The Allman Brothers from their "The 1971 Fillmore East recordings" album cover
In the 1960’s, brothers Phil and Alan Walden found a niche
in the music business as managers of regional R&B talents, including
Clarence Carter, Johnny Jenkins and local treasure Otis Redding. Initial plans
for a record label that’d revolve around Redding had to be reconsidered after
the singer’s 1967 passing.
Phil’s music business involvement often paired him with
Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler. Through that work relationship, he discovered a
different building block for a Georgia-based imprint in Atlantic session
musician Duane Allman.
Beginnings
Duane, his brother Gregg Allman and the rest of The Allman Brothers Band relocated from Jacksonville, Fl. to Macon in 1969 to become the cornerstone for Phil Walden and co-founder Frank Fenter’s Atlantic/ATCO Records-distributed Capricorn Records. The Allmans and their supporting cast need no introduction as classic rock artists, bluesy proto-Americana innovators or the granddaddies of the jam band scene.
Late ’60s and early ’70s releases by The Allman Brothers,
Bonnie Bramblett, Wet Willie and others served as stepping stones for Southern
rock as it emerged from the smoky clubs that hosted both country music and the
blues. After the smash success of the 1971 Allman Brothers live album At
Fillmore East, Walden moved the label to Warner Bros. Despite the 1972 death of
Duane Allman and the Allman Brothers’ short-lived 1976 breakup, the Southern
rock imprint barely lost a step as the home of
The Marshall Tucker Band, Cowboy, Elvin Bishop, Dixie Dregs, Stillwater
and even country singer Billy Joe Shaver.
From outside of the South and Southwest came heavy rock
supergroup Captain Beyond, a psychedelic answer to Black Sabbath called White
Witch and two of James Taylor’s brothers, Livingston and Alex. Those exceptions
aside, the Capricorn catalog reminds us that Southern rock was the Americana of
its time–a country and rock-leaning interpretation of regional folk and popular
sounds.
Although these acts probably held bluegrass masters, the
Rolling Stones, country blues greats and peers like Charlie Daniels in similar
regard, each sounded at least a little different from their label mates. For
example, The Marshall Tucker Band’s guitarist and lead songwriter Toy Caldwell
and Wet Willie’s frontman Jimmy Hall were cut from similar musical cloth, but
their bands had separate identities from their label mates.
Second Helping
Changing trends and other factors forced Capricorn’s final distributor of its original run, Polygram, to cut ties in 1979. Walden rebooted the label in Nashville in 1990. The success that followed built around Athens, Ga.’s own Southern-flavored jam band giants, Widespread Panic. Their label mates ranged from Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit and Lynyrd Skynyrd to 311 and Cake. Kenny Chesney’s debut album In My Wildest Dreams was also released on the label in 1994.
Decades later, the label’s original run represents a
creatively free time when hippies and rockers took country and roots sounds to
a broader audience as Southern rockers, “newgrass” pickers and members of some
of the earliest jam bands.
SOURCE: Wide Open Country
