Duane Allman's Inclusion
A few uninspired days into the Layla sessions, Dowd, who was also producing for the Allmans for their album Idlewild South, invited Clapton to an Allman Brothers outdoor concert in Miami, where Clapton first heard Duane Allman play. The Dominos were sneaked into the show with the help of Dowd and sat between the riser and fans below. At the concert, Dowd distinctly remembers:
| “ | Duane was in the middle of a solo; he opens his eyes and looks down, does a dead stare, and stops playing. Dickey Betts is chugging along, see Duane's stopped playing, and figures he'd better cover, that Duane must've broken a string or something. Then Dickey looks down, sees Eric, and turns his back. That was how they first saw each other. | ” |
Formal introductions were made after the show. Eric invited the entire band to "Criteria Studios" for a jam. After the concert was over, they all came back to the studio and jammed until approximately 6:00 the next night, Dowd remembered. "They were trading licks. They were swapping guitars. They were talking shop and information and having a ball no holds barred, just admiration for each other's technique and facility. There was no control. We turned the tapes on and they went on for 15 to 18 hours like that. You just kept the machines rolling. I went through two or three sets of engineers. It was a wonderful experience."
Those jams can be found on the second CD of The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition. After the all night jam Duane had hoped he would be able to sit in the studio as an observer while the Dominos recorded, but Eric would have none of that. According to Dowd, Clapton told him, "Get your guitar. We got to play." When Duane arrived at Criteria Studios on 28 August to play on "Tell the Truth", the sessions were lifted to a higher level.
After the jam sessions Clapton invited Allman to become the fifth and final member of the Dominos, but Allman demurred, remaining loyal to his own band.
On that first day together Allman also added his slide guitar to "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." In a window of only four days, the five-piece Dominos recorded "Key to the Highway," "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," and "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad." When September came around, Duane briefly left the sessions for gigs with the Allman Brothers. In the two days he was absent, the four-piece Dominos recorded "I Looked Away," "Bell Bottom Blues," and "Keep on Growing." Duane returned on the 3rd to record "I am Yours," "Anyday," and "It's Too Late." On the 9th, they recorded Hendrix's "Little Wing" and the title track. The following day, the final track, "Thorn Tree in the Garden" was recorded. Many critics would later notice that Clapton played best when in a band composed of dual guitars; working with another guitarist kept him from getting "sloppy and lazy and this was undeniably the case with Duane Allman."
Read more about this topic: Derek And The Dominos
Famous quotes containing the word inclusion:
“Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot—a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life—of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)