When we last spoke in December of 2016, you mentioned having a future decision to make: when to release this album relative to Southern Blood’s release. I like how the title, perhaps coincidentally, refers to saving grace, especially in light of Gregg’s passing.
The song, “Saving Grace,” I wrote about three years ago. It’s definitely my favorite song on the record. I definitely consciously held the release of this record to let the Southern Blood album cycle play itself out. I didn’t know if Gregg was going to survive the album cycle. He passed in May of 2017. I really wanted to participate in the promotion of Southern Blood, and I did a little bit. I don’t believe Southern Blood was properly marketed. The story of Gregg’s band and our work with Don Was as a collaboration was the real story behind the album. That story was lost. I ultimately believe we didn’t win the Grammy, at least one of the reasons, because we didn’t have anyone fighting for us in the trenches, in terms of publicity, like they should have been to get Gregg and our team- our tour manager, Vid, Gregg’s best friend, Chank, the Gregg Allman Band- and the coordination between Gregg, Don, and me that acknowledgment. I don’t consider myself a sideman on that project. I consider myself a part of it; a member. Our band is like a family, not a bunch of hired guns. We got great reviews, but a lot of the best stories haven’t been told.
And with the recording of “Everything a Good Man Needs,” you have your own special story because you held off releasing it.
When the Grammy’s were coming up (in 2018), Taj Mahal had heard a demo of a song Gregg and I wrote, and he called at said he wanted to record it. Chank had played it for him. While Taj was in (New York) for the Grammys we got him in the studio. And, that’s the eleventh song on Saving Grace: “Everything a Good Man Needs.” It was a song we were hoping to include on Southern Blood but we ran out of time. I was really proud to have Taj sing it. He was definitely Gregg’s favorite singer and good friend. So, there is that turning of the page- from Southern Blood to Saving Grace. In some ways, I look at them as companion albums.
And to my ears, it sounds like Taj is even doing a few of Gregg’s moves.
The demo I gave to Taj was one of Gregg and me playing it with acoustic guitars in his living room. It was definitely the final version. When we were recording it for the album, Taj referenced Gregg one time. We stopped in between lines and Taj was saying how he really liked how Gregg did it on the demo and he was going to do it like that. There were a couple of moments when he was paying homage to Gregg. And, he was kind of paying it back. Think of how many Taj licks Gregg would sing. We also had Bernard Purdie, the legendary session drummer, playing on it too. The main thing was to do something that would make Gregg proud. Because Taj and Bernard gave such great performances, it really raised the bar and made for a beautiful tribute. I’m very proud that it got included.
The album as a whole has both a contemporary and classic sound; vintage soul within a rock framework. How did you achieve that balance?
I call this stuff real rock-and-roll. If you listen to real rock-and-roll- all the stuff I love: Little Feat, The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, even Pink Floyd- they’ll take it in all kinds of musical directions. But the blues is the flavor you keep coming back to. You’ve got to have that feel. Soul music, rhythm and blues, country; it all comes together. I listen to Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix with equal attention and respect as I have for Otis Redding or Ray Charles. Soul is that unifying principle.
And certainly, this is a guitar album.
The song comes first. You build around the song. I was very methodical as far as guitar improvisation. I wanted to get the best possible guitar sound that I could. I consciously decided at the beginning of the process that I was going to overdub every guitar solo, which is unusual for me. I usually do them do them live on the floor. I’m really glad I did it (differently) this time. It allowed me to get deeper into the song, and get the guitar tones dialed in. I think it works well on the record.
You have a solo career you have built, but your time with Gregg, even today, included roles as a musical director, songwriter, musician, and especially in the last few years, a spokesman of sorts for Gregg. How difficult has it been to handle those roles?
There are two sides to that. One, it’s indescribably difficult to lose a friend and musical mentor like what I went through with Gregg. It can be painful. Didn’t Gregg nail it with that line- ‘I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul when I’m gone.’ That was one of the best. I was sitting across a coffee table from him in his hotel on the Upper East Side (of New York) when he wrote that. I’ll never forget the moment when he wrote those words down. I knew he was going to die, at that point. Two, the weight of history is weighing on all of us in the musical community now. It’s also a good question for Warren Haynes or Derek Trucks, or anybody else leading a band in the wake of losing people like Gregg, or Prince, David Bowie, or Tom Petty. When they leave the earth they leave a massive hole behind. An unfillable hole. I feel like I have something to offer in the same way you get something from seeing Warren’s or Derek’s band. We’re part of that musical family, carrying it forward, and trying to push the boundaries the best we can hope for.
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