Eat a Peach
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Eat a Peach is a 1972 album by the United States rock music group The Allman Brothers Band; it was the last to include founder member and lead slide guitar player Duane Allman, who was killed in a motorcycle accident while the album was being recorded.
This double-disc set came close on the heels of their successful Live at Fillmore East set and featured live tracks that did not make it on to that album, including "One Way Out" and an entire album side devoted to "Mountain Jam", a 33-minute improvisation based around Donovan's song "First There is a Mountain".
Much of the remainder of the album was recorded in-studio and served to cement the Brothers' reputation as innovative Southern rockers. Several tracks featured a new emphasis on more lyrical acoustic work, notably on "Melissa" and the guitar classic "Little Martha".
The widespread story regarding the origin of the album's title, that the truck involved in Duane Allman's fatal motorcycle accident was a peach truck, is not correct; the truck involved was actually a flatbed lumber truck. The name actually came from something Duane said in an interview shortly before he was killed; when asked what he was doing to help the anti-war effort, Duane replied, "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I eat a peach for peace." The album's name was originally slated to be The Kind We Grow in Dixie, and the art-work for the album showed a peach; band members were dissatisfied with the name, and the image suggested Duane's quote instead.
The album art was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the 100 Greatest Album Covers of All Time( RS 11/14/1991).
Allman Brothers fans emphatically deny that Duane Allman's reference was to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917):
- Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
- I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
- I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each
In the context of Eliot's familiar poem, the peach represents the sensuous immediate realities of full-blooded life, which the album's title Eat a Peach dares you to embrace.
Track listing
- "Ain't Wastin' Time No More" (Gregg Allman) - 3:40
- "Les Brers In A Minor" (Dickey Betts) - 9:03
- "Melissa" (Gregg Allman/Sandy Alaimo) - 3:54
- "Mountain Jam" (Donovan Leitch/Duane Allman/Gregg Allman/Dickey Betts/Jai Johanny Johansen/Berry Oakley/Butch Trucks) - 33:38
- "One Way Out" (Marshall Sehorn/Elmore James) - 4:58
- "Trouble No More" (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:43
- "Stand Back" (Gregg Allman/Berry Oakley) - 3:24
- "Blue Sky" (Dickey Betts) - 5:09
- "Little Martha" (Duane Allman) - 2:07