This is an album full of excellent music by the early Allman Brothers Band. However, for an additional [money] you can purchase their album BEGINNINGS, which contains all of this album plus all of their second album, Idlewilde South. Both albums are truly first rate, and you get them both on one CD if you just buy BEGINNINGS.

Despite much great music with a variety of players up to this day, nothing can really top this first Allman Brothers release. The tunes are solid from beginning to end. It's no surprise that most of them have become standards.

It's also no surprise, that at the time of its release, the album was largely ignored. American blues-based rock was still not very popular, and these guys were Southerners to boot.

But other musicians took note; one of them was Eric Clapton. (Give a listen some time to Eric and Duane dueting on Mean Old World.)

Anyway, Idlewild South, as a whole was not up to this eponymous debut, and soon Duane would be gone. Eat A Peach was ambitious, but much dominated by Duane's playing on Mountain Jam. Then that wonderful and under-appreciated bassist Berry Oakley would be gone, too.

The ABB would have its ups and downs and be a breeding ground for great musicians and a continuing fount of great music, but nothing has yet topped the tight, focused, writing, playing, and sequencing of this first album. It is a perfect record.

Stick with 'The Fillmore Concerts'. This from the vaults release is interesting but hardly a must-have. It's raw, gritty and sloppy in places and Gregg's vocals are way too loud. But Duane is on it and that's always reason to listen. The venue is odd and the mix even odder as explained in the liner notes. 7.5 IPS STEREO MASTER, yikes! One half soundboard the other half ambience mike, sheesh. It sounds exactly what is was: the band recorded in a gymnasium. Of course the disc has been 'normalised' and the high end is sorely lacking and the vocals may blow you out of the room they are so loud. The digital restoration must have been a nightmare. The songs are good choices but sound like practice runs for the Fillmore shows, some guitar solos sound distant thanks to the mix. I suppose the hard-core fan will want this but for serious fans, they may want to pass. 7 tracks/60.26.

The Allman Brothers are one of those bands that I have "discovered" rather late in life. Years ago I worked in radio for a year and we were able to bring albums home from the station to borrow overnight if we wanted to listen to something. I remember borrowing "Eat A Peach" and "Enlightened Rouge" and thought they were both good, but it did not make we want to run out and buy a bunch of Allmans stuff. Over the past 10 years I have discovered a growing appreciation of blues based music and thus went back to re look at the Allmans. The result was basically falling in love with their material and I have since picked up much of their stuff. The first Allman Brothers album has to rank up there with the best debut albums of all time. The album contains classic after classic, "Not My Cross To Bear", "Don't Want You No More", "Trouble No More", "Dreams" and the band's most well known classic "Whipping Post" The album is solid all the way through and formed the blueprint of all that came after.

With this album, we have all the makings of an arc that tracks the Allman Brothers Band monumental THE ALLMAN BROTHERS AT FILLMORE EAST. Beginning with LIVE AT LUDLOW GARAGE through LIVE AT THE ATLANTA INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL and now AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 12/13/70 the listener can see a steady development in the band's chops and abilities that lead up to FILLMORE. Naturally, the Allman Brothers didn't just spring out of Flannery O'Connor's head whole and complete; but to many in the rock community that's how it appeared as FILLMORE landed on their turntables.

Most of us have little interest in how such and such band or song came to be. That understood this album provides another chances (excuse?) to listen to Duane Allman in his element once more. Reading the liner notes, a little bit of modern electronic wizardry was necessary to bring this album up to a presentable form. In that regard, the sound quality is surprisingly good considering the age of the original sources. On the down side, due to running out of recording tape on the reel, "Stormy Monday" is here in a much abbreviated form in which we miss out on Allman's guitar soloing on the balance of the song. now AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 12/13/70 is also shorter than previous offerings of early Allman Brothers live recordings.

Still the intensity and liveliness makes this a compelling document of a band we really only got to know briefly before Duane Allman's death. This is no substitute for THE ALLMAN BROTHERS AT FILLMORE EAST or EAT A PEACH. But for most of who love this band it is like finding a love letter from long ago you didn't even know you got.