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Play All Night!: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East by Bob Beatty (review)

2023; Southern Historical Association; Volume: 89; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/soh.2023.a903242

2325-6893

Christopher M. Reali,

Archaeology and Natural History

Reviewed by: Play All Night!: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East by Bob Beatty Christopher M. Reali Play All Night!: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East. By Bob Beatty. ( Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2022. Pp. xiv, 257. $28.00, ISBN 978-0-8130-6950-0.) When historians select a topic to research and write about, one of the required tasks for the expedition is figuring out how much critical distance they need to put between themselves and their subject. On the first page of Play All Night!: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East, Bob Beatty states that he is "far from unbiased" when it comes to his subject and is a "hardcore" fan of the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) (p. ix). "I did my best to walk the line between historian and fan carefully," Beatty writes in the preface. "But in the end, I was simply unable to fully extricate myself from the love of my subject matter" (p. xiii). Beatty also states that he hopes that "what [readers] perceive as gaps in this book's analysis inspires thought and … additional research opportunities" (p. xiii). I have thoughts, and ultimately found that Beatty's book does not hit the note because of this unabashed devotion to the ABB. Play All Night! is centered on the genesis of the ABB and the tragically brief period when all the original members were alive, with an epilogue that addresses the band's later history. Other authors have written about the band, albeit from different angles, and Beatty, unsurprisingly, leans heavily on those sources. The fifteen chapters of Play All Night! chronicle, often in a blow-by-blow style, the journey of Duane Allman, his younger brother, Gregg, and the other four original members of the band from their amateur days to recording [End Page 612] the legendary album At Fillmore East (1971). Since its initial release, critics and fans have celebrated At Fillmore East as a document that captured the excitement of what the ABB had been doing in live performances. The album sold well, helping place the ABB in a brighter national spotlight. Beatty's contribution is telling this story by weaving together portions from seemingly every source available connected to the ABB that included quotations from band members, record label executives, music critics, journalists, and fans. The text suffers from Beatty's limited interpretation of the events covered. Quotations from band members and others often go without scrutiny. In sections that address music, race, and the South, Beatty rarely unpacks ideas expressed by his sources, and when he does the analyses lack depth. The bibliography includes many of the standard texts related to the broad subject area Beatty covers, but in footnotes the sources for entire paragraphs are often just listed in chronological order with no specific page references, or referred to in one case as "some of my other favorite books on the subject" (p. 220). The ABB was known for extended instrumental jams, and for many, including Beatty, the band's lengthy improvisations became synonymous with jazz. While discussing the connections between improvisation and jazz and situating the ABB within these topics, Beatty makes no reference to foundational scholarship on improvisation by Charles M. H. Keil and Paul F. Berliner or my own detailed analysis of the ABB's musical style. One brief section I did find particularly compelling was Beatty's interpretation of how FM radio stations helped propel albums like At Fillmore East up the sales charts. Play All Night! will primarily appeal to die-hard ABB fans, but historians will have questions. Christopher M. Reali Ramapo College of New Jersey Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association