RIP Sam Cutler

Gregg Allman 45+ Minute Interview (New Orleans, 1982)

WHAT IT IS:​
45+ minutes of unedited, unreleased footage of a 1982 interview (exact date unknown) of Gregg Allman, apparently used for a 7-minute New Orleans TV news spot when the Gregg Allman Band were playing at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans.

CONTEXT FOR THIS INTERVIEW:
This video shows Gregg Allman at his most sober, calm, relaxed, intelligent, charming, humorous, reflective, emotionally honest best. The video was shot backstage, and you hear rehearsal music in the background, guys shouting back and forth, general mayhem--and at two points someone opens the door into Gregg's head, which he handles with aplomb and graciousness.

He reminds me in this video quite a bit of his brother Duane---a less manic version of Duane. I have struggled over the years to see a huge resemblance between the two, but you see it here. It may partly be the lighting, which brings out the strawberry in his blonde hair and eyelashes, like Duane--but also more of Duane's sort of cleverness, wisdom, and wit (which I personally have not seen a lot of, over the years, in Greg--while Duane was known to be overbrimming with all of the above).

There are many lovely parts, but my favorites might be when he's talking about getting together, falling in love with Cher and the impact that and living in Beverly Hills had on his life (minute: 32:47-38:35 ).  And the little back-and-forth I pasted below as a sort of comic strip (minute 31:21-31:38)

CONTEXT FOR THIS VIDEO:
I "spliced" this video together from 14 different videos on youtube -- the quality is rough, and I'm not 100% sure I got the clips in the original chronological order -- I edited out redundancies but there seem to be some missing parts and it ends abruptly.

CONTEXT OF THE GREGG ALLMAN BAND:
The Allman Brothers Band had signed to Arista Records in 1980, released 2 critically maligned albums in 1980-81, which the band themselves considered "embarrassing," and disbanded in early 1982 after playing a final performance on Saturday Night Live on January 23, 1982 (the Allman Brothers Band wouldn't play together again until April 1986). In February 1982 Gregg Allman formed the Gregg Allman Band with the Toler brothers and began touring.