Whipping Post (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Whipping Post" | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by The Allman Brothers Band | ||
| from the 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(s) | Gregg Allman | |
| Producer(s) | Tom Dowd | |
"Whipping Post" is a song from 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.
Contents |
[edit] History
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."
None of which fully anticipates the At Fillmore East performance. Duane Allman begins to introduce the tune, then a fan yells out "Whipping Post!" Duane responds, "You guessed it," and Berry Oakley starts it off with a powerful 11/8 time bass guitar opening, after which the Duane and Dickey Betts' dual lead guitars peal in. Gregg Allman delivers a much more gritty, passionate vocalization culminating in the anguished chorus:
- Sometimes I feel ... sometimes I FEEL
- Like I been tied to the whipping post!
- TIED to the whipping post!
- TIED to the whipping post!
- Good Lord, I feel like I'm dyin'...
The vocal parts are spread throughout the 23 minutes, separated by lengthy instrumental segments. The verses, choruses, and solos are in 12/8 time, while the stinging interludes immediately after the vocal parts revert to 11/8 time.
Duane Allman takes the solo after the first verse and chorus, playing a furious slide-ish series of crescendoes against the Allmans' trademark percussive backing. Gregg Allman comes back to sing the second verse and chorus five and a half minutes in, after which Betts takes the lead for the long middle part of the performance. (Unlike the two other most famous original Allman Brothers epics, "Dreams" and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", where Duane had the more famous solo, here Betts' is the more renowned.) Betts plays his metallic-toned scales building to a wailing climax at the 10-minute mark. But instead of staying in the expected form of the song and returning to the vocals, here the band takes an unexpected turn. The dynamics are reduced to almost complete quiet and the tempo slows down and then almost disappears into an abstract, rhythmless segment.
Betts plays some simple, soulful light jazz styled melodies against Oakley's also-melodic bass line, with Duane Allman supplying moody chords in counterpoint and the occasional organ wash from Gregg Allman. The guitarists work in blues quotes (Betts does "You Better Stop It Babe"), á la Sonny Rollins, classical music motifs, and bell sounds, before building into a slow, tragic crescendo of psychedelic blues riffs. Finally after the 15-minute mark there is a recapitulation of the introduction and, pulled in by Oakley, a series of dual guitar whiplashing crescendoes; Gregg Allman jumps in near the 17-minute mark for the third anguished iteration of the chorus — only to leave it unfinished.
Again, the tempo drops to near nothing, while Betts plays a fragment of "Frère Jacques". Duane again counterpoints with his slide sounds, while the rhythm section has the major role. The guitarists find a joint lullaby whose emotive changes play against Butch Trucks' percussive tympani washes. The psychedelic blues riffs crescendo in the lower register and then drop off. At 21 minutes in, Gregg Allman comes back for the fourth and last time, sighing "Oh, I'm so tired ... oh so tired ..." and then completing the unfinished chorus with a final "Lord, don't you know ... that I feel like ... that I'm dyin'..." Duane then leads the band to a brief thrashing finish.
But even as the sound lingers and the audience bursts into applause, the music doesn't stop; the tympani keeps going and within seconds, the guitarists start up the mellow lead line to "Mountain Jam" as the record fades into the end grooves. Listeners would not hear that 33-minute continuation until 1972's Eat a Peach was released.
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 (Zappa's band would later learn the song and add it to his repertoire). 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 has done by most-known recording by a female singer.
