I wouldn't consider myself a Southern Rock Guy, but this is bluesy enough for me to enjoy. These live performances give the band multiple opportunities to stretch out on some blues solos, extending some songs to the 20 minute mark. I'll be honest: I love the blues, I appreciate the blues, I can't listen to the blues for very long without tiring of the blues. I don't know if I would have appreciated this in my younger days (I would have absolutely hated it in 1971), but I enjoy listening to this every now and then. Dickey Betts and Duane Allman could sure handle a guitar.
Update: In its 2020 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone ranked At Fillmore East at #105.
Press of the time:
- Billboard: "they'll put out hard blues Macon, Ga. style far into the night"
- CashBox: "This should be a major item."
- Rolling Stone: "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years"
- Record World: "The grooves fairly sweat."
- Stereo Review: "Not much that over-excites...but nothing unpleasant, either."
Tracks: The CD I own has 7 tracks (other releases have more). My favorites are Statesboro Blues and Done Somebody Wrong along with the cornerstones of this disc: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and Whipping Post (it has been a while since I had to figure out such things, but is the intro to Whipping Post in 11/8 time?). I'm sure many will disagree with me, but I think You Don't Love Me is self-indulgent.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I was unfamiliar with this work until I was sitting on my friend James' back porch one hot summer evening in the early 2000's and he was playing this CD. I asked him who it was and he told me with a look of disbelief, as if I should have been intimately familiar with this music. I felt ignorant, which, in a way, I was.
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