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4 weeks ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
It’s the 56th anniversary of the Allman Brothers Band. This story of their formation is adapted from Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, copyright 2023, Alan Paul.If you enjoy this post, please share and subscribe - and consider a paid subscription, which allows me to dedicate more time to this venture, with more new and original writing, and upcoming video and audio interviews. I’ll send a thank you gift to the next 50 paid subscribers.
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1 month ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
In 2009, while I was writing my first book, Big in China, I shut off most new music, digging deeply into familiar sounds to fuel the writing process. I had Dawes’ debut CD North Hills sitting on my desk for a few months, sent to me by their publicist Ken Weinstein, a longtime friend and publicist I trust. When he bugged me a little, I threw it in and the CD immediately joined the rotation with a lot of beloved classics.
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1 month ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
Mike Campbell’sHeartbreaker: A Memoircame out this week and it’s a great read, delving deeply into his complicated, decades-long relationship with Tom Petty. Campbell was the lead guitarist in Petty’s Heartbreakers and before that in Mudcrutch and what becomes clear throughout Heartbreakeris he was also a crucial glue guy in keeping the band together and harmonious for decades.
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1 month ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
The Replacements were a very important band to me. I saw them in September, 1984, at the late and lamented Joe’s Star Lounge, weeks after arriving in Ann Arbor as a freshman. Per Hoffman – now one of my oldest friends, then a new and exciting acquaintance – told me that his friends were talking endlessly about the Replacements and we had to go.
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1 month ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
Discover more from Low Down and DirtyInterviews and insights about rock and blues music, sports, fatherhood and expat life from New York Times best-selling author Alan Paul. Over 4,000 subscribersBy subscribing, I agree to Substack's Terms of Use, and acknowledge its Information Collection Notice and Privacy Policy. Reporting back from Macon after a needed day of rest. The most common question I got was, is jaimoe Ok? Yes! He just didn’t want to do that travel.
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1 month ago | 
entertainment-mag.com | Scaachi Koul |Martin’s Press |Haley Mlotek
Mlotek’s memoir takes a different tone. Oscillating between a personal accounting of heartache and a granular sociological deconstruction of the institutions of marriage and divorce, this book is at its best when the author writes about herself. Often painful and longing but sometimes academic to a fault, Mlotek thrives when she finds permission to chronicle her own experiences outside a historical survey. She comes from a long line of divorces; her mother was a marriage counselor.
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2 months ago | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
When I finally saw Sturgill Simpson live last October 18 in my hometown of Pittsburgh, I was so taken by the music that I broke my ankle. No, really. I have been a fan of Simpson’s for a decade, and I have no reasonable excuse or explanation for why it took me so long to finally see him in person.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
Wow. It’s been seven years since we lost Butch Trucks. SEVEN YEARS. Below is a verbatim repost of what I wrote the next day in a haze of sadness, confusion, anger and exhaustion. There are some edits I would normally make, but I think it best to let the rawness stand. I was operating on no sleep because I had gotten a call confirming the awful news at midnight and spent all night staring at the ceiling in disbelief, tossing and turning in anguish, anger and self recrimination.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
Warren Haynes is a native of Asheville, North Carolina and the guitarist has raised millions of dollars for his hometown via his annual Christmas Jam concert which =has brought musical luminaries from Haynes’ Allman Brothers Band to Dave Grohl, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann to town.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
alanpaul.substack.com | Martin’s Press |Alan Paul
“Duane had so much technique, but it never got in the way of his inspiration. He could walk into anyone’s session, any kind of music, and make it better. And he didn’t have to do it by blowing a hot solo. Any time you added him to a situation, it got better. Duane was an innovator and he would have been doing amazing things if he were still with us. He would not be sitting still.
