artist; stepfather James LeBlanc; and his mother, Angela Hacker. They have some great new music out that reminds me a lot of Fleetwood Mac. Bonneville, Retrograde, and the next big thing, Lamont Landers, are also on the bill.

Lamont was featured on “Live At The Apollo with Steve Harvey” and last week made his Grand Ole Opry debut with Vince Gill. Lamont sings like Otis Redding, Sam Moore, and other R&B legends. He is also reminiscent of Bobby Caldwell, the great R&B/soul singer whose big hit was “What You Won’t Do for Love.” His label, TK Records, deliberately hid his face on his debut album, fearing that Black radio stations would refuse to play his music if they knew he was white.

I have always been fascinated by Duane Allman. He famously pitched a tent outside FAME Studios in 1968, trying to get in as a session guitarist. He did some great work with Arthur Conley, Clarence Carter, and King Curtis. Duane also played on Aretha Franklin’s cover of The Band’s “The Weight,” but that was done at Atlantic Studios in NYC.

There is a ’64 Strat on display at the “Muscle Shoals – Low Rhythm Rising” exhibit that Duane traded Mickey Buckins. Mickey and Jerry McGee were two of the first people I met when I first started going to Muscle Shoals. In the ’60s, Mickey had a band called Mickey And The New Breed, and he is one of the unsung heroes of “The Muscle Shoals Sound.”

Johnny Wyker, who had a band called Sailcat, whose biggest hit was “Motorcycle Mama,” used to drive Duane to and from his sessions at FAME. Scott Boyer had a band called Cowboy with Tommy Talton on the Capricorn label. Duane played dobro on “Please Be With Me.” Eric Clapton and Randy Meisner covered that song in the ’70s.

That track was cut at Muscle Shoals Sound, and I had the good fortune to see Scott and Tommy perform the song at the studio in 2014 before it was renovated by Dr. Dre’s Beats Inc. Duane’s daughter, Galadrielle, was also there, reading excerpts from the book she wrote about her father, which was also titled Please Be With Me.

I’ve been fortunate to hear stories about him from some of my friends in music. Jimmy Hall told me that although his time with Duane was brief, he cherishes every minute that he got to spend with him. Original Wet Willie drummer Lewis Ross told me that he was backstage with Duane once, and Duane told him that they had a great band.

Marlin Greene co-produced Boz Scaggs’ “Loan Me A Dime” with Jann Wenner at Muscle Shoals Sound. Marlin told me he hired Duane for that session. The tracks for the album had been completed, and they had time to do one more track. Either Greene or Wenner asked Scaggs if he had another track that he might like to do.

Scaggs remembered hearing someone at a club doing “Loan Me A Dime” once, although at that time he did not know that Fenton Robinson wrote the song. They wound up doing the song, and it turned out to be one of the greatest songs ever recorded in Muscle Shoals. The “Swampers” were really locked in on that one, and Barry Beckett’s piano and keyboard parts are outstanding.

There is a bathroom off to the side of the studio, and Duane was playing guitar during the session while sitting on the tank of the toilet with his feet resting on the toilet seat. There is nothing quite like rolling into the Muscle Shoals city limits and hearing that song on the radio.

Being a child of the ’80s, I had heard of The Allman Joys, but had never heard of The Hourglass, who I mentioned earlier, until Jimmy Johnson of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section told me all about the band in 2001. Jimmy also told me some great stories about Duane.

Liberty Records tried to market The Hourglass as a psychedelic band, and while out in Los Angeles, Duane saw Jesse Ed Davis playing slide guitar with Taj Mahal. When he got back home, with the infamous Coricidin cough pill bottle brought to him by Gregg, he attempted to learn slide guitar. Paul Hornsby, keyboard player for The Hourglass, has been quoted as saying, “Somebody learning to play the slide guitar is the worst thing in the world,” about those practice sessions.

Lenny LeBlanc, who had a duo with Pete called LeBlanc and Carr, had a big hit in 1978 called “Falling.” Lenny, who I had the pleasure of working with at Muscle Shoals Sound recently, grew up with Duane and Gregg in Daytona. The production and vocals on that song are sublime. Lenny has a phenomenal voice and, in my opinion, is the best harmony singer in the business. LeBlanc and Carr were on tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd before the plane crash in 1977.

If you are planning to attend a music festival in the coming weeks, Skydog – The Shoals Experience is the place you want to be. You can also take tours of FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound. At FAME, they will show you the exact spot where Duane stood when he was playing sessions, and, if I remember correctly, they still have an amplifier that he used.