Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.
Narrated by Dan Miller
Alan PaulUnabridged — 11 hours, 4 minutes
Narrated by Dan Miller
Alan PaulUnabridged — 11 hours, 4 minutes
Free with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime
Already Subscribed?
Sign in to Your BN.com Account
FREE
with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription
Alan Paul's One Way Out…is nothing fancy, but its alternating-voices format lays the band's mottled history out with a convincing sense of how its triumphs and hard times were wholly interwoven. The book's virtue is the way its democratic ethos mirrors that of the Allmans' racially integrated, communal aspect: The roadies play nearly as large a part in the story as the band members themselves.
10/28/2013
Music writer Paul catches up with the legendary band in this entertaining, compulsively readable oral history of the Allman Brothers. Through interviews with every member of the band except Duane Allman and original bassist Berry Oakley, their friends and music associates, as well as in sidebars about various aspects of the band’s history and a “highly opinionated” discography, Paul traces the ups and downs of the band and its music from Duane’s and Gregg’s early bands in Jacksonville, Fla., the earliest days of the Allman Brothers as they developed their signature sound with the original members of the band, Duane’s side projects with Derek and the Dominoes and Muscle Shoals, through the deaths of Duane and Berry in the early ’70s to the various incarnations of the Allman Brothers over the past 20 years. In many ways, Duane’s ghost haunts the book. As Gregg recalls of his brother: “He was always up to something… he either had his head in a book, his arm around a woman, or his arm around a guitar and it was singing to him.” According to original drummer Jaimoe Johnson: “After Duane died, a lot changed. Everyone wanted to be Duane, but no one knew how to do shit except play music.” On the mystique and power of the Allman Brothers’ music, Dickey Betts reflects: “We seemed to have the longevity of an elephant.” (Feb.)
This pot-stirring oral history reads like a backstory of how musical lightning comes to be. All of the surviving band members get to have their say.” —Rolling Stone
“Alan has a way with narrative that just draws you in without using the single-level storyline used by other writers who have attempted telling the Allman Brothers Band’s story. He gets right to the hows and whys that give his narrative real substance. Enjoy and become enlightened.” —Butch Trucks, the Allman Brothers Band (From the Foreword)
“No journalist knows the ins and outs of the Allman Brothers Band better than Alan Paul.” —Warren Haynes, the Allman Brothers Band
“I learned so much reading One Way Out. If you want to know the real deal, read Alan Paul.” —Oteil Burbridge, the Allman Brothers Band
“Allman Brothers, unvarnished . . . [Alan Paul]'s vast trove of interviews allows the band to tell its own story.” —Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Alan Paul is one of America's foremost experts on the Allman Brothers Band. For the past twenty years, he has written informative, comprehensive articles on the band, and he truly understands the essence of their significance. It's great to see him release this chronicle.” —E.J. Devokaitis, Curator / Archivist, Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House
“Alan Paul's One Way Out is a brilliantly detailed all-access pass to the Allman Brothers Band. Using his numerous personal interviews with the band members themselves—both past and present—as well as an almost endless entourage of friends, family members, roadies, managers, promoters, booking agents, record label executives, and fellow musicians, Alan Paul has successfully created the definitive ABB biography.” —Randy Poe, author of Skydog: The Duane Allman Story
“One Way Out is perhaps the most in-depth look at one of America's most beloved, but thoroughly dysfunctional ensembles. Engrossing reading . . . Alan Paul has written about the Allmans for the last 25 years, and his depth of knowledge shows. The stories are salty, unfiltered, and straight from the horse's mouth. The word 'definitive' gets tossed around so often it has lost some of its meaning, but this 400-page journey into the heart of rock and roll darkness deserves the accolade.” —Guitar World Magazine
“No matter what you think you know about the Allman Brothers Band, One Way Out is bound to be revelatory on many levels . . . This is essential reading that strips away the myth to expose all the moving parts in vivid detail.” —Seattle PI
“Music writer Paul catches up with the legendary band in this entertaining, compulsively readable oral history of the Allman Brothers. Duane's ghost haunts the book.” —Publishers Weekly
“Perhaps no music journalist has written as extensively about the Allman Brothers Band as Paul, who has tracked the rock group's career for 25 years. And his deep familiarity with the band and its music shows everywhere in this fluid account. Augmented by photos and fascinating sidebars, this candid oral history has appeal beyond the Allman Brothers Band's loyal fan base.” —Booklist, starred review
“With this fine work, Alan Paul accomplishes the admirable feat of delving the depths of the Allman Brothers, a great aggregation of talent and artistry. He puts together the sweeping picture of how these gifted individuals with their special Southern stylishness created something utterly unique to the world. Rock on.” —Billy F Gibbons, ZZ Top
“Open this book to any page, start reading, and I dare you to stop. Alan Paul captures all the momentum and energy of the Allman Brothers' long, wild ride, which continues at a breakneck pace. One Way Out? There's no way out of this rollicking narrative until, with regret, you reach the end.” —Anthony DeCurtis, Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone
“I was struck by the similarities between the Doors and Allman Brothers, especially in our origins—the Eureka moment of certainty amidst a jam. Alan lets the people who were actually there tell the story, and I couldn't put it down. Great read!” —Robby Krieger, The Doors
“Like a master bandleader, Alan Paul orchestrates a bluesy, jazzy, rocking chorale of voices telling the tale of a brotherhood under stress and a band who got what they hardly realized they wanted, lost what they had and fought a decades-long struggle to get it back.” —Charles Shaar Murray, author of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop and Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker
“Paul's One Way Out is a fresh, intelligently arranged, and satisfyingly complete telling of the lengthy (and unlikely) history of the group that almost singlehandedly brought rock up to a level of jazz-like sophistication and virtuosity, introducing it as a medium worthy of the soloist's art. Oral histories can be tricky things: either penetrating, delivering information and backstories that get to the heart of how timeless music was made. Or too often, they lie flat on the page, a random retelling of repeated facts and reheated yarns. I'm happy to say that Paul's is in that first category.” —Ashley Kahn, author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album
“Paul's book presents the most complete and detailed telling of the band's still-unfolding saga to date. Elizabeth Reed, Melissa and Jessica would also probably agree.” —Houston Press
“Though enough tomes have been published about the Allmans' troubled history to deforest half of Brazil, only Paul's book gets all the principal figures assessing and confessing. However open and moving Gregg Allman's autobio from 2012 may have been, Paul's book gives a much fuller picture of the dynamics that drive every member — including why guitarist Dickey Betts remains so vexing.” —New York Daily News
"The author doesn't pull punches, but all involved should find it fair as well as comprehensive." —Kirkus Starred Review
06/01/2014
Guitar World magazine writer Paul (Big in China), who has written about eclectic Southern rock pioneers the Allman Brothers Band for over two decades, recounts the notoriously dysfunctional group's nearly 50-year-long saga in this extensive collection of interviews with past and present band members, collaborators, managers, producers, roadies, and even a few fans. This chronologically linear oral history offers an impressively candid, in-depth, and balanced look at the various intraband feuds, radical lineup changes, legal problems, drug abuse, and tragic deaths that have threatened to derail the band from the very beginning. The book's emotional core is the death of 27-year-old guitar genius and band cofounder Duane Allman, who perished in a 1971 motorcycle accident just as the group was becoming a commercial and creative force. Duane's spirit pervades the entire book, and he is mentioned in many of the conversations. Dan John Miller narrates with a heavy Southern drawl that hardly varies in tone from one contributor to another. This is a minor complaint about an overall satisfying audiobook. VERDICT Recommended to rock music fans seeking insight into the Allman Brothers' long and drama-filled career.—Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia
From their dirt-poor beginnings in Macon, Georgia, to their addiction-plagued years as ‘70s superstars, the Allman Brothers often appeared to be cursed—especially after leader Duane Allman died in a tragic motorcycle crash in 1971. This biography leaves no stone unturned as it recounts the Allman saga through the candid reflections of those who were actually there. All is rendered in Dan John Miller’s laconic drawl, which lays bare the band’s roots and captures the perpetually stoned haze that surrounded them. A small complaint might be that Miller doesn’t vary his tone enough, and even characters outside of the band’s immediate orbit sound Southern fried—but it’s somewhat fitting considering how integral that ethos was to the soul of the band. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
★ 2013-11-26
"I have viewed everything with the eyes and ears of a journalist but the heart and soul of a fan," writes Guitar World senior writer Paul (Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing, 2011), who spent decades and hundreds of interviews earning the trust of musicians who didn't always trust each other. "The Allman Brothers Band, I believe, has no equal." One need not share the author's belief in the band's supremacy to find its story engrossing. The majority of the book takes the form of oral history, which on other projects might sometimes seem slapdash and lazy but here proves crucial, for there are so many different perspectives--on everything from the band's name to leadership and songwriting credits--that having dozens of different voices serves readers well. Nobody disagrees on the overwhelming talent, inspiration and legacy of guitarist Duane Allman, who formed the band, saw it coalesce into something special, and died recklessly and young before the music reached its popular peak. Explains one fellow musician, "Duane died just on the downstroke of the diving board, as the band was about to launch." The loss of Duane and founding bassist Berry Oakley a year later would have brought an end to a less determined band, but the ABB somehow flourished despite a leadership void and decades of tensions exacerbated by drugs and alcohol. Perhaps the most complex relationship was between Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts, as the former was never considered an equal partner with his brother, and the latter resented the implications of the band's name as he attempted to fill the guitar void and rule more by dictatorship than the universal respect Duane commanded. In the wake of Betts' departure and Gregg's sobriety, the responsibility has largely shifted to a new generation of guitarists, as the band improbably boasts its strongest dynamic since its original leader's death. The author doesn't pull punches, but all involved should find it fair as well as comprehensive.
| BN ID: | 2940171010744 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 02/26/2014 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
I’ve been a lifelong reader, but my other love has always been music (don’t tell books or my boss that I might love music a little bit more). I remember waiting for my favorite songs to play on the radio so I could record them on a tape, years later making the perfect mixed CD […]
