ROGER DALTREY

“Say It Ain’t So Joe”

Daltrey’s debut was famous for its Leo Sayer songs (co-written with David Courtney), before Leo was a solo act, never mind switching gears to being a popster with Richard Perry. It opens jauntily with “One Man Band,” but the highlight from that initial solo LP is “Giving It All Away,” which was great, but I prefer Sayer’s ultimate rendition a year later on his second LP, “Just a Boy,” which contained the hit “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance).” Remember when Leo used to take the stage as a clown? That was a big story way back when, no one has mentioned it to me in decades.

Anyway…

This was a tough one for me…

You’ll remember after the “Tommy” movie, Daltrey had a career as an actor, first in “Lisztomania,” memorably in “McVicar.” Daltrey was the frontman, he got the attention, but all these years later it’s clear that Townshend is the genius, that without him there is no Who.

“McVicar” was actually a decent movie, but it sported a spectacular song on the soundtrack, “Free Me.” Daltrey belts right out of 1969 and the Woodstock movie. But the production is bombastic, in a good way, as film music is wont to be. But even more interesting is “Free Me” was composed by Russ Ballard, who was the singer in Argent, but also has an arm’s long list of songwriter credits, yet no one ever mentions him as a great songwriter. Of course he wrote Argent’s “Liar,” one of my most played downloads ever, made into a hit by Three Dog Night, but besides those Argent songs, Ballard wrote:

“I Know There’s Something Going On,” Frida of ABBA’s Phil Collins produced MTV hit.

“Winning,” whose version by Santana, sung by the recently departed Alex Ligertwood, brought the band back to the forefront.

“You Can Do Magic” for America.

Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove.”

And many more.

But as great as “Free Me” is, my favorite Daltrey solo song is his cover of Murray Head’s “Say It Ain’t So, Joe,” the original recording of which I don’t think I’d even heard until the days of Napster.

I believe Murray’s rock career was hampered by his first name, then again, it gave him notoriety. I first encountered Head on the original studio version of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” in which he played Judas Iscariot, he was all over the album.

And then, seemingly out of the blue, in 1984 he came back with “One Night In Bangkok,” from the musical “Chess,” which hadn’t been produced, never mind have a soundtrack LP, when this single was released. And the song was so unique, so whacked, that FM played it, it sounded like nothing that had come down the pike previously, and whenever it comes up in conversation everybody expresses warm feelings about it.

But in between, Murray wrote and performed “Say It Ain’t So, Joe,” which yes…was partially inspired by Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox scandal.

And after Murray recorded his original, intimate version, Roger blew it up into a radio track, with a rich, emphatic vocal. And you may not know that the song was also overed by Gary Brooker and the Hollies.

The Daltrey album “One of the Boys,” which contains “Say It Ain’t So, Joe” is not on Spotify, et al, but it is available on YouTube.

DAVID LEE ROTH

“Just Like Paradise”

So after his initial EP with “California Girls,” Roth made a solo album with Ted Templeman that contained the hit “Yankee Rose” that was all over MTV, but lacked melody, was substandard, but got airplay because Roth was still a star.

And then there was another solo LP, “Skyscraper” in 1988, when Roth had been eclipsed by the now Sammy Hagar fronted Van Halen. But still, there was this track…

This was during Dave’s adventurous phase, he was always testing limits. and we read about it in the rock press. And in the video for “Just Like Paradise,” you remember the video, Dave was rock climbing.

You also had Dave and Steve Vai strutting, veritably trucking towards the camera. Funny, this paradigm has been completely extinguished, over the top spandex triumphant posturing.

However…

“Just Like Paradise” is a fantastic record.

It had an intro, setting up the story, with keys and guitar and I won’t say it was quite magical, but it was close.

And then Dave took off on his tear of a verse.

But really the essence of “Just Like Paradise” is the chorus:

“This must be just like livin’ in paradise (just like paradise)

And I don’t want to go home (and I never wanna go)

This must be just like livin’ in paradise

And I don’t wanna go home”

And there was a great pre-chorus, but…

This was music made for the eighties, in that everybody had a crankable stereo and you could turn the music up and sing along at the top of your lungs and not hear a word you were singing. I love that experience.

And there’s a great break, and Steve Vai exercises, but as talented as Steve is, Eddie Van Halen was on another level.

That’s the eighties. The world was driven by MTV and there was plenty of money and there was a level of hedonism…

It was fun.

As is the a cappella outro to this song.

LOU GRAMM

“Just Between You and Me”

I remember Bud Prager telling me that “I Want to Know What Love Is” was the crowning achievement of Foreigner, the highlight. I disagreed and still do. If you want go for a ballad, you’ve got to go for “Waiting for a Girl Like You” from the Mutt Lange produced “4.” “I Want to Know What Love Is” was exploitative, not quite lowest common denominator, but close, whereas “Waiting for a Girl Like You” was ethereal, yet wholly believable. And you discovered it on the LP before it hit the radio, which was focused on the initial single, “Urgent.” “Waiting for a Girl Like You” was one step beyond what Foreigner had done before.

Then again, I’d still have to say that the band’s initial track, “Feels Like the First Time,” is the best, talk about a one listen smash…

And after that…I didn’t buy the next two LPs, but when I hear those hits now I smile, I love hearing them…”Head Games,” Dirty White Boy” and “Hot Blooded.”

So Lou Gramm goes solo and puts out an album with his best work, “Midnight Blue,” but that’s not my favorite, no, my favorite is “Just Between You and Me” from 1989’s follow-up, “Long Hard Look.” This was the last gasp of this kind of music, it was soon to be eclipsed by Nirvana and grunge, but…this is a great exponent of what once was…

Once again, it’s the chorus that contains the magic:

“Even if heaven and earth collide tonight

We’ll be all alone in a different light

I don’t care what the world can’t see

It’s just between you and me”

It’s the way Gramm sings, and you sang along with him…

And there’s a great bridge…

“If we don’t work this out we won’t recover

We’ll lose this soulful love for one another

But with all I’ve heard and all I’ve seen

I’m still lost in your mystery”

And then Lou was replaced in Foreigner and became seriously ill and disappeared, and then reappeared looking beefy, but with his pipes intact. But Foreigner could sell tickets with a faux lead singer, and at this late date Gramm occasionally appears with the band, then again…there was that replacement singer not wanting Lou to sing “his,” i.e. the replacement’s, signature songs…which, of course, Lou sang originally. And now Mick Jones is ill and the Foreigner you see on the road is totally faux.

GREGG ALLMAN

“Anything Goes”

From the comeback album, “I’m No Angel,” a complete return to form.

So, Steve Massarsky invites me to the Greek, he represented Dickey Betts, got him some money. And I spoke with Dickey, however…

I’m engaging with Gregg and I tell him how much I love this song, how he hits that high note after the break, singing “ANYTHING GOES!”

Now Gregg was tall and skinny and wearing heeled-boots and he leaned down, very close, very intimately, almost scarily close, and he’s whispering in my ear and he’s telling me this story and he  says…

“I can’t hit that note every night, but sometimes I lean over the keyboard and my left nut gets caught under my leg and I sing “ANYTHING GOES!!”

And then Gregg leans back and looks me in the eye.

And I look back at him.

And that was the end of the conversation.

JOE WALSH

“Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)”

This is not my favorite Joe Walsh track, I’d have to go with “Meadows” or “Welcome to the Club” or “County Fair” or “Take a Look Around” from the first James Gang album, but I play this one so much and it’s been completely forgotten…

I had it on a compilation cassette with the Clash’s “The Call Up,” there was a distinct mood…

And the Eagles had broken up and Joe was opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Forum, touring this album.

Now of the post-Eagles breakup albums, the best is 1985’s “The Confessor,” and “There Goes the Neighborhood” was uneven, yet it did contain the hit “A Life of Illusion,” but “Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)” is a subtle not quite masterpiece, certainly something that penetrates you and stays there.

I’m not exactly sure what the song is about, even though certain lines create memorable images, but….

There’s a hooky chorus.

And a changing groove.

And the sounds of the guitars and other instruments. I love this, I want to shine a light on it.

JOHN LENNON

“Steel and Glass”

Lennon had an uneven solo career. Despite all the latter-day hosannas, 1970’s “Plastic Ono Band” did not sell prodigiously, nor was there much airplay. But then he followed this up with the “Imagine” album, whose title song has become a standard, even though I thought it was too obvious, even back then. But “Imagine” also has “Jealous Guy,” which Bryan Ferry covers so well, and “Gimme Some Truth” and the McCartney put-down “How Do You Sleep.”

And then Lennon steps in it with “Some Time in New York City,” made with the now forgotten Elephant’s Memory. But at the end of 1973, John had another big hit with “Mind Games,’ however at this point McCartney was on a tear, with “Red Rose Speedway” and “My Love” and then “Band on the Run.” Lennon responded in the fall of ’74 with the uneven “Walls and Bridges,” and then stopped recording for six years, returning in 1980 with “Double Fantasy,” which was a veritable stiff before the tragedy powered it into ubiquity.

But going back to “Walls and Bridges”…

I’d just moved to L.A. and made a pilgrimage to the legendary Tower on Sunset whose most salient feature was the stacking of records in piles on the floor just inside the door. The stacks were endless, a hundred copies of an album that you thought only you knew. And one of those albums was “Walls and Bridges,” and over the in-store stereo was playing “Steel and Glass.”

Now the funny thing about “Steel and Glass” is it’s not that different from “How Do You Sleep,” and Lennon acknowledged this, but in this case his target was Allen Klein… Imagine if John had not been hoodwinked by this shyster and had gone with Paul’s relatives the Eastmans in the first place…

Anyway, one of the defining features of “Steel and Glass” is the treatment on John’s voice. Just like Howard Stern has his voice tweaked for radio. And if anybody else did this track you’d say it was bombastic, but in this case the music has a transcendent quality, this was definitely a Beatle, no one else could create this exact sound.

DARYL HALL

“Foolish Pride”

The first solo LP, 1980’s “Sacred Songs,” produced by Robert Fripp, was perceived to be experimental, and it was also released before Hall and Oates’s comeback.

Yes, Hall and Oates moved from Atlantic to RCA and suddenly had gigantic hits, first with “Sara Smile” and then “Rich Girl” and Atlantic re-released “She’s Gone” and the band was everywhere, but then they ran out of steam, to the point where they were even playing clubs, I saw them at the Roxy, but then…

Mere months after the release of “Sacred Songs” came “Voices,” whose success was pinned on a cover of “You Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” That’s how low the band had fallen, they were scrounging for something that would be easy for radio programmers to add, but then came…

“Kiss on My List” and “You Make My Dreams,” never mind “Everytime You Go Away,” which Paul Young built a career upon.

And then the juggernaut continued. With “Private Eyes” and “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” and “Maneater,” and who’da thunk of all the seventies bands to survive and thrive in the MTV era it would be Hall and Oates? And they’d have had a slew more hits if they hadn’t made the mistake of leaving RCA for Arista and manipulative Clive Davis, who meddled to the point that there was no new music.

But during the height of the band’s renaissance, in 1986, Daryl released his second solo LP. “Foolish Pride” is the best song on it. It got some video airplay, yet it was never ubiquitous, but it should have been.

JIM MESSINA

“It’s All Right Here”

He reined Loggins in. And when released Kenny may have had solo hits, but they were unmemorable pop fodder, whereas the music he made with Messina… Forget “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” the initial LP is in the same league as the initial Poco LP, if not better.

And Jim had a sound, heard with Loggins on “Changes” from “Mother Lode,” the duo’s brilliant 1974 album.

Messina’s solo debut was not memorable, except for this…with a great sound, exquisite playing and…this is just a great track. It deserves to be heard.

DEBBIE HARRY

“Rush, Rush”

From the soundtrack to “Scarface,” the movie which became a blueprint for dealers and…

Blondie was done and Debbie worked with Giorgio Moroder, whom everybody pooh-poohed unjustifiably, wasn’t he just a disco producer?

But then Moroder did the soundtrack for “Midnight Express” and he was embraced by the rockers… And then, as years went by, they realized how good the “Bad Girls” album was. “Hot Stuff” was ROCK!

So the white boys in charge of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are bending over backwards to not appear racist, inducting rappers, and now even popsters, but somehow Giorgio Moroder has been overlooked?

But these were the guys who hated “Love to Love You Baby,” all disco records. They cheered Steve Dahl on with his Disco Demolition, but…

The funny thing is all these years later, disco has survived and it’s rock that’s on life support. Oh, they don’t call it disco, but if you listen to the roots…

Even the most dyed-in-the-wool rocker will find his body moving while listening to “Rush Rush.”

Debbie Harry’s breathy delivery of her lyrics is important, but what puts the track over the top is Giorgio Moroder’s music.

There’s strength in numbers.

We’ve been waiting for a universal protest song. But after twenty five years can we admit that we’re never going to get one, just like we’re never going to get a new Beatles?

The market is too fragmented.

But when you band together, that’s where strength lies today.

Who’da thunk Bret Michaels, willing to appear anywhere for a check, whoring his life out on reality TV, would back down from appearing?

It’s just a bad look, he’s afraid it’s going to taint his brand.

You might ask exactly what that brand is, but the fact that Michaels is afraid of it taking a hit…

As for Morris Day… Does he even go on the road?

The lineup was one of ancient hitmakers, has-beens, who seemingly will show up anywhere for a buck. And now they’re balking at the opportunity for universal publicity and a check?

We can debate all day long whether we’re at a turning point in Trump’s tenure…Iran, the slush fund, it goes on…

But to say that music has no power…

Turns out all you’ve got to do is shame people and they toe the line.

Of course there are those like Kid Rock and Jason Aldean on the other side, but look at all the acts who dropped off Kid Rock’s tour, Never mind now that it’s actually playing there is no press whatsoever, if you weren’t there, it doesn’t exist.

And then you’ve got Bruce’s protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis.”

I guess like with Kid Rock’s tour, and the cancellation of appearances at Freedom 250, the music is secondary to the press. The song itself has a whopping 5,769,175 streams on Spotify, which won’t even pay his trucking bill.

And that’s the point, unlike Kid Rock’s tour, the press on Bruce’s tour is outsized, he’s playing arenas but the tour is bigger than stadiums in mindshare.

And this is where press counts. Not the one little thing, but the mass.

Now let’s be clear, the individual can move mountains, has unlimited power, it’s just that right now you can’t do that with a single song, except for maybe a “We Are the World”-type number…then again, how big can it be without constant MTV exposure?

But Bruce’s Power to the People Festival at the Merriweather Post Pavilion on October 3rd? That’s more like it. Especially if there will be a simulcast, which is de rigueur.

But I’d be lying if I told you I thought that the Power to the People Festival would be enough.

No, what we need is a WEEK of festivals! In markets all over the country. Such that all genres are covered.

A hip-hop-heavy New York festival. A country-heavy Nashville festival.

Hell, one in Texas, there’s an electoral battle there.

Yes, seven markets with contested races.

As for who will perform…

You know how it goes… One superstar commits, and then everybody falls in line, is begging to perform. Isn’t that what happened with Freedom 250? As soon as one act canceled, then the dominoes fell.

As for right wing Trumper acts…

Let them have their own festival, be my guest. What has been proven over and over again is they talk a big game and ultimately deliver something puny that no one cares about.

Individual acts are afraid to speak up, but if a core commits, then the rest come calling, that’s just the nature of the business.

There is political power in music, but it’s in the group, not the individual, a collection of acts, not a single one.

This can be done.

“In 1996, Jam Productions produced approximately 130 arena concerts, which was the most profitable segment of our company. By 2025, that number had fallen to just 4, a 97% decline.”

Jerry Mickelson Congressional testimony: https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-jerry-mickelson-founder-of-jam-productions-at-joint-congressional-forum-on-live-nation/5200452

That’s a pretty striking statistic.

But the devil is in the details.

The reason Jam Productions could not get those arena dates is primarily because Live Nation made overall tour deals with acts.

But Live Nation is not the only one. AEG does this too. And Jerry Weintraub pioneered this half a century ago.

The essence of a tour deal…

I pay you a lot of money and I get every date.

Now why is this good for the act…

If you went market by market, selling to independents, you traditionally were able to make more money, however you were subject to the vagaries of life and climate. I.e. if there was a snowstorm, or another unforeseen event, you could do bad business in one market even if you were selling out elsewhere, even if you normally sold out in this market. And just a few bad dates can sink profitability for an entire tour.

This was how it used to be done. But the deals were different, the guarantees were smaller and the upsides were bigger, i.e. the potential to make more money. But as just illustrated, you could lose money!

An overall tour deal eliminates the risk.

And most of the major acts today do tour deals. Louis Messina, who is aligned with AEG, promotes Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran and Eric Church and others exclusively.

So if you’re an independent…

Nothing is keeping you from offering a tour deal yourself.

But…

Do you have that much money?

Do you want to risk that much money?

Now the basic issue under Mickelson’s statistic is how Live Nation got so much money that they could offer these expensive tour deals. Did they leverage Ticketmaster such that they could increase compensation to the acts?

That’s a reasonable question to ask.

But let’s be clear, we are not going back to the past. We have seen this happen in one sphere after another. A business is innovative, run by renegades, and then it matures and consolidates into just a few companies.

Remember how many computer hardware producers there used to be?

How many car companies before Ford’s assembly line and the Model T?

Yes, Walmart eviscerated downtowns, but it turned out their overall buying power, based on volume, delivered low prices that the mom and pop shop couldn’t.

And the consumers flocked to Walmart for low prices.

Hardware stores? It used to be the land of independents.

Pharmacies?

And the funny thing is as big as Amazon is, what exactly is their overall market share?

Then again, some of Amazon’s policies… Needing to purchase advertising for your product, usage of their fulfillment… Yes, the deck is stacked. Then again, online real estate is endless.

But how much of the overall spend online goes to Amazon?

You’d be stunned how small it is.

That’s the question that is raised by Live Nation.

As for the loser in consolidation…

The acts aren’t making less, they’re making MORE! And anybody and everybody in the business knows that ticket prices are high not because of Live Nation owning Ticketmaster, but because of market demand. That’s why prices have soared. Period. Oh, at the trial they had some “expert” saying that the public spent between one and two dollars more on tickets… But come on, take a dollar off a hundred dollar ticket and that’s the difference between whether someone wants to go or not?

Now thirty years ago, Bob Sillerman convinced the independent promoters to sell to SFX or…be wary of competition. Jerry Mickelson did not sell out, nor did John Scher. But that does not mean their businesses should be protected from what SFX/Clear Channel/Live Nation has become.

Come on, we read all the time about companies who refuse to sell out whose businesses crater to zero. Even ones that survive, like Vice, have a fraction of their old value.

And today Concerts West, an AEG company, promotes the Rolling Stones, but the band has been making overall deals with promoters for decades. Michael Cohl was responsible for creating the modern tour deal.

As for how Live Nation can pay all that money…

Well, there’s sponsorship and other revenue streams. As well as the ownership of buildings, which Mickelson mentions. But AEG owns buildings too, and they’re not the only ones. As a matter of fact, Jam owns buildings… The fact that Live Nation created a company with more purchasing power such that it can own more buildings…is that a bug or a feature? It might mean that Mickelson and Jam can’t compete, but we’re going to prevent companies from expanding? We can debate whether Live Nation has a monopoly in amphitheatres, but overall…they don’t own most of the arenas that Jerry is talking about in this clip.

So the question becomes how is Live Nation able to afford to pay these guaranteed sums to artists in tour deals? Did they garner those monies via monopoly? If so, then a remedy is necessary.

But that does not mean tour deals are going away.

Let’s not try to go back to a past that wasn’t so good anyway.

Acts know that Live Nation, a public company, is good for the money. This was not always the case with independent promoters in the past.

So, on the surface the drop in Jam’s arena shows looks dramatic and possibly unfair. But if someone can pay more, as a result of consolidation and market power, is that a bad thing? Or the willingness just to take more risk?

Once again, we can investigate why Live Nation can pay more. And see if there are monopoly practices allowing them to do so, but…

Overall tour deals are here to stay.

Everybody’s dead except Jaimoe. Who actually comes alive in this flick in a way we’ve never seen before.

Now the funny thing is I lived through the ascent and continuation of the Allman Brothers, but now they’re in the rearview mirror, and without a champion, without songs that get endless repeats on the radio (other than the less than representative “Ramblin’ Man”), I won’t quite say they’re a hidden land mine waiting to be discovered, but I don’t hear young people talking about them.

But they will.

This is a business of statistics. How many hits in how many decades and all other kinds of hype, which is hogwash, because ultimately it comes down to the music. It’s not your sales history that’s remembered, but the music itself. And very little has staying power, but the Allmans are lying in wait like the bluesmen who inspired the English rock stars of the sixties and seventies.

Anyway…

The fact that everybody’s dead makes this documentary a bit different from most, where the penumbra testifies.

First and foremost, Phil Walden is gone. Now that guy deserves a documentary. A white man in a black business who not only broke acts from nowheresville Georgia (no one north of the Mason-Dixon Line had truly knew Macon), but bent the rules and the dollars along the way.

We do get Jonny Podell, the agent.

But Bill Graham can’t tell us what he saw in the Allman Brothers to make them the closing act at the Fillmore East.

It was a completely different era, and Gregg Allman was a cool, basically unknown, king.

Scratch that, we knew him through his music. Sure, like Stevie Winwood, Gregg might have had those Black pipes, but his voice also possessed a soulful heartbreak and meaning that was evidenced in the records that’s hard to find elsewhere, especially today.

Please call home…

Why dontcha do that.

Now of course there would be no Allman Brothers without Duane, and the brothers’ bonds as well as their differences are illuminated here. Gregg was the younger one, pushed aside at times. Just like Duane took Gregg’s guitar and the rest is history.

I did not know the brothers went to military school because their mother had to be in residence to get her college degree in accounting. Actually, I’m not sure that rings true, but the bottom line is she got her parchment while raising two boys, which is difficult.

And she was their biggest supporter. And that counts.

So they’re playing in bands. Going nowhere.

What I mean is today everybody starts playing and imagines a record deal, and fame and riches. Whereas when you formed a band in the sixties your only goal was to get gigs. And you were happy to do the covers of the day, they kept you from the factory.

And believe me, experiencing this motley crew… They talk about techies and bankers being rock stars, nothing could be further from the truth. These were not educated people, they lived for the music, they followed the music, they did drugs, they got tattoos, broke the color line and…

Ended up with this music.

It didn’t happen overnight. There was the failed journey to Los Angeles. And then Duane called Gregg to come back east, that he’d formed a band…

And he was depending on Gregg to deliver the songs.

And just like the Beatles on that rooftop, Gregg passed the audition.

And Phil Walden signed them and they woodshedded in Macon while broke and ultimately crossed the country again and again converting people.

It’s not that different from today. The Allmans didn’t build a fan base from records, but on the road. Over 300 days a year.

And you get really tight doing that.

Springsteen gave a performance. He made the records come alive. You saw him and you felt the electricity, you saw the Jersey roots.

The Allmans didn’t say much, they spoke through their music, which didn’t demand attention so much as set your mind free, adrift, on an excursion. Bruce was foreground, and sometimes the Allmans were too, but in many ways they were background.

What I mean is when you heard “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” you didn’t stare at the stereo, until the guitars were twinning on stage you weren’t really even looking at the players, but somewhere in the distance.

This was all happening in the early seventies. But you don’t see anyone trumpeting the Allmans today.

Maybe because Gregg lived instead of died.

I’m not making light of Duane’s death, just saying that nothing burnishes your image like a tragic, early death, like in the case of Jim Morrison.

No, after the drug bust and the testimony against Scooter Herring, it was a climb back to acceptance. There was the solo work, then the band got back together, then that ended and Gregg played alone until he was snuffed out.

In other words, you could see Gregg Allman. The last time I did was at the Roxy. And he hadn’t lost anything, and he wasn’t going through the motions, he was delivering, because that’s what he did, played.

Tours were tedious, but after recovering for a few days, he always wanted to go back out.

Maybe because the music both centered and fulfilled him, gave him something to live for.

As for Cher…

She tried to change him. And Gregg refused to be changed.

Of course he’s stumbling around inebriated, getting married again and again and fathering children, but at root it was always the music.

So who was this guy?

Well, the main point you take from the film is Gregg was shy. Which is the antithesis of rock frontmen. They’re flamboyant, they want attention, whereas Gregg sat behind the organ and…

Even the initial solo LP, “Laid Back,” it had not only the definitive version of Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” but the slowed-down take of “Midnight Rider.” Sure, Gregg could play with energy, but so much of what he did was about contemplation. He could speak through his music and…

What you’ve got here is a long 2014 interview with Gregg. And he is worse for wear. As anybody is as the years pass. But Gregg had been on the road and lived hard and it takes a toll.

And you’ve got testimony from Jackson Browne and some superfluous talking heads like Robert Hilburn, but once again, the words don’t really matter, because the music speaks for itself.

And we learn Gregg had a best friend, a shoe-shiner he met in Macon. What we’re looking for is someone who knows us, who we can trust, who we’ve gone through the changes with. Those famous people in TMZ…they’re not your heart.

So most of the people who were there are gone, and this was the pre-video era, there’s only so much footage…

Documentaries in the future will be different, just a matter of collecting the crumbs from YouTube and social media and assembling them.

Then again, there is no mystique. Even though available, not hidden, Gregg maintained his mystique.

It wasn’t quite charisma, but when you spoke with Gregg…you could feel the southern roots, you could see the miles, the experience, he was neither reluctant, nor in your face, he was calm, but he suffered no fools.

So the best thing about this documentary is it exists. For young people to discover Gregg in the future.

He may not have written a plethora of songs, but the ones he did…

Yes, “Whipping Post” may be famous as an extended jam, but the words alone…there’s a direct connection to the blues of the delta.

And then there are tracks like “Come and Go Blues.”

I loved the original take on “Brothers and Sisters,” but the alternate one on the 1989 boxed set “Dreams” just penetrates me a bit more…

“People say that you’re no good

But I wouldn’t cut you loose, baby, if I could”

You could be that good-looking, that famous, that wealthy, and still be on the losing side of a relationship.

And then there’s “Statesboro Blues,” the “Fillmore East” opener, drop the needle on that one and it will wake you up in the morning, it will pop you right out of bed, get you hopping around, ready to eat up the day… When the band locked in, it was like a freight train, a monolith that could mow down anything in its path.

And “Trouble No More”…

And Gregg still had it at the end, do you know “Desdemona” from “Hittin’ the Note”?

This is not music you can shrug your shoulders at. It picks you up off the couch and gets you boogieing.

And it dominated dorm rooms in the early seventies. And unlike some famous bands, the sound could be captured on wax and expanded into new territory on stage. You could never criticize and complain, it was always tight.

And so one some level Gregg’s a part of the firmament, and on another he’s gone.

And this film reinforces what we’ve lost. This isn’t the sixties, this is the generation after, which tends not to get as much respect.

This is not English, but positively American.

“Well, I’ve got to run to keep from hiding

And I’m bound to keep on riding”

This wasn’t some vision of an old time bandit leaving town on his horse, this was Gregg himself. If he stood still, there would be too many questions. So he just kept moving, taking to the road, making music.

As he then sings, the road goes on forever.

“But I’m not gonna let ’em catch me, no

Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider”

Watching this movie you realize we never did catch Gregg Allman, he was in plain sight, but the man himself was elusive, he spoke through his music, and that’s what’s left.

And that’s plenty.