Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock
Titolo: x J.Drake : lettera del batterista ABB

Paisa`, ecco una lettera apparsa oggi sul NY Times, con B.Trucks che
polemizza con un giornalista del Rolling Stone magazine.
******************
To the Editor:
I am a founding member and am still the drummer for the Allman Brothers
Band. In 35 years of playing music for the public, and especially
because of the nature of the music we played and the time and origin of
our group (late 60's, the Deep South), we have had more than our share
of controversy and criticism. I realize that this comes with the
territory and accept it for what it is. In these 35 years of criticism
I have read reviews and articles that run the gamut, but there has
always been one article that stands above all the rest as being the
single most mean-spirited piece of fiction ever written about us. It is
to journalism what an ant is to an aardvark. That is the Rolling Stone
article about the Allman Brothers Band written by Grover Lewis, which
is referred to in Roy Blount Jr.'s review of ''Splendor in the Short
Grass: The Grover Lewis Reader'' (April 3).
First, let me state unequivocally that Duane Allman was one of the most
powerful, charismatic and trustworthy men I have ever known. I would
use the word ''messianic'' to describe the impact he had on the people
around him, and his influence on music today runs much deeper than all
but a very few even begin to know. He was a man of the highest
character and principles, and for Blount to refer to him as ''one of
these churls'' is inexcusable. Blount also quotes Lewis's article about
us: ''At my teasing suggestion . . . Duane coldly offers to punch me
out on the spot.'' To put things in their proper perspective, I will
tell you exactly how Lewis, our ''fellow traveler,'' came to be
threatened.
Lewis joined our tour in 1971 at the insistence of our management. We
were a very closeknit group of musicians and had little use for all the
interviews, photo shoots and other such nonsense that went with the
image building that made for big-time rock 'n' roll success. I am sure
that our fellow traveler was used to bands falling all over themselves
at having one of the great writers from Rolling Stone magazine around.
He was somewhat taken aback by our lack of interest in his presence.
What he wound up writing under the guise of journalism could have been
humorous satire, at best, if it weren't for one very tragic fact: it
was published within weeks of Duane Allman's death, and the people at
Rolling Stone had time to pull the article but did nothing.
Lewis writes at one point about a conversation between me and Dickey
Betts about a book on Zen Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki. I asked Dickey if
he had read it. He said that he had and that it was too academic an
approach to a subject that had to be felt and experienced. Dickey and I
went on to discuss the book and the topic for some time. Lewis's
version was that I asked Dickey if he had read the book and Dickey's
response was, ''Yeah, good, ain't it.'' There actually was a
conversation that went somewhat like this later in Lewis's stay with
us. I had just bought a copy of Saul Bellow's ''Herzog.'' I asked our
fellow traveler if he had read the book. His answer? ''It's a good
book.''
In Lewis's article, all the dialogue among members of our group seemed
to be taken directly from Faulkner. We are from the South. We did and
still do have Southern accents. We are not stupid. The people in the
article were creations of Grover Lewis. They did not exist in reality.
Finally, Rolling Stone had sent Annie Leibovitz to photograph us. As I
said earlier, we were busy playing music, and photo sessions just got
in our way. We all had tattoos of a mushroom on our right calves. The
reasons for getting these tattoos were personal and had deep meaning
for us. Somehow Leibovitz had heard of them and asked if we would all
pull up our pant legs and line up so that she could shoot a photo of
the tattoos. We looked at one another and started to comply when Dickey
Betts pushed his pant leg down and said, ''No, this is silly.'' Our
fellow traveler's ''teasing suggestion'' was, ''It's no sillier than
getting a tattoo in the first place.'' This was the final straw for
Duane. That was when he looked Grover Lewis in the eye and said, ''One
more crack like that out of you and I'm gonna knock your block off.''
BUTCH TRUCKS

 ******************
Il vecchio Butch ha ragione.....A dispetto dell'incantesimo che si crea con 
l'atmosfera del Beacon a Marzo, bisogna dire che esiste sempre una certa 
tensione tra la stampa newyorkese e la ABB.
Nel corso di una recente intervista, Gregg Allman così rispose ad un tizio 
che si complimentò per la sua voce e forma dopo tutti questi anni di 
concerti ed abusi vari : "Hey man, io mica vivo a Times Square e mangio in 
ristoranti alla moda. Io vivo a Macon, Georgia. Belle donne, buona musica ed 
ottimo cibo."
Quasi quasi mi ci trasferisco anche io....gh