Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Jessica - Allman Brothers

Random Theme: Songs Named After Girls


[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfM6nRVBvGs]


This is the first (and possibly only) song in this series that's an instrumental. The girl's name isn't mentioned once in the song. It was written primarily by Dickey Betts, though, he worked with Les Dudek on some of the writing as well. Dudek joined the Allmans after Duane Allman's death. The song is written for Betts' daughter, Jessica. A later rendition of the song won a Grammy in 1996; twenty-three years after the band first released it.


The song obviously has a lot of fancy guitar work in it, and it sits right in the soul of southern rock. It's a complicated song to master, and it's not one on which you can really fake the instrumentation. You pretty much have to have the rhythm section, plus keys and at least the two guitars for the twin licks. I'm sure people do it with less, but if you want to capture that sound, you need it. This is a crazy tight live performance of the song, really showing you how much talent is on stage.

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