Whipping Post (song)
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| “Whipping Post” | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by The Allman Brothers Band | ||
| Album | The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East |
|
| Released | 1969 (studio), 1971 (live) | |
| Recorded | 1969, 1971 | |
| Genre | Blues rock, Improvisational | |
| Length | 5:19, 22:56 | |
| Label | Capricorn Records | |
| Writer | Gregg Allman | |
| Producer | Tom Dowd | |
"Whipping Post" is a song by The Allman Brothers Band. Written by Gregg Allman, the five-minute studio version first appeared on their 1969 debut album The Allman Brothers Band. But the song's full power only manifested itself in concert, when it was the basis for much longer and more intense performances. This was captured in a classic take on the Allman Brothers' equally classic 1971 double live album At Fillmore East, where a 23-minute rendition takes up the entire final side. It was this recording that garnered "Whipping Post" spots on both The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list and Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
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[edit] History
Gregg Allman was only 21 years old when the song was first recorded. It was written shortly before he joined his brother Duane Allman to form The Allman Brothers Band. According to the liner notes of Allman's compilation album One More Try: An Anthology, the song was inspired by his despair over his failure to make a name for himself as a musician during a late-1960s stint in Los Angeles. Gregg was on the verge of quitting music altogether when Duane called and said his new band needed a vocalist.
The blues rock song's lyrics center around a metaphorical whipping post, an evil woman and futile existential sorrow. Writer Jean-Charles Costa described the studio version's musical structure as a "solid framework of [a] song that lends itself to thousands of possibilities in terms of solo expansion. ... [It is] in modified 3/4 time, building to a series of shrieking lead guitar statements, and reaching full strength in the chorus supported by super dual-lead guitar."
Despite its length, the live "Whipping Post" received considerable progressive rock radio airplay during the early 1970s, especially late at night or on weekends.
The song also acquired a quasi-legendary role in early 1970s rock concerts, when audience members at other artists' concerts would jokingly yell out "Whipping Post!" as a request between numbers, echoing the fan captured on At Fillmore East. Jackson Browne took note of this occurring during his concerts of the time, and another such instance from 1974 is captured on Frank Zappa's You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 live album, that caused Zappa to play a southern rock version of his song "Montana", subtitled "Whipping Floss" (Zappa's band would later learn "Whipping Post" and add it to their repertoire). Zappa recorded a studio version of the song for the 1984 album Them or Us. Later this same concert "role" would be taken over to a far greater extent by Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".
With the advent of album oriented rock radio formats in the 1980s and later, "Whipping Post" became less visible in the rock consciousness, but upon the reformation of the Allmans in 1989 and their perennial touring it held a regular slot in the group's concert set list rotation.
[edit] Other artists
The most well-known rendition of "Whipping Post" by any other artist came in the most unlikely of circumstances, during Season 4 of the massively popular television competition American Idol in 2005. Contestant Bo Bice gave a shot in the arm to Southern rock with an impassioned performance during the show's semi-finals round, pleasing show judge Randy Jackson no end and propelling Bice towards an eventual second-place finish. Since then other Idol contestants have tried their hand at the song as well, leading to it gaining renewed visibility.
Rock cult figure Genya Ravan produced the best-known recording by a female singer.
Gregg Allman himself performs "Whipping Post" with his outside-the-Allmans Gregg Allman and Friends group's concerts, but in a style that he describes as "its funky, real rhythm n’ blues-like" and in which he plays guitar rather than organ.[1] Allman re-recorded the song for his 1997 album Searching for Simplicity, giving the song a jazzier groove.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Mike Greenhaus, "Gregg Allman: Friends and Brothers", Jambands.com, October 23, 2006. Accessed May 29, 2007.
