Heh heh, I'm first to comment! Yay, me!
As Howard Baker didn't quite say: What is he saying, and why is he saying it? And who to?"

All I can really say is Wail on!!

A little heavy on the GBG tool there, Donnah.....

LOL! I swear, I didn't use it!

Old Slowhand, Eric Clapton plays with one of his fretting fingers flying high too, I wonder why?

What we have pictured here is a "channeling effect" I've seen only a handful of times at rock shows.

Direct line from God, through the artist, to the audience creating an energy that, the first time I saw it, I said to myself "How can one little man have all that power and wisdom within him and bursting forth like fire?"

It's mystical; just roll with it dudes and while you're at it, you hold up the Bic lighter for a while and I'll twist up a number.

{"Greensleeves" and out}

Well, maybe I'm too earth-bound, but I was thinking the raised up finger thing was some kind of personal message to somebody watching. Like Carol Burnett used to pull on her earlobe as a secret hello to her grandmother? I thought this might be like a "Happy Birthday, Aunt Prudence and how is your gallbladder?" or maybe "Hey, Bobby, 'member the joke about the pickle slicer?"
Something not meant for the likes of us to get, in other words. lol

Mighty fine, mighty fine! Passion and precision, 'nuff said.

By the way, what is a GBG tool? Must be something for the computer literate, which I obviously am not. I'm lucky to save these gems Donnah sends us every Wednesday. And sometimes I can't get that right.

Thank you Donnah, oh precentor of our holy Skydog band!(keeping with Paco's Godly theme) Hallelujah!

Wail on, Skydog!

Didn't you know, Cindy? GBG (R) is Gregg Be Gone spray. Donnah is very handy with it.

Oh GBG is Gregg-Be-Gone, so the focus can be fully on Duane. The best application is the one of the two brothers in front of a gold/orange background, so they're like sunlit, and the GBG worked REAL good, made me do a double take.

But yea, you see Duane lift out a finger on the '70 Fillmore Video. I think its when he stretches from that "spot you can slide right back to" as he said in reference to his thumb. Thats the technical thought... My first and foremost thought is that he was hittin the note. B)

Wail On!

I like Pacos explaination best! Probably why the fire burns out so quickly on rare dudes like Duane.

I truly believe with all my heart the old saying, "Only the good die young!" The older I get the more I believe, course it doesnt say much for me, but alas Im no guitar god, wizard or other super being like so many, that left this earth way too soon!

Dont know about y'all but only Duane's solos touched me so much, he could make me cry. Its the emotion he put behind the notes.

Others can copy his solos note for note and never get the feelings across. He seemed to almost transport himself to another realm when he was "hittin the note"!

God Bless ya, and Wail on Skydog!

Duh...of course GBG....sorry but my case of CRS was in overdrive this week. Geesh getting old is a bitch! Thank you everybody for reminding me so gently.

Ya'll have a great weekend!

And Wail on, Skydog!

Y'all wanna read some excellent stuff from the last day of the Fillmore East with lots about Duane go here: http://www.hittinthenote.com/FillmoreClosed.pdf

And to read a definitive interview with Eric Clapton about the relationship he had with The Great Skydog go here: http://www.hittinthenote.com/HTN26-Clapton.pdf

Theres a supersize picture of Duane and Eric facing off in a guitar duel at the beginning of the interview.

Let me add my .10 cents worth along with Cindy and wish all you Duaniacs a super fine weekend too! And spin one for Skydog too!
(as in old fashioned lp records, in lieu of that play your cds. lol )

Cindy, getting old aint no fun as I can surely agree with ya, I am in the same boat! But, of course the alternative sucks more! :>

Thanks, Sheila, for letting me know what fun I have to look forward to. lol

He lifted that finger a lot during his slide work..

When the glass and steel began to 'hit the note', everything has to get out of the way.. including Mr. Pointer.

Thanks Donnah..

Here's a tale from the Swampland Site about Duane. Man, I wish I could be this cool! Wail on!

Duane Allman at FAME Studios: A J.D. Wyker Cat Tale
by John D. Wyker

(First appeared in GRITZ Print Issue 7, Summer 2004)

This is another Cat Tale about Duane Allman that took place back in the late 1960's at Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Rick Hall was famous for intimidating musicians that were playin' on his sessions. There are many stories about how Rick would book musicians "3 or 4 deep" for some of his sessions - 3 drummers, 3 bass players, etc. If the first picker did not come up with a great part in a certain amount of time, Rick would throw him off the session right there on the spot and call in the next person to see what they could come up with. Meanwhile, the cats on the bench would sit out in the lobby and play cards waiting on their chance to shine. I'd say Rick had kind of a Bear Bryant type of attitude.

This was back in the early days of over dubbing or multi-tracking and sometimes quite a bit of work and set up time was involved in getting the tape and the machines set up to over dub a lead guitar part. They would get the main basic track recorded on tape and then the next day come back in and overdub Duane's lead guitar part.

I remember one time that ol’ Duane turned the tables on Rick. I think it was on a Wilson Pickett session when Duane was asked to come in to record his guitar part. I drove him into town that day from the cabin on Wilson Lake where he was stayin'. Duane did not own a car,in fact I never ever saw Duane drive a car.

If I remember correctly, I think Jimmy Johnson was running the board. Jimmy already had everything set up and ready to record when Duane and I got there. The track sounded great and all of the levels were set.

After Duane made sure his guitar was in tune, had the settings on his amp just like he wanted it and his headphone level was satisfactory, he asked for a short break before actually recording his part. Duane and I disappeared to one of our many secret places out behind FAME and he began to "get his head right" (that's all I can say about that...but y'all know what I mean.) After all Duane had a motto that he lived by, "Whatever it takes to hit the note !"

Anyway when he was finally ready, Duane strolled back into the studio with that sure footed cocky attitude that he was so famous for, shook back his long flamin' reddish hair, slipped his headphones on, picked up his magic guitar, slung the wide leather strap across his shoulder, closed his eyes and nodded to the engineer in the control room that he was ready. A voice came from the playback speakers, "Okay, we are rolling." The red recording light flickered to life indicating the seriousness of the moment.

The track came on strong. It was a funky hot piece of music although I'm not sure exactly which title it was. As the track began to play it was cookin' so much that the studio walls seemed to be breathing in and out of time with the pounding rhythm of this masterful Muscle Shoals track.

Duane still had his eyes closed but his feet and body were moving in perfect time with the music he was hearin' in his headphones. He was in total concentration -almost like a Buddhist monk meditating on this pulsating moment that he was now living and recording in. As the place in the song that required his talent for lead guitar approached, the tension began to grow. After all, this moment was what this day was all about - those few magic minutes of recorded sound on magnetic tape where Duane Allman knew that he could forever become immortal, and unforgettable, simply by playing his heart out on this guitar ride.

When the moment came to play, Duane's eyes were still tightly closed but his face looked totally released as if he knew exactly what his fingers would do to steal the spotlight. He began to play, or should I say burn, with an intensity that bordered on recklessness. It was like watchin' someone attempt a high dive that they had never done before. A quadruple triple back flip with two and half turns of sideways twist before the diver finally and cleanly entered the water with his toes perfectly pointed towards the sky. The kind of action that everyone holds their breath for, and silently prays words of thanks to be allowed to witness this kind of unique and rare perfection.

Duane was totally playin' his ass off and it was obvious, not only to me but by the look on Duane's face, he too was surprising himself with the extension of his own guitar genius. I call it playin' over your head - when someone really does not have a cut and dried plan for what there are goin' to play. That would be too dull for someone like Duane. Too boring and predictable. Duane was goin' for the kind of solo that would surprise all of his listeners. The kind of thang that when you listen back to it you ask yourself, "How the hell did I do that?" You know that you may only be able to do it once but as long as you get it on tape it will live forever. That's one of the beauties of recorded sound and what makes some people legends.

That's not the end of the story nor the end of that solo that Duane was smokin' his way through at FAME Studio that day. Everything was goin' totally fantastic when he blew a line and everything just stopped. The tape came to a halt and Duane was not only mad at himself but you could also see the hurt and disappointment in his face. He stripped the guitar strap off of his back, yanked his cord out of the amp, slammed his guitar down and said, "Okay, that’s it! I'll come back and try it again tomorrow. I ain’t feelin’ it anymore!" And then he strolled out of the studio as everyone looked on in amazement.

I had never seen anyone do anything like that in my life and I thought it was pretty cool.

Great story, Willard.
All I can say is it's a good thing it wasn't Phil Spector in charge of that studio. Somehow I can't see old Phil letting anybody walk out in the middle of a session like that.

That is the kind of story about Duane that I love to hear. There has to be more of them out there and if Randy Poe could've found that kind of material for his book, it would've been a greater book than it was. Maybe he had them but lost them to the editor.