See Gregg Allman’s Sentimental ‘Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More’
For his new live CD/DVD Back to Macon, GA, Gregg Allman returned to the small riverside town where the Allman Brothers Band first got their start, jamming on psychedelics in the local cemetery; the same place where, in 1971, his older brother and legendary guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident. But today, Gregg Allman is even further south, in his childhood home of Daytona Beach, Florida, tending to matters in the wake of his mother’s recent death at 98 years old.
“I just got through picking out the urn for the ashes,” Allman says of the late Geraldine Allman, the woman known as “Mama A,” who helped her son find the 95 cents he needed to buy his first guitar at the local Sears and Roebuck, back when he was a teenager. There’s a weariness in his voice, though he can still erupt into cackles. “Just doing that funeral thing. She died in her sleep, so that’s a pretty good deal. I still marvel at the mere fact that I am alive, every morning.”
Maybe it is a miracle — somehow, through years of drug abuse, surgeries and sickness, he’s still on the road, touring behind the Gregg Allman Band, now his primary vehicle since the Allmans took their final bow at New York City’s Beacon Theater in 2014. Live recordings are nothing unusual for the band, but Back to Macon, Georgia, out today, is a special piece of resilience. Take this version of “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More,” premiering exclusively on Rolling Stone Country, that’s performed as a living, breathing entity, bolstered with dynamite horns and a vocal delivery from Allman that still sits in the perfect spot between bluesy grit and that soft, Southern touch that made hippies swirl.
Though he’s still yet to see the DVD, he actually contends that “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” is the one song he’s improved on since the taping. “That was very early on. I’ve perfected it since,” he says, rattling off every member of his band, including his bass player, Ron Johnson, whose hometown he insists is spelled “N’awlins”; ace guitarist Scott Sharrard; and drummer Steve Potts, the “clock man” who keeps them all in the pocket. “If you play a song a few beats too fast, the groove goes out the window. It’s easy to start off fast because you’re all full of adrenaline. Used to be drugs,” says Allman. He’s clean now — no booze, no gluten.
Originally appearing on 1972’s Eat a Peach, Allman recorded “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” after his brother’s tragic death: lyrics like “you don’t need no gypsy to tell you why/you can’t let one precious day slip by” came to hold a new resonance after the accident. Despite the heavy presence of the Allman family spirit at the taping — some of Duane’s instruments were on hand and Gregg’s son, Devon, made an appearance — the Back to Macon version is pretty revelatory, boosted by “some old-school horn arranging with just a touch of echo” and Sharrard’s whiplash guitar, which tightly noodles but builds in plenty of space, too, just like Allman likes it.