Duane Allman’s final concert with Allman Brothers to be released for the first time

Gregg Allman and his fellow Allman Brothers bandmates have announced the forthcoming release of ‘The Final Note’ LP. Image: Shutterstock/Sterling Munksgard

A portion of the final concert of Allman Brothers’ late frontman Duane Allman will be released for the first time in the new LP “The Final Note”, which will arrive on Oct. 16.

Allman’s final performance with the rock band took place on Oct. 17, 1971 at the Painters Mill Music Fair in Owings Mills, Maryland, just 12 days before the musician tragically lost his life at the age of 24 in a motorcycle incident.

The tape for “The Final Note” was captured on a handheld cassette by Sam Idas, a then 18-year-old radio journalist who attended the concert to interview the Allman Brothers Band.

“I was sitting there with the recorder in my lap and I remember thinking, ‘Why don’t I try this out? I can record the concert!’ It was a totally spontaneous decision. I’d been to many concerts, but this was the only time I had the thought — and the motivation — to record the show,” Idas commented in a statement.

The recording was unearthed a few years ago, when Idas’s old roommate asked him if he still had the concert on a tape.

“Despite the obvious limitations that come with a 50-year-old cassette tape, modern technological enhancements help restore the magic of this significant night,” the band said in a statement.

“The Final Note” will feature live recordings of the band’s “Whipping Post”, “Statesboro Blues”, “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” and the instrumental track “Hot ‘Lanta”.

An accompanying booklet will also include never-before-published photos from the show, liner notes from band archivist John Lynskey as well as a photo of the cassette Idas used to capture the performance.

Aside from releasing “The Final Note”, the Allman Brothers will concurrently release a live EP capturing their July 19, 2005 show in Erie, Pennsylvania, which has long been hailed as “one of their best ever by the band members themselves.”

“Ultimately, I knew it had been a great night when they started coming off the stage and everyone was like, ‘Man, that was a great show!’ I remember Oteil and Derek particularly being pumped about it, Haynes was pleased, and Butch was just raving about how over-the-top the show was,” Bert Holman, the band’s manager since 1991, recalled in a statement. “They all told me that they needed a copy of the show, which says a lot right there.”  CC

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