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.

Last chance wildflower tromp

Friday afternoon, tromping around Red Rock Canyon before the wildflower blooms fade. Last chance to see the beautiful wildflower bloom! Today it shot into the 90s & 100s++ and expected to stay hot until September.

 

 

After tromping around Red Rock Canyon, looking at flora and fauna and rock formations until sunset, ended up at a place that [on paper] had looked quaint and atmospheric, and in reality could be the site of a very scary movie.

The place is a a former Nevada State Park with horseback-riding, restaurant moto-lodge with rooms for rent, and a petting zoo--horrific petting zoo, gauging from the frightful discontented animal noises coming from behind the gate, padlocked by the time I got there. It may just have been peacocks, but in the near-dark it was bone-chilling, especially given the restaurant and over by an old sun-cracked stage coach a hand-painted sign: "Beware Zombies." (did it mean that zombies had better beware because they will be taken out? or that humans had better beware of roving zombies.

Built in the early '60s in Olde Western saloon style--walking up to the side door, next to an olive green "stream" with a waterfall and ducks with stained green feet, "Sweet Home Alabama" thumped. Walked in, the bar area was covered with $1 bills. All over the ceiling, walls, and columns? The music was coming from the Dining Room. 

Doing a great job of vocally channeling the van Sants, in a tight Nudie-type Western shirt, dancing off-beat, moving from one foot to the other, like a white frat boy, was a strapping black man. It was confusing and discomfiting. I sat down and noticed everyone was very Western, with those dried apple faces -- both men and women, but the men had hats and the women had lipstick.  I realized then my ride in the parking lot was the only one that wasn't a pickup truck or motorcycle.

I figured I could dig it. But the next guy, in a white Stetson, in his early 70s, got up on the rostrum, and after a corny karaoke musical intro, he launched into the lyrics f a country song...about....Dixie. Them good old days, etc.

The waitress hadn't come over in the span of 3 songs I was there, so I figured no one would mind terribly if I sidled back out the door, past the slime pond, screaming peacocks, and the pack of feral kids loping around in the gloaming. Past the trucks and bikes. Bowed out just as the remaining light dimmed down to dark, gunning it to get past the zombie children of the desert corn.