Happy 30th Anniversary to The Allman Brothers Band’s ninth studio album Seven Turns, originally released July 3, 1990.
In retrospect, it’s a good thing the Allman Brothers Band took the 1980s off. If they had stayed together during that synth-heavy, seemingly bass-free decade (and remained signed to Arista), they would have probably put out albums-worth of material like the craptastic “Evidence of Love,” Gregg Allman’s duet with longtime Allman associate but at the time Miami Vice superstar actor Don Johnson on Allman’s 1987 album I’m No Angel, or “Stone Cold Heart”—which sounded like something you’d see by a C-level blues/metal group like Tangier around 1:30 am early Sunday morning toward the end of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball—from the proto-metal Pattern Disruptive, the only album credited to the Dickey Betts Band, in 1988.
After 1981’s Brothers of the Road, their second album on Arista Records, and under the clueless direction of Clive Davis (who brought in producers he felt would contemporize the band’s sound—producers that worked with the likes of Styx—and rejected Allman sympathizers such as Tom Dowd and Johnny Sandlin), the brothers mercifully went their separate ways at the beginning of 1982 and stayed under the radar for most of the remainder of the first half of the decade.
In the interim, Dickey Betts spent some time in Nashville working on a songwriting deal. He guested on albums by both Hank Williams, Jr. (offering backing vocals on “Country State of Mind” from 1986’s Montana Cafe) and David Allen Coe (playing guitar on the title cut to 1986’s Son of the South) and formed the Dickey Betts Band with Matt Abts, Marty Privette, Johnny Neel, and the guitarist from Coe’s band, Warren Haynes.
I purchased the resulting album, Pattern Disruptive, on cassette upon its release in 1988. To say I was disappointed is putting it mildly. Astonishingly for a Betts album, it had absolutely no swing or country stylings whatsoever except for the final track, the breath of fresh air that was “Loverman,” but it was quite literally too little and too late. There was a country-rockish thing called “Heartbreak Line” and a generic blues rave-up, “The Blues Ain’t Nothin’,” but neither track shuffled, swung, or rolled—they simply bludgeoned you with a metallic thud. (Abts’ fantastic drumming, so swing-heavy and prevalent in Gov’t Mule a few years later with Haynes, was sadly not utilized here).
The distant, lifeless production on Pattern Disruptive attempted to cater to the fans-of-bands-like-Cinderella crowd, whose Long Cold Winter released that same year actually, and ironically, grooved and even swung a little easier than Betts’ attempt. In fact, the best thing about Pattern Disruptive was that it helped pave the way for an Allman Brothers Band reunion, including Haynes and Neel from the DBB.
Meanwhile, Gregg Allman’s album I’m No Angel had its moments (the classic title track, a re-recorded “Don’t Want You No More/It’s Not My Cross To Bear”), was certified gold, and paved the way for the much more consistent follow-up, Just Before the Bullets Fly (1988). Both albums were credited to The Gregg Allman Band, which included the Toler brothers (Dave on drums and the late, great “Dangerous” Dan on guitar), who had been members of the ABB during their short-lived tenure on Arista. Bullets’ title track was co-written by Warren Haynes; the pieces were coming together.
The following year would prove to be huge for us Allman Brothers Band fans. 1989, appropriately, signaled the band’s twentieth anniversary. That summer, Mercury Records released the massive box set, Dreams. Box sets at the time were all the rage, starting with Bob Dylan’s 1985 retrospective Biograph, they started picking up steam toward the end of the decade, with Eric Clapton’s Crossroads becoming a huge seller in 1988. Bill Levenson had put that set together and he did the same for Dreams the following year.
A combination of well-known cuts, deep tracks, unreleased gems, and solo cuts from all stages of their career (including pre-ABB groups the Hour Glass, the Allman Joys, and the 31st of February), the Dreams box set is still the standard-bearer for how to compile a career retrospective. Its success also proved that the marketplace was ready for an Allman Brothers Band reunion.
That summer, original members Allman, Betts, Butch Trucks, and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson hit the road for the first time with Haynes, Neel, and a new recruit from the Artimus Pyle Band, bassist Allen Woody, in tow. They even brought back longtime roadies (always an integral part of the ABB family), including “The Legendary Red Dog.”
The band subsequently signed to Epic (who already had success with the Gregg Allman Band’s previous two releases and had the Dickey Betts Band on their roster as well) and reunited with their most sympathetic producer, the incomparable Tom Dowd, and worked up what became Seven Turns.
From the opening notes of the first track, “Good Clean Fun,” it’s obvious the ABB was taking this seriously. The song hits you right off with a classic-sounding ABB-style riff, played in unison by Betts and Haynes, and pretty soon the unmistakable drumming of Jaimoe and Trucks join in. By the time Gregg takes the vocal lead, it’s obvious that “Good Clean Fun” is both a masterpiece of an opener and as a “we’re back” moment. Next up, Betts takes his first vocal on the album for the country-rock half-time boogie of “Let Me Ride.” It’s already apparent that this material and production are miles above both Allman and Betts’ recent solo work at the time. (Amazing what the right band and producer can accomplish.)
The Allmans’ love of the blues is represented (the mighty “Gambler’s Roll,” the fun, country-delta, time-signature-shifting “Low Down Dirty Mean,” the uptown funk of “It Ain’t Over Yet”) as well as their “Black Hearted Woman”-like heavier side (“Shine It On,” the Haynes-led “Loaded Dice”). Betts thankfully revisits his country side with the title track, which has since become a latter-day ABB standard with its signature ABB life-affirming twin guitar lines and call-and-response coda between Betts and Allman, while Betts and Haynes contribute the album’s obligatory (and most welcome) jazz-instrumental excursion, “True Gravity.”
Though Gregg only had one co-write on the entire album (on “Good Clean Fun”), he handled most of the lead vocals, and Seven Turns sounded more like a cohesive group effort than any of their Arista sides. In fact, it was easily their best album since 1973’s Brothers and Sisters.
Johnny Neel left after Seven Turns and they brought on percussionist Marc Quinones. The early to mid-1990s were peak Allman Brothers Band years. They would in short order record and release Shades of Two Worlds in 1991 and Where It All Begins in 1994, tour extensively and release two single-disc live albums (appropriately called First Set and Second Set—which was recorded at Walnut Creek Amphitheater in Raleigh, NC with yours truly in attendance). Shades Of Two Worlds was even better than its predecessor, but only slightly. Where It All Begins was the weakest of the three, but it was still more consistent than anything between Brothers and Sisters and Seven Turns.
The drama surrounding Betts by the end of the 1990s is well-documented and discussed at length elsewhere if you want to delve into that. And Hittin’ the Note (the Allmans’ last studio effort in 2003) is a mighty fine album and the only one with Derek Trucks as a full member. Still, for my money, the Allman Brothers Band need all the ingredients present to make it work properly: the aggressive guitar harmonies and majestic slide, the double-drumming, the soulful wail of Gregg (and his Hammond), the toe-curling bass runs, the jazzy textures, and the country dressing that Betts so masterfully provided.
Thankfully, Seven Turns boasted all of the above, making it one of the greatest comebacks in rock history by one of its most consistent and indelible acts.
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