The Allman Brothers Band’s legendary live album At Fillmore East is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest of all time. Al Di Meola certainly thinks so – and with good reason.
“I was there,” he recalls to MusicRadar. “I was at the Fillmore East when the Allman Brothers recorded that live album.”
Di Meola was just 16 when the Allmans performed at the New York City venue in March 1971. The band played three nights. The album was pieced together using recordings from two of those shows.
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The Allman Brothers Band line-up at that time featured Gregg Allman on vocals and keyboards, Duane Allman and Dickey Betts on guitars, Berry Oakley on bass, and both Butch Trucks and Jaimoe (AKA Jai Johanny Johanson) on drums and percussion.
Di Meola says that these performances left a deep impression on him.
“It was unbelievable,” he says. “You have to understand what that band sounded like in that room. Duane Allman. Dickey Betts. Gregg Allman. Berry Oakley. Butch Trucks. Jaimoe. The energy was incredible.”
The Allmans’ style of Southern rock might seem an unlikely inspiration for a jazz fusion artist such as Di Meola, but as the guitarist recalls, he drew on the experience of those Fillmore East shows when, as a 19 year old prodigy, he began performing in fusion group Return To Forever, led by pianist Chick Corea.
“There’s actually a direct line from hearing that music at the Fillmore to my first days with Return To Forever,” Di Meola explains. “When I first joined Return To Forever, Chick wanted everybody to play a solo feature. I’m nineteen years old and thinking, ‘What the hell am I going to play by myself?’
“So, during my solo, I started playing some Allman Brothers licks. The place went crazy. I mean, crazy. I came offstage, and Chick came up to me and said, ‘What was that?’ I said, ‘The Allman Brothers.’ He had no idea.
“Chick didn’t know the Allman Brothers. But the audience certainly did. And that taught me something very early on. Music doesn’t have to live in these little boxes. I could be playing with Chick Corea in Return To Forever, and something I’d absorbed from Duane Allman and Dickey Betts could come out in my solo and connect immediately with an audience. If it’s part of you, it’s part of you.”
A circle was completed for Di Meola in 2026 when he had the opportunity to play the actual 1958 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop used by Dickey Betts during those landmark gigs in ’71.
“What a thrill,” Di Meola smiles. “I got to play the original Dickey Betts Les Paul from that Fillmore East recording.
“Think about that. I’m a kid sitting in the Fillmore East hearing that guitar. Then I joined Return To Forever and played Allman Brothers licks during my solo because I’m trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to play – and the place erupts. And more than fifty years later, I’m in Chicago at a collector’s showroom, and the guy is handing me the actual Dickey Betts guitar to play. Those are the moments where you really feel the passage of time.”
