We lost Gregg LeNoir Allman in 2017 at age 70, and we lost Dickie last week at age 80 – rest in peace. We won’t see anything like this again. (hat tip just some guy):
“Melissa” (sometimes called “Sweet Melissa”) is a song by American rock band the Allman Brothers Band, released in August 1972 as the second single from the group’s fourth album, Eat a Peach. The song was written by vocalist Gregg Allman in 1967, well before the founding of the group. Two demo versions from those years exist, including a version cut by the 31st of February, a band that featured Butch Trucks, the Allman Brothers’ later drummer. Allman sold the publishing rights later that year, but they were reacquired by manager Phil Walden in 1972.
The song’s title is frequently referred to incorrectly as “Sweet Melissa” due to the lyric being sung at the end of each of the first two choruses.
The version on Eat a Peach was recorded in tribute to Duane Allman, who considered the song among his brother’s best and a personal favorite. He died in a motorcycle accident six weeks before its most famous rendition was recorded.
Gregg Allman penned the song in late 1967. He had previously struggled to create any songs with substance, and “Melissa” was among the first that survived after nearly 300 attempts to write a song he deemed good enough. Staying at the Evergreen Motel in Pensacola, Florida, he picked up Duane’s guitar which was tuned to open E and immediately felt inspired by the natural tuning. Words came naturally, but he stumbled on the name of the love interest. The song’s namesake was almost settled as Delilah before Melissa came to Allman at a grocery store where he was buying milk late one night, as he told the story in his memoir, My Cross to Bear:
It was my turn to get the coffee and juice for everyone, and I went to this twenty-four-hour grocery store, one of the few in town. There were two people at the cash registers, but only one other customer besides myself. She was an older Spanish lady, wearing the colorful shawls, with her hair all stacked up on her head. And she had what seemed to be her granddaughter with her, who was at the age when kids discover they have legs that will run. She was jumping and dancing; she looked like a little puppet. I went around getting my stuff, and at one point she was the next aisle over, and I heard her little feet run all the way down the aisle. And the woman said, “No, wait, Melissa. Come back—don’t run away, Melissa!” I went, “Sweet Melissa.” I could’ve gone over there and kissed that woman. As a matter of fact, we came down and met each other at the end of the aisle, and I looked at her and said, “Thank you so much.” She probably went straight home and said, “I met a crazy man at the fucking grocery.”
Allman rushed home and incorporated the name into the partially completed song, later introducing it to his brother: “[I] played it for my brother and he said, ‘It’s pretty good—for a love song. It ain’t rock and roll that makes me move my ass.’ He could be tough that way.” The duo produced a demo recording of “Melissa” that later surfaced on One More Try, a compilation of outtakes released thirty years later. In 1968, the duo recorded it during a demo session with the 31st of February, a band that featured Butch Trucks, the Allman Brothers’ later drummer. That version is thought to have featured the debut recorded slide guitar performance from Duane Allman, and the entire session was later compiled into Duane & Greg Allman, released in 1972. Gregg Allman sold the publishing rights to “Melissa”, as well “God Rest His Soul” (a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.), to producer Steve Alaimo for $250 (equivalent to $2,190 in 2023) shortly thereafter. He had been tied up in Los Angeles, contractually bound by Liberty Records (who had previously issued albums by the Allmans’ first band, the Hour Glass), and used the money to buy an airplane ticket to fly back.
When Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971, his brother performed the song at his funeral, as he had grown to like the song over the years. Gregg Allman commented that it “didn’t sit right” that he used one of his brother’s old guitars for the performance, but he nonetheless got through it; he called it “my brother’s favorite song that I ever wrote.” Both because he did not own the rights and found it “too soft” for the band’s repertoire, he never mentioned the song to the members of the Allman Brothers Band. Following Duane’s death, manager Phil Walden arranged to buy back the publishing rights in order to record the song for Eat a Peach, the band’s fourth album. Gregg brought it to the studio the day following his birthday and the band recorded it that afternoon at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. They felt it lacked a compelling instrumental backing element so guitarist Dickey Betts created the song’s lead guitar line.
These guys are from Tempe, Arizona, which is one of my favorite towns of all-time. When I was 18 years old, I lived there for a year! Two of my best memories were the burgers at the Chuckbox restaurant, and the liquor store on the corner that had a drive-thru lane. We would drive up; they’d put a keg in the trunk; we’d give them $37 and be on our way!
“I’m Waiting for the Man” is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground. Written by Lou Reed, it was first released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. The lyrics describe a man’s efforts to obtain heroin in Harlem.
In various reviews, it is described as “tough garage rock”, “proto-punk classic”, and “one of the all-time classic rock songs”, with renditions by a number of artists.
In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song at number 159 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was moved to number 161 in 2010, and finally re-ranked at number 81 in 2021.
The magazine noted:
The Velvets mixed R&B rhythm-guitar workout, blues-piano stomp and dreamy art drone, as Reed deadpans a story about scoring $26 worth of heroin in Harlem. “Everything about that song holds true,” said Reed, “except the price.”
In December 1966, David Bowie’s manager, Kenneth Pitt, acquired an acetate of the then-unreleased The Velvet Underground & Nico and presented it to Bowie. Upon hearing “I’m Waiting for the Man”, he went to his band at the time, the Buzz, and told them they were going to learn it: “We learned ‘Waiting for the Man’ right then and there and we were playing it on stage within a week.” He later recalled in an 2003 interview with Vanity Fair: “Amusingly, not only was I to cover a Velvets song before anyone else in the world, I actually did it before the album came out. Now that’s the essence of Mod.”
Bowie first attempted to record “I’m Waiting for the Man” in the studio during the sessions for his 1967 debut album, and later properly recorded it with another band, the Riot Squad, on April 5, 1967. In his book Rebel Rebel, Chris O’Leary notes the subpar quality of the recording, writing that it “sounded as if they were making do with what they’d found in a school music room.” This version later appeared on the Riot Squad compilations The Last Chapter: Mods & Sods (2012) and The Toy Soldier EP. In this version, Bowie misinterpreted the song’s subject matter, containing the line “I’m just looking for a good friendly behind” instead of “I’m just looking for a dear, dear friend of mine”. Tony Visconti later told biographer Nicholas Pegg: “A very young David Bowie didn’t yet know that ‘the man’ in Harlem parlance meant the drug dealer. So he naturally assumed it was a gay encounter involving money.”
Bowie performed “I’m Waiting for the Man”, often titled as “Waiting for the Man”, for BBC radio shows in 1972 (one recording appearing on 2000’s Bowie at the Beeb) and frequently on the Ziggy Stardust Tour (one recording appearing on 1994’s Santa Monica ’72). He would further perform it on the 1976 Isolar Tour and the 1990 Sound+Vision Tour. While his 1967 recording followed Reed’s original chord structure, Bowie made subtle changes to his live performances. He performed the song with Reed at his 50th birthday bash in 1997. David Buckley writes that Bowie’s 1977 song “‘Heroes'” was influenced by Reed’s writing.
Between 1971 and 1978, Joe Walsh was married to Stefany Rhodes. The couple had a daughter named Emma, born in the first year of their marriage. When Emma was just three years old, Rhodes had a car accident which caused Emma to suffer from fatal head injuries. She was pulled out of the life support unit the same night, and her organs were donated. After this tragic incident, Walsh suffered from severe trauma, and the couple decided to break up.
To cope with Emma’s loss, Walsh began to use drugs and alcohol, and he wrote a song as a tribute to his daughter titled ‘Song For Emma.’ He also built a memorial fountain to Emma’s name in North Boulder Park, where Rhodes was taking Emma to at the time of the tragic car accident. Later on, when his relationship with Nicks began, Walsh shared this incident with Stevie. She was deeply affected, and went on to write ‘Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You’ for Walsh, who is a former resident of Olivenhain!
Our daughter Natalie leaves tomorrow to start the next leg of the Karol G tour, which begins in Mexico City on February 8th. They have shows in Latin/South America over the next three months, then they go to Europe for another two months!
The English Beat was one of two bands that played the US Festival both years (1982 &1983), with the other band being Oingo Boingo. They are playing at the Belly Up on February 10th:
Paradiso is a Dutch music venue and cultural centre located in Amsterdam. Originally a nineteenth-century church used by the “Vrije Gemeente” (Free Congregation), it was squatted by hippies in 1967, seeking to turn it into a leisure club. The city officially opened it as a youth entertainment center in 1968, quickly becoming a focal point for the counterculture movement and associated with the era’s rock music. Paradiso also became one of the first places where soft drug use and sales were tolerated. Over time, it has diversified its programming to include lectures, plays, classical music, and crossover artists. Some of the world’s biggest music acts, including AC/DC, Adele, David Bowie, Madonna, Nirvana, and The Rolling Stones, have performed at Paradiso. Key performances include Pink Floyd’s 1968 concert, Glen Matlock’s last gig with the Sex Pistols in 1977, and The Rolling Stones’ semi-acoustic concerts in 1995, which Keith Richards claimed were the band’s best live shows.
Those who were in the LA area during the 1970s and 80s came across DJ Jim Ladd who played free-form radio for decades. I remember listening during the night that John Lennon died, and he played a memorial set that gave me a new appreciation for Lennon – and music in general! But Jim’s favorites were the Doors, which he played several times a night. When we did the concerts at CSUF, our first big outdoor show was with The Robbie Kreiger Band (sponsored by Miller Lite), and he played this song:
