The Allman Betts Band – Bless Your Heart
Format: CD – Vinyl – Digital
Label: BMG
Release: 2020
New Album ‘Bless Your Heart’
The Allman Betts Bandrelease their second full-length studio album titled ‘Bless Your Heart’ on Friday 28th August 2020 via BMG. The first single, ‘Magnolia Road’ was released on all DSPs on Friday 19th June. The official music video for the track was exclusively premiered via The ABB official YouTube channel the same day. Devon Allman and Duane Betts joined the premiere and chatted live with fans.
The new album is available to pre-order from https://theallmanbettsband.lnk.to/BlessYourHeart and https://amzn.to/2NKWYz5
‘Magnolia Road’ is the tie-dyed contender for summer favourite. A semi-autobiographical lyric shared by Betts and Allman, ironically this is the only song on the album with band collaborator Stoll Vaughan as its sole author. Vaughan wrote the song alone, though namechecking detailed parts of Betts’ and Allman’s life, respectively. Musically it evokes the group’s affection for The Band and the Grateful Dead.
When The Allman Betts Band released Down to the River in June of 2019, the debut album represented not only the first time the group had recorded together but, in fact, the first time the seven-piece ensemble had ever played together. If Down to the River was the sound of the band’s combustible sparks igniting, then ‘Bless Your Heart’ is their bonfire, built for the summer of 2020 and beyond; a double-album follow-up fuelled by road-forged camaraderie and telepathic musical intensity, vibrantly reflecting the individual and collective experiences of these seven, all drawing inspiration from the band’s symbolic hometown – a place Devon Allman calls “the United States of Americana.”
A conflagration of influences and invention, confidence and ambition, Bless Your Heart captures a vast, panoramic scope throughout a baker’s dozen of modern rock. Ragged and stomping. Heady and frayed. Soaring and scorching. Generational and genteel. West Coast scenes and Gulf Coast shores. Gateways of the Midwest and swamplands of Florida. Wyoming’s Big Sky. New York’s Big Apple. Chicago’s Broad Shoulders.
The Allman Betts Band Line-Up
Devon Allman – guitar, vocals | Duane Betts – guitar, vocals | Berry Duane Oakley – bass, vocals
Johnny Stachela – guitar, vocals | John Ginty – keyboards | R Scott Bryan – percussion, vocals
John Lum – drums
Over a week’s time, they recorded 13 songs at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on 2-inch tape, just as they did with Down to The River. In addition to the time in Muscle Shoals, Bless Your Heart saw additional tracking in Memphis and St. Louis.
Within the eclectic repertoire are the familiar: stacks of guitars; electric, acoustic, and slide; a throttling, percussive rhythm section. And the fresh: Bassist and singer Berry Duane Oakley’s ABB vocal debut on his original song (‘The Doctor’s Daughter’); Allman’s baritone vocal channelling Johnny Cash (‘Much Obliged’); Betts extending the legendary family legacy of incendiary instrumentals (‘Savannah’s Dream’).
They tapped friends, as well, such as Jimmy Hall, Shannon McNally, Art Edmaiston, Susan Marshall, and Reba Russell for guest contributions. Then, emerged with an undeniable achievement of an album (what sophomore jinx?) worthy of its winking, unabashedly Southern title.
“I think we definitely challenged ourselves, pushed ourselves artistically, and widened the spectrum on all levels. We wanted something that was a little more sweeping. A deeper experience,” says Betts.
Says Allman, “I hope what people hear on Bless Your Heart is a band that’s having a love affair with being a band.”
