The percussion starts it off, Butch on the kettle drum, a steady beat, then Duane and Dickey noodling on their guitars, playing back and forth, call and response, like preachers do with hymns. Berry joins in with his bass guitar, Gregg layers in the organ, and then Butch and Jaimoe tap the edge of the snare or the hi-hat, stating the time, keeping it, daring the crowd to guess what they’re about to play. Some already know and are cheering them on — get going — but they tease us while kids catcall and whistle and jump up and down. Play it!
When they’ve hinted at the melody just enough, the fans start screaming for it — screaming like they’re on fire. They clap in time, one-one-one-one, every single note, until Duane breaks into the full melody and the whole band follows. A cheer rises up like Moses has just parted the Red Sea. The organ wails and the Allman Brothers Band takes us to the Promised Land.
It’s Donovan’s song “There Is a Mountain” — I recognize it. But it’s theirs, too, their own interpretation, a mountain jam. It’s tight. It’s in the pocket. They are locked into one another like they share one nervous system, communicating like they’re all a part of the same body, like nothing I’ve ever imagined was possible.
“It’s all about listening,” Mr. McCauley always tells us in band. “You can’t jam if you can’t listen.”
Last night, Jai — Jaimoe — added, Don’t think it, feel it.
Seems to me, everyone feels it. The crowd is part of the band, the band is part of the crowd, everyone moving in time, together.
The drums become my heartbeat, and now I understand how to play them — like a life force.
Well into the groove, after everyone in the band has played smoking solos that ride the top of the beat, the song “Shenandoah” creeps into the jam and runs through it. Then, seamlessly, “May the Circle Be Unbroken” plays to the cheers of the crowd, until, quietly, Donovan’s mountain creeps back in to make a real circle of the song.
Everyone is moving, dancing, arms flying above them or entwined with the person next to them. With an incredible crescendo, the guitars scream, the organ wails, the bass roars, and the drums propel all of us to the finish. Amen. Amen. Amen.
“Amen!” shouts Marvin Gardens. I had forgotten he was there. I had forgotten anyone else was there, or maybe it was just that, for a timeless moment, there had been no separation between any of us.
“Thank you!” calls Duane, his guitar slung around his neck, and his hand gripping the microphone. “We’re the Allman Brothers Band. Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Jai Johany Johanson, Gregg Allman, and I’m Duane Allman. Thank you!”
THERE IS A MOUNTAIN
Written by Donovan Leitch
Performed by Donovan
Recorded at CBS Studios, London, England, 1967
Percussion: Tony Carr
MOLLY
What a lot of noise. They are completely ruining Donovan’s song. They’re not even singing the words!
Then there is this kid with a flute who is playing the melody in the crowd and gets all these other kids to trail after him like he’s Pan, the Greek god of shepherds, and he’s leading his sheep to the meadow. It’s such a long train I can’t get past it to find Norman, and when I finally do, I discover him in a gaggle of kids behind the band. He’s lying under a tree on the grass near the drummer, Jai — so obviously he found him first, but he’s lying there with his eyes shut and his arms out like he’s Jesus blessing the lambs. Or maybe like he’s been knocked out. I notice he’s barefoot.
I shake him and call out, “Norman!” but he doesn’t budge. The band is so loud and the guitars are screaming at each other and the drummers are trying to see who can be the loudest and there is no song!
“He’s okay!” shouts Marvin Gardens, who is standing there weaving and bopping over Norman like a lunatic. “He’s diggin’ it. He’ll be back.”
“Where are his shoes?”
Marvin Gardens shrugs. “Somewhere.”
I cover my ears. “I’m going to the house!” I shout. Marvin Gardens waves a loopy hand in acknowledgment and I pick my way around all the hippies and find my way out of there. I see a short kid in blue jeans wearing Norman’s shoes. Or at least I think they’re Norman’s shoes — they are way too big for this kid. But I keep walking. I am not the keeper of my cousin’s shoes.
If I live to be a hundred, I will never understand this music.
NORMAN
I’m slammed instantly back to earth and rush the stage as soon as Duane announces the end. There’s no room to move, with all the equipment, but I thread my way to the front of Jaimoe’s kit anyway and … I just stand there, mute. I don’t even know what to say. I have my drums in the bus — wanna jam? How can I learn to play like that? Take me with you!
Jaimoe is mopping his face with a rag. “Florsheim,” he says. He points a drumstick at my feet. “You lost your shoes.”
I have also lost the power to speak.
There are other kids then, eager to meet the band, and I get bumped aside by them, and by those who are helping move the band’s equipment off the stage because another band is up next, and a couple with flowers in their hair is getting married on the steps by a tall man in a black top hat, and I don’t see the Allman Brothers Band suddenly, not even Jaimoe, and I start to run, grabbing a tree as I spin around it, and suddenly Jaimoe is there by my elbow. He says, “You want to keep your jazz. Play your rock and roll, but keep your jazz.”
Yessir, I start to say, but I catch myself. “Right on,” I say instead. My voice is a croak.
Jaimoe’s whole face smiles at me, a kid whose life has just been changed forever. He says, “Jazz is American music. Everything else builds on it — country, soul, blues, rock and roll. Jazz is music to feel by. Listen to it, practice it, and use it to add texture and mystery to whatever you play. You take what is, and you improvise. That’s what you heard today.”
“And blues,” says another voice, more to Jaimoe than to me. “You heard a whole lot of blues.” Then he points to me. “Is this the kid you were talking about last night?”
“That’s him,” says Jaimoe.
I say nothing. I try to smile. How do you do, Duane Allman? My cousin Barry is missing, but I’m here to see you in his place, and I can’t wait to tell him I met you, that your band is amazing.
“Where’s your bus?” asks Duane.
I gesture in the direction of Fourteenth Street.
Jaimoe laughs. “Skydog here is a blues man. I jammed with him in Muscle Shoals. You know Muscle Shoals?”
I shake my head.
“You should know it,” says Jaimoe. “Lots of good music getting put together there. And they’ve got a great studio drummer, Roger Hawkins. He’d be worth listening to. He’s on your way to California.”
Finally, my voice comes back. “Where?” I ask.
“Muscle Shoals, Alabama,” says Jaimoe. “FAME Studios. Rick Hall’s place. Tell him Jaimoe and Duane sent you.”
“Okay,” I say, just to have something to say.
“Okay?” asks Jaimoe. “You’ll go?”
“I’ll go,” I promise.
“Good man,” says Jaimoe. Duane smiles with a tiny nod and Jaimoe says, “I can tell, man, you’re gonna learn to feel it.”
“How do you do it?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“How you play … it’s jazz and it’s blues and it’s rock and roll.”
“I told you, man. Learn to listen. And practice until your fingers fall off.”
“You know R&B?” asks Duane.
“Rhythm and blues?”
“Go to the Shoals,” says Duane. “And listen to WLAC. It’s 1510 on the AM dial, Nashville. At night they boost the signal and you can tune it in most anywhere. They play R&B all night — I love that stuff. Grew up listening to it.”
I have no answers to this but okay. Which I say. I don’t say, Can I come live with you? Can you teach me?
“You’re a southern boy,” finishes Duane. “Know your musical ro
ots.”
“Fourteenth Street,” I say. “That’s where the bus is. Do you need a ride?”
Now Duane laughs. “Sometimes we do, man. But not today.”
Kids have collected around us, listening, waiting their turn to connect but pushing in on us with impatience. Kids are clustered around Butch and his drum kit, Berry and his bass, Dickie and his guitar, Gregg and his organ. Equipment cases on the grass are snapped open and some kids are rolling up wires and unplugging cords, disconnecting pedals and taking the cymbals off their stands while they wait for the musicians to fill the cases with their instruments.
“I … I gotta go,” I say. I know I do, but it’s killing me.
“Peace, brother,” says Jaimoe. He holds up two fingers. So does Duane. And just like that, the spell that held the three of us in a private bubble is broken and the waiting gaggle swarms in.
MOLLY
The sun has slipped behind the tops of the tall buildings surrounding the park. The shadows are long and cool. It’s going to be a good night for a long drive. I hope I don’t have to stay awake for Norman. I am beyond pooped.
I call Mom from the house phone just to check — because I am responsible — and she says her car is ready, they’ll be here, don’t wait for them, they’re on the way tomorrow, get a good night’s sleep and leave early. But we are leaving now.
I help turn on all the lamps inside the house. They make the rooms look like they’re bathed in butter. Lucy prepares TV dinners while we wait for The Aunts to make their appearance at the top of the stairs.
“How do you always have money?” I ask her again.
Her hair is clipped to the top of her head — it’s hot in the kitchen. “I knocked over a bank last Saturday.”
“Really,” I return. “Are you rich?”
Lucy turns on the window fan and sighs. “My father’s a heart surgeon,” she says. “And he doesn’t understand that a heart needs more than money.”
“Oh,” I say, wishing I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad your mom and your aunt are coming tomorrow. I’m making Mashula’s fried chicken and potato salad. I hope they let me stay.”
“I do, too,” I say, and I’m surprised to realize I mean it. “Do you like Norman?” I ask.
“He’s cute.” Lucy pulls on her hot mitts as the oven timer goes off. “He needs to loosen up. I was just trying to help.”
“I see,” I say in my most sarcastic tone of voice.
“Do you like Marvin?” she asks me in counterpoint.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” I say honestly. “I’m a girl on a mission. No time to think about cuteness.”
“He lived under a bridge in Piedmont Park before I met him,” Lucy says, not one bit interested in asking me about my mission. “Now he’s escorting your aunts to dinner every night and taking up their breakfast trays in the morning. He’s watching The Newlywed Game!”
Lucy laughs at this, but I shudder to think of anybody living under a bridge. I shudder to think it could be Barry.
* * *
We all eat Swanson TV dinners together in the dining room and wait until Aunt Madeleine and Aunt Eleanor are settled in front of the television before Norman and I make our good-byes.
“Good-bye, good-bye!” we call to them. They wave us away during a commercial and tell us they love us. I think they mean it.
Marvin Gardens fills the ice chest with ice and sticks a few bottles of soda deep into the coldness.
“Happy trails,” he says.
Impulsively, I hug him.
“Heeyyy!” he says. Then, “Far out!”
“Take care of yourself,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Norman. “And thanks for all the help.”
Marvin salutes us and watches us pull slowly away from the curb, the engine coughing to life and Norman doing his usual jumpin’-jack-flash in the driver’s seat.
Kids are milling around us, walking in the street, waving a hand as we pass them. The sifty dark is full of shadows as we drive along the Strip out of town. Traffic moves slowly because, as Lucy told us, so many cars are full of people from the suburbs who come to stare at the hippies. We creep the four blocks from Fourteenth to Tenth and finally roll out of the city of Atlanta.
“You okay?” Norman asks me. He’s craning his neck, looking at me in the wide student mirror at the front of the bus. I see his face turned up, questioning.
I smile at him from my seat behind the driver. “I’m okay. You?”
I reach over the silver half-high partition between our seats and pat him on the shoulder. He turns on the radio … and wouldn’t you know, the song playing is actually “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones. Number three on the Weekly Top Forty last year.
Norman turns up the volume.
We are driving west. We are on our way.
COLD SWEAT
Written by James Brown and Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis
Performed by James Brown and the James Brown Orchestra
Recorded at King Studios, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1967
Drummer: Clyde Stubblefield
“‘A night drive through the North Alabama mountains is inadvisable.’” Molly used a flashlight to read the warning in An Adventurer’s Guide to Travel across America.
“They’re just hills,” said Norman, although he was already white-knuckling the steering wheel in the dark. He was wearing the same khaki slacks and had put on his white oxford shirt over his T-shirt but had discarded his wing tips for the only other pair of shoes he’d brought with him, a pair of black Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars high-top sneakers, size 14. They looked better with his slacks than they did with his gym suit at school. And they were more comfortable for driving than the wing tips. He did not mourn the loss of his sandals.
“I routed us through Birmingham,” Molly said as they pulled onto the highway out of Atlanta.
“Can you figure it out through Muscle Shoals, Alabama? Here’s the address I got from the long-distance operator. You’ll need the street map to find it.”
“Why?” It was a curious question, not an accusation.
“Music” was all Norman would tell her. He couldn’t begin to relate the head-rattling astonishment of the past twenty-four hours, from the moment they walked the Strip to the moment they drove it, leaving Atlanta.
Molly consulted her maps. “Okay. I can do that.”
She scribbled the route to Muscle Shoals on a piece of note paper from a pad Pam had given them. It had poodles across the top of it. Then she yawned. “Aren’t you tired? Do you want to stop?”
Norman shook his head. “Nah. I can get us to Muscle Shoals. And there won’t be traffic. You sleep. I’ve got the radio. Will it bother you?”
“No, it’s fine. I could sleep for a week.” Molly held on to the bars across the tops of the seats, weave-walked the aisle in the dark, dug her transistor radio and earphone out of her bag, and dove into her bed at the back of the bus.
Norman drove into the deepening night, sitting on Molly’s directions to make sure they were close at hand. He turned the radio dial to 1510 AM, WLAC Nashville. It came in clear and crisp over the night airwaves. A thrill shot through Norman’s chest. Just as Duane had said, there it was. John R the disc jockey was selling chickens.
How’d you like to have fried chicken on your table just about any time you wanted it, right? Well, look here, baby, you can!
Norman laughed. For the next three hours, he drove through the night and listened to “The Nighttime Station for Half the Nation!” The WLAC disc jockeys played Sonny Boy Williamson and Aretha and Little Richard. Between songs they sold everything from Bibles to Royal Crown Hair Pomade.
B.B. King played his guitar, Lucille — or maybe Lucille played B.B. Then Louis Jordan and his band sang “Caldonia!” That’s some jump blues for you jazz cats out there! I might even call it rock and roll! Ain’t that a mess! Sister Rosetta Tharpe sang “Didn’t It Rain?” Listen to that guita
r wail! An oldie but a goodie for all you gospel lovers out there! Comin’ up, a little boogie-woogie, and a little Muddy Waters, right after we sell you some records. Don’t go nowhere, ya hear?
There was something magical about night driving that lent itself to listening. Norman got so wrapped up in driving and listening, he didn’t think to look at the gas gauge. When John R played “Cold Sweat” by James Brown, Norman pulled off the highway at a sign that said PICNIC AREA, onto a sandy lane lined with pines, and got as still as he could.
It was the beat, he told himself. What was that beat? He tried to tap it out on the steering wheel. The drummer was hitting the snare on the two and four but missing that fourth beat by an eighth note and playing between the beats — or was it instead of the beat?
Every instrument — the guitars, the horns, the drums — acted as percussion, too. And the energy! James Brown screamed and moaned and sang and called out, Excuse me while I boogaloo! And then — Let’s give the drummer some! A drum solo!
Suddenly, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” was something Norman left behind, in childhood.
“Cold Sweat” ended and John R came back to preach. Now look here, baby, you got your jazz, you got your soul, you got your rock and roll. And when you put ’em all together, what you got? You got funk!
Norman rested his forehead between his hands on the giant steering wheel. He was tired. And he finally noticed the gas gauge. John R was signing off and giving the turntable to Gene Nobles for his Midnight Special program.
“Have a little mercy there, honey,” John R said in a gravelly-voiced growl. “I’m here, way down south in the middle of Dixie.”
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