1) Unofficial recording of the March 30, 1969
concert at the Jacksonville Beach Armory, Jacksonville, FL. Reese Wynans plays organ.
2) Randy Poe: 'Skydog - The Duane Allman Story' (2006, page
109).
According to Reese Wynans 'The New Second Coming' (Reese Wynans, Larry
Rheinhart, Monty Young and John Meeks) was the feature act and Duane
Allman's band (Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe, Dickey
Betts and Gregg Allman), called 'Beelzebub' before the name was changed to
'The Allman Brothers Band', was the opening act.
3)
Scott Freeman: 'Midnight Riders - The Story Of The Allman Brothers Band',
page 45
(Little, Brown & Company, 1995): ...Gregg reached Jacksonville on March 26, 1969...
...Three days later there was a concert in Jacksonville's Beach Coliseum. The group was billed as "Duane and Gregg Allman, Berry Oakley, Dickey and
all the rest formally [sic]
of the Second Coming." And those who plopped down the $2.50
admission can say they witnessed the debut of the Allman Brothers Band...
COMMENT: Scott Freeman was writing about these posters (click to enlarge):
But March 29, 1969 was not on a Sunday, but on a Saturday. And
in 1969 Easter Sunday was not on March 29, but on April 6.
And at that time the band was still thinking about a name. The
used 'Beelzebub' before the name was changed to 'The Allman Brothers Band'.
It seems that these posters are not from 1969, but from 1970: in 1970 Easter
Sunday was on March 29.
But the concert database on www.allmanbrothersband.com shows that The Allman
Brothers Band played at the Jackson Zoo in Jackson, MS on March 29, 1970:
https://allmanbrothersband.com/event/abb19700329/
This bootleg purports to be a “Second Coming” gig supposedly performed by
the fledgling ABB just four days after the famous “Jacksonville Jam” when
the ABB was allegedly officially formed. Duane, Dickey, Berry, Butch and
Jaimo are all there, but Gregg is not, Reese Wynans is on keyboards. Dale
Betts is also on vocals on one track however, and in the band introductions
on track 3 of disc 2 the MC introduces all of the above except for Berry,
saying "Richard" on Bass, who I believe to be Richard Price (previously of
"The Load"). It has also been said that Larry Reinhardt (later of "Iron
Butterfly") may also be on some of the tracks.
All of the above led me to believe that this "show" was actually an
amalgamation of recordings from more than one gig, something that has now
been confirmed by Richard Price himself, who wrote the following:
I am Richard Price you spoke of above who was in THE LOAD. I was also in
the 2nd version of THE SECOND COMING (after Dickey and Berry left). The
music you have, and it is probably very rough, is a mixture of several gigs.
Some of the tunes were at the CEDAR HILLS ARMORY. The tunes where you
described an MC naming me instead of Berry were at THE JACKSONVILLE COLISEUM
in Jacksonville beach. The dates are different depending on which venue we
were at. I have all the dates. They were all in 1969 though within a few
months of each other. I can look up the exact dates of each gig later.
The term the Jacksonville Jam has been misrepresented for 40 some years.
There was no one Jacksonville Jam. There were many jams over a period of
months. During one of those jams the configuration of what became the ABB
was on stage. We recorded many nights of jams. There were several intense
nights. After one of those nights there happened to be a jam that Duane was
particularly impressed by and the future ABB members happened to be in that
jam.
The tapes you have are shows done by THE LOAD & the 1st version of THE
SECOND COMING (with Dickey, Dale, John Meeks, Berry, and Reese). These two
bands threw the jams and Jaimoe, Duane & Butch Trucks were guests sitting
in. This is why you don't hear Gregg. He wasn't in town yet. Some of the
tunes you are listening to were 60's cover songs by the 1st Second Coming.
Some of the other tunes were Jacksonville jams. I don't know if you have
them all. You'd have to give me a list.
Berry and I traded basses all night in these jams. The members of the LOAD
were, Richard Price (me), Larry Reinhardt, & Monty Young. So it is true that
Larry is on some of these jams.
I have the masters of all of this music and I am going to improve them in
sound quality as best I can and put them out along with the never released
SECOND COMING album. The Load took John Meeks and Reese and added them to
the Load to form a new band after Dickey and Berry left and we kept the name
SECOND COMING because 3 of the 5 of us had been in the 1st version. It also
was a big draw.
Subsequent to the above, Richard was provided with the following track
listing and commented further as below:
CD 1:
1. Don't Want You No More
2. Rock Me Baby
3. Crossroads
4. Born In Chicago
5. Willie Jean Jam
6. Born Under A Bad Sign
CD 2:
1. She Has Funny Cars
2. Hey Joe (Duane on vocals)
3. New Shoes Blues > introductions
4. Travellin' Music Jam
As far as the song list above, the first 7 are the original SECOND COMING
(with Dickey and Berry still in it). The next two are one of the
Jacksonville jams at the Cedar Hills Armory. I was playing bass with Duane
and Rhino on those. Dickey sang the Shoes Blues one and Duane sang Hey Joe.
The last one was live at the Jacksonville Beach Coliseum. I was playing bass
on that as well. That's the one with the MC (Alan Facemier our manager).
There is a long 19 min jam that is missing from your collection. It may have
been one of the ones Duane talked about inspiring him to start the ABB. I
think there may be one more I haven't heard yet. I am trying to get it. The
tapes you have have been copied over and over again to the point of bad
distortion. I have the originals and plan to create a CD set called the
Birth of Southern Rock as soon as I can clean them up.
One thing I want to make clear. Out of all of the Jacksonville jams, we
would go home after playing until sunrise and stay up and listen to the
music from the night before. There were several long spontaneous jams with
different people trading places playing. I have a 19 minute one that the
tape ran out on so it was really longer than that. Duane loved all of those
long jams but I think that one of them may have stood out more to him. It
probably had the original guys who would become the ABB without Gregg in
that particular jam. Gregg was not in town yet for most of the jams. What
I'm saying is that one jam may have made him make his final decision on who
he would start the band with and when Gregg hit town they started rehearsing
their original tunes which were mostly Gregg and Dickey's. You could call
that The Jacksonville Jam but it has to stay in context of many jams that
formed the dual and triple part harmonys on guitars. Those harmony guitar
ideas started spontaneously in the jams between Dickey, Rhino & Duane. Later
when they began to put songs together, they used these harmony ideas as part
of their arrangements that the world fell in love with.
Richard Hombre Price
Update February 7,
2016:
Richard Hombre Price wrote
the following on Facebook about 'Hey Joe':
It was not recorded at
the Jacksonville Beach Colosseum. It was recorded at The Cedar Hills Armory.
I was playing bass, Butch on drums, Jaimoe on congas, Reese Wynans on keys,
Larry Rhino Reinhardt is the second guitarist on this cut. It was not March
30th. We played there at least twice. It was one of the Load and Second
Coming jams. Butch lived in town and was jamming and Duane and Jaimoe had
come from Muscle Shoals for a visit and jammed with us while there. I was
standing next to Duane. It was either the jam we did there before Gregg
arrived or he had arrived and did not play. I remember him coming to this
venue with us when he got to town. So, that means it is not later than March
26 and in my mind it was one of the ones before he arrived. You can hear
when Duane's guitar goes quiet. His cord went bad and Rhino played some
licks until you hear a buzz where Duane plugged back in and finished the
song. I remember Duane sitting around with us playing along with the Hendrix
record and you can hear this beautiful combination of Duane and Hendrix's
style. It is rare that Duane is singing at all and singing in unison and in
harmony with himself is even rarer. He called that song spontaneously at the
jam that night. There are may bootleg versions of this, most of which are
very bad quality because of being copied so many times and passed around. I
have the first generation copies made from our manager Mr. Facemier's reel
to reel who recorded much of the live stuff that made it from that time. Two
mics in front of the stage left and right and a reel to reel. You are
listening to the music, called Southern Rock today, being formed. I have
taken pictures of all the boxes of the Facemier reel to reel recordings of
the first Second Coming, The Load, and the 2nd Second Coming. There are some
dates and info on them.
