Gregg Allman
Southern Blood
Release Date: Sep 8, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Rounder
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Southern Blood from Amazon
Album Review: Southern Blood by Gregg Allman
Excellent, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 4.5/5
With the appropriately titled Southern Blood, Gregg Allman becomes another member of a tragic shortlist; musicians who knew that the album they were recording would be their last. Whether it was Leonard Cohen, Chuck Berry or Warren Zevon, there can.
Based on rating 4/5
It’s there, at just about the one-minute mark of Southern Blood’s opening track, a tender voice calling out: ‘I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul when I’m gone. ’ Whether the decision to begin the album with My Only True Friend was made before Allman’s death in May is unknown, but it serves as the most perfect curtain-raiser for a record that celebrates an oft-overlooked musician with elegance and style. Six years on from the Grammy-nominated Low Country Blues, it’s a comfort to Allman’s fans that it should all end on such a high, quality control being a primary consideration when a man of his age (69) and deteriorating health from liver cancer could be forgiven for just phoning it in with a weary, “Will this do?”.
Based on rating 8/10
It's hard to review the album of a recently departed artist — especially someone as prolific and beloved as Gregg Allman — and not feel like your glasses are a bit too rosy for a sober assessment of the work. Allman's death this May left a hole in the Southern rock world, and brought memories of dearly loved Allman Brothers Band concerts flooding back to those of us lucky enough to have enjoyed a few. Allman had plenty of solo albums under his belt, too, but in recent years these were few and far between, the last one released in ….
Based on rating 3.5/5
The final album by Gregg Allman, who died in May, is a moving farewell statement à la twilight masterworks by Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. "I know I'm not a young man, and it's time to settle down," Allman sings on the roadhouse blues "Love Like Kerosene," his full-moon growl strikingly undiminished. Yet while Southern Blood is rich with intimations of mortality, it's easygoing too, with a laid-back generosity that recalls Allman's kindest Seventies work – see his warm take on Lowell George's Southern-rock salvo "Willin'.
'Southern Blood'
is available now