Along the way the Allmans had picked up percussionist Marc Quiñones, and given the fact that the Allmans weren’t a full time touring outfit Warren Haynes and Allen Woody formed their own side project (Gov't Mule) in 1994, shortly before Hughesy discovered the Internet. Looking for interesting music related sites I ran across the ALLMAN email list, became aware of the tape trading scene and the rest, as they say, is history.
Things appeared to be going along quite pleasantly, and the wonderful world of tape trading had sparked a marked revival of interest in all eras of the ABB, then Haynes and Woody left to concentrate full-time on Gov't Mule in 1997, and I was left wondering What next? Those two considerable gaps were, as it turned out, filled by Jack Pearson on guitar and Oteil Burbridge on bass in a lineup that lasted two years before tinnitus and Dickie Betts volume forced Pearson out and Derek Trucks, nephew of original Brother Butch Trucks climbed on board.
The Pearson/Burbridge lineup remains undocumented as far as official releases are concerned, though there are numerous unofficial recordings that point to an outfit that was, largely, firing on all cylinders. My reading of the situation has the improvisational flair displayed by Jack and Derek, an unwillingness to let go the reins and shake up the setlist on Dickie Betts’ part, and a belief from the remaining founder members that Betts needed time off the road to sort himself out for the 2000 summer separation that seems to have turned into a permanent divorce.
That might not be quite right, though one notes that the first show where Jimmy Herring took the stage in the spot formerly occupied by Dickie Betts opened with a twenty-minute Mountain Jam, a track that had been notable by its absence from the setlist over the preceding couple of years. Herring was supposed to be a temporary substitute for Betts, and when he failed to return, with Herring required elsewhere Warren Haynes came back on board, where he remains to date. It’s a consistently good, if definitely under-recorded fit.
Much of the interest since the early nineties has been centred around the annual multi-night run at New York’s 2900-seat Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that dates back to 1989 and produced the contract get out release Peakin’ at the Beacon CD, the Live At the Beacon Theatre DVD and 2004’s One Way Out, which, close to a decade later, remains the band’s last official release of contemporary rather than archival material.