Whipping Post (song)
Encyclopedia
"Whipping Post" is a song by 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 epic 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.
was 21 years old when the song was first recorded. Its writing dates back to late March 1969, when The Allman Brothers Band
was first formed. Gregg had failed to make a name for himself as a musician during a late-1960s stint in Los Angeles
, and was on the verge of quitting music altogether when his brother Duane Allman
called and said his new band needed a vocalist. Gregg showed the band 22 songs he had written, but only "Dreams" and "It's Not My Cross to Bear" were deemed usable. Gregg, the group's only songwriter at the time, was commissioned to create additional songs that would fit into the context of the new band, and in the next five days he wrote several, including "Whipping Post".
Gregg's travails in the music business would provide the thematic inspiration for the new song, which was written quickly on an ironing board cover: He later said: "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out. That's the way the good songs come—they just hit you like a ton of bricks."
The blues rock song's lyrics center on 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." The result was called by Rolling Stone
an "enduring anthem ... rife with tormented blues-ballad imagery".
Musically, the composition was immediately noticeable for its use of 11/4 time signature
in the introduction (it is also sometimes referred to as being in 11/8 time). As Gregg Allman later said:
The original "Whipping Post" was recorded for The Allman Brothers Band
album on August 7, 1969, at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City
. Adrian Barber was the producer, and the band spent the entire full-day session getting the song's performance to their liking. The album was released on November 4, 1969, but sold poorly, barely eking onto the bottom rungs of the U.S. albums chart
. "Whipping Post" was placed last on the album's running order, in what writer Randy Poe described as "the classic tradition of leaving the listener wanting more".
venue during the band's second show there on March 13, 1971. Duane Allman begins to introduce the tune – "Berry starts her off" – then a fan yells out "Whipping Post!" Duane responds, "You guessed it," and Berry Oakley
indeed starts it off with the powerful, rumbling 11/4 time bass guitar
opening, which Rolling Stone
would say gave the song its "haunting momentum" and which would become one of the most familiar bass patterns in all of rock.
Soon, Duane and then Dickey Betts
' dual lead guitar
s peal in, before Gregg Allman's Hammond organ
joins as well. Gregg delivers a gritty vocalization culminating in the anguished chorus:
The vocal parts are spread throughout the 23 minutes, separated by lengthy instrumental segments. The verses, choruses, and solos are in 6/4, while the stinging interludes immediately after the vocal parts revert to 11/4 time.
Duane Allman takes the solo after the first verse and chorus, playing a furious slide-ish
series of knife-like crescendoes against the Allmans' trademark percussive backing, augmented by Betts' rhythm guitar
part. 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 and Duane reverts to rhythm guitar. Betts plays his metallic-toned scales building to a wailing, shuddering 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, free time
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 blissful 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. Poe writes that this section is a "leap into the unknown ... it feels as though everything could simply fall apart at any second, but Dickey continually pulls things back together at what ... seems to be the last possible moment" 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; the band comes to a dead stop and 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. Duane leads the guitarists to 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; this whole segment of the performance has a Middle Eastern tinge
. 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.
airplay during the early 1970s, especially late at night or on weekends. Such airplay led to "Whipping Post" becoming one of the band's more familiar and popular songs, and would help give At Fillmore East its reputation as having, as The Rolling Stone Record Guide wrote in 1979, "no wasted notes, no pointless jams, no half-realized vocals—everything counts", and of being, as Rolling Stone
wrote in 2002, "the finest live rock performance ever committed to vinyl." VH1
would say that "Whipping Post" was "what the band would become famous for, an endless climb of heightening drama staked out by the twin-guitar exorcisms of Duane and Dickey Betts and the cool, measured, almost jazz-like response of the rhythm section."
The song also acquired a quasi-legendary role in early 1970s rock concerts, when audience members at other artists' concerts would semi-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. Another such instance from 1974 in Helsinki
affected rock guitarist and composer Frank Zappa
, as described below. Later this same yell-out-at-a-concert "role" would be taken over to a far greater extent by Lynyrd Skynyrd
's "Free Bird
", although the "Whipping Post" tradition made something of a later comeback at indie rock
shows.
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. Musicians continued to study it: Hal Leonard Corporation published a multi-volume sheet music
book of the Allman Brothers' work in 1995, and it took 42 pages to transcribe all the guitar solos in the At Fillmore East rendition of the song. "Whipping Post" has also made an impression on writers and been frequently referred to in literature
. Ron Rash
's 2006 novel The World Made Straight
features a character listening to the opening bass line of the song at so loud and close a volume that the speakers shake. Douglas Palermo's 2004 Learning to Live imagines future aliens exploring a desolate Earth and discovering the At Fillmore East recording; the aliens study it and eventually succumb to an overdose of emotion, Tim McCleaf's 2004 novella For They Know Not What They Do uses the song as a metaphor for suffering, while Mary Kay Andrews' novel Little Bitty Lies refers to the song as an example of "soul-scorching blues". In non-fiction, John C. Leggett and Suzanne Malm's 1995 work The Eighteen Stages of Love uses "Whipping Post" as a metaphor for a romantic relationship in which the participants masochistically stay in though it has gone bad. In comedic context, the song was featured in the 2008 My Name Is Earl
television series episode "Joy in a Bubble", in which Joy gets sick and Earl has to perform all of her regular duties.
album, although the Allmans' into-the-early morning performance the night before, which also included "Whipping Post", is considered more memorable. Earlier 1970 renditions of "Whipping Post" have subsequently been released, such as an 8-minute run on Fillmore East, February 1970
and a 14-minute effort on Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival: July 3 & 5, 1970
. Some additional website-only Allmans archival releases, such as Boston Common, 8/17/71
, also capture "Whipping Post" takes from the original band.
The archival release Macon City Auditorium: 2/11/72
features a "Whipping Post" from the five-man-band period following Duane Allman's death. Keyboardist Chuck Leavell
was then added to the band, and for a very brief period in late 1972 was there while Berry Oakley was still on bass. A November 2, 1972 performance of "Whipping Post" from Hofstra University
was shown on the national late-night ABC In Concert
show, introducing television audiences to both the band and song for the first time. Briefer than usual, and with Leavell taking an electric piano
solo in the first slot, Betts still led the band through some of the tempo changes and emotional currents of the song. At the end, Gregg Allman changed the lyric to "... That I feel, that there just ain't no such thing as dying." But within days, Berry Oakley too would be gone.
After the Allmans broke up and re-formed in 1989, "Whipping Post" was carried forward by various personnel configurations. A 2003 Beacon Theatre performance showed up the following year on the live album One Way Out
, and features the Warren Haynes
/Derek Trucks
era of the band.
Gregg Allman himself performs "Whipping Post" with his outside-the-Allmans Gregg Allman and Friends group's concerts, but in a style that he describes as "its funky, real rhythm n’ blues-like" and in which he plays guitar rather than organ. Allman re-recorded the song for his 1997 album Searching for Simplicity, giving the song a jazzier groove, but rendering it in straight 4/4 time instead of the complex triple time of the original composition.
performance by shouting a request for "Whipping Post." Zappa responded by playing a southern rock version of his song "Montana
", subtitled "Whipping Floss". (This incident was eventually captured on his You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2
live album, released in 1988.) In 1981, Zappa's band learned "Whipping Post" and added it to their repertoire, since the band's new singer and keyboard player Bobby Martin knew the song and sang the lead vocals on it. Zappa recorded a studio version of the song for the 1984 album Them or Us
; a live recording of the song featuring Frank's son Dweezil Zappa
on lead guitar was released in 1986 on the Does Humor Belong in Music?
album and associated video
.
Rock cult figure Genya Ravan
produced the best-known recording by a female singer, with a screaming take on her 1974 album Goldie Zelkowitz, which was subsequently sampled in Jay-Z
's "Oh My God" from his 2006 album Kingdom Come
.
The most-heard rendition of "Whipping Post" by any other artist came during Season 4
of top-rated 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 Randy Jackson
and the other show judges to 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.
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
. Written by Gregg Allman
Gregg Allman
Gregory Lenoir Allman , known as Gregg Allman, is a rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia...
, the five-minute studio version first appeared on their 1969 debut album The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band (album)
The Allman Brothers Band, released in 1969, was the eponymous debut album of Southern rock group, The Allman Brothers Band.The album sold poorly outside of Southern United States, reaching #188 on the Billboard charts...
. 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
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
At Fillmore East
At Fillmore East
At Fillmore East is a double live album by The Allman Brothers Band. The band's breakthrough success, At Fillmore East was released in July 1971. It ranks Number 49 among Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and remains among the top-selling albums in the band’s catalogue...
, where a 23-minute epic 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.
Composition and studio version
Gregg AllmanGregg Allman
Gregory Lenoir Allman , known as Gregg Allman, is a rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia...
was 21 years old when the song was first recorded. Its writing dates back to late March 1969, when The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
was first formed. Gregg had failed to make a name for himself as a musician during a late-1960s stint in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and was on the verge of quitting music altogether when his brother Duane Allman
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...
called and said his new band needed a vocalist. Gregg showed the band 22 songs he had written, but only "Dreams" and "It's Not My Cross to Bear" were deemed usable. Gregg, the group's only songwriter at the time, was commissioned to create additional songs that would fit into the context of the new band, and in the next five days he wrote several, including "Whipping Post".
Gregg's travails in the music business would provide the thematic inspiration for the new song, which was written quickly on an ironing board cover: He later said: "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out. That's the way the good songs come—they just hit you like a ton of bricks."
The blues rock song's lyrics center on a metaphorical whipping post, an evil woman and futile existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
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." The result was called by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
an "enduring anthem ... rife with tormented blues-ballad imagery".
Musically, the composition was immediately noticeable for its use of 11/4 time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
in the introduction (it is also sometimes referred to as being in 11/8 time). As Gregg Allman later said:
"I didn't know the intro was in 11/4 time. I just saw it as three sets of three, and then two to jump on the next three sets with: it was like 1,2,3—1,2,3—1,2,3—1,2. I didn't count it as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. It was one beat short, but it didn't feel one short, because to get back to the triad, you had two steps to go up. You'd really hit those two hard, to accent them, so that would separate the threes. ... [Duane] said, 'That's good man, I didn't know that you understood 11/4.' Of course I said something intelligent like, 'What's 11/4?' Duane just said, 'Okay, dumbass, I'll try to draw it up on paper for you.'"
The original "Whipping Post" was recorded for The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band (album)
The Allman Brothers Band, released in 1969, was the eponymous debut album of Southern rock group, The Allman Brothers Band.The album sold poorly outside of Southern United States, reaching #188 on the Billboard charts...
album on August 7, 1969, at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Adrian Barber was the producer, and the band spent the entire full-day session getting the song's performance to their liking. The album was released on November 4, 1969, but sold poorly, barely eking onto the bottom rungs of the U.S. albums chart
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. "Whipping Post" was placed last on the album's running order, in what writer Randy Poe described as "the classic tradition of leaving the listener wanting more".
At Fillmore East version
None of this fully anticipates the At Fillmore East performance. It was recorded at New York's famed Fillmore EastFillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
venue during the band's second show there on March 13, 1971. Duane Allman begins to introduce the tune – "Berry starts her off" – then a fan yells out "Whipping Post!" Duane responds, "You guessed it," and Berry Oakley
Berry Oakley
Raymond Berry Oakley III , was an American bassist and one of the founding members of The Allman Brothers Band.-Biography:...
indeed starts it off with the powerful, rumbling 11/4 time bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
opening, which Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
would say gave the song its "haunting momentum" and which would become one of the most familiar bass patterns in all of rock.
Soon, Duane and then Dickey Betts
Dickey Betts
Forrest Richard "Dickey" Betts is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and also won with the band a best rock performance Grammy Award for his...
' dual lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
s peal in, before Gregg Allman's Hammond organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
joins as well. Gregg delivers a gritty 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 6/4, while the stinging interludes immediately after the vocal parts revert to 11/4 time.
Duane Allman takes the solo after the first verse and chorus, playing a furious slide-ish
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
series of knife-like crescendoes against the Allmans' trademark percussive backing, augmented by Betts' rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
part. 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 and Duane reverts to rhythm guitar. Betts plays his metallic-toned scales building to a wailing, shuddering 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, free time
Free time (music)
Free time is a type of musical meter free from musical time and time signature. It is used when a piece of music has no discernible beat. Instead, the rhythm is intuitive and free-flowing. There are five ways in which a piece is indicated to be in free time:...
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 blissful organ wash from Gregg Allman. The guitarists work in blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
quotes (Betts does "You Better Stop It Babe") á la Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
motifs, and bell sounds. Poe writes that this section is a "leap into the unknown ... it feels as though everything could simply fall apart at any second, but Dickey continually pulls things back together at what ... seems to be the last possible moment" 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; the band comes to a dead stop and 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
Frère Jacques
"Frère Jacques" , in English sometimes called "Brother John" or "Brother Peter", is a French nursery melody. The song is traditionally sung in a round. When the first singer reaches the end of the first line the next person starts at the beginning...
". Duane again counterpoints with his slide sounds, while the rhythm section has the major role. Duane leads the guitarists to find a joint lullaby
Lullaby
A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....
whose emotive changes play against Butch Trucks' percussive tympani washes. The psychedelic blues riffs crescendo in the lower register and then drop off; this whole segment of the performance has a Middle Eastern tinge
Middle Eastern music
The music of Western Asia and North Africa spans across a vast region, from Morocco to Afghanistan, and its influences can be felt even further afield. Middle Eastern music influenced the music of India, as well as Central Asia, Spain, Southern Italy, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as in chalga...
. 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
Mountain Jam
"Mountain Jam" is an improvised instrumental jam by The Allman Brothers Band. The song's first known recording is on 5-4-1969 at Macon Central Park, but was officially released later on the albums; Live at Ludlow Garage: 1970, Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival: July 3 & 5, 1970, The...
" as the record fades into the end grooves. Listeners would not hear that 33-minute continuation until 1972's Eat a Peach
Eat a Peach
Eat a Peach is a 1972 double album by the American Southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band; it was the last to include founding member and lead slide-guitar player Duane Allman, who was killed in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971 while the album was being recorded.-History:This album...
was released.
Impact
Despite its length, the live "Whipping Post" received considerable progressive rock radioProgressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...
airplay during the early 1970s, especially late at night or on weekends. Such airplay led to "Whipping Post" becoming one of the band's more familiar and popular songs, and would help give At Fillmore East its reputation as having, as The Rolling Stone Record Guide wrote in 1979, "no wasted notes, no pointless jams, no half-realized vocals—everything counts", and of being, as Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
wrote in 2002, "the finest live rock performance ever committed to vinyl." VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
would say that "Whipping Post" was "what the band would become famous for, an endless climb of heightening drama staked out by the twin-guitar exorcisms of Duane and Dickey Betts and the cool, measured, almost jazz-like response of the rhythm section."
The song also acquired a quasi-legendary role in early 1970s rock concerts, when audience members at other artists' concerts would semi-jokingly yell out "Whipping Post!" as a request between numbers, echoing the fan captured on At Fillmore East. Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
took note of this occurring during his concerts of the time. Another such instance from 1974 in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
affected rock guitarist and composer Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, as described below. Later this same yell-out-at-a-concert "role" would be taken over to a far greater extent by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
's "Free Bird
Free Bird
"Free Bird" is a song by the American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd...
", although the "Whipping Post" tradition made something of a later comeback at indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
shows.
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. Musicians continued to study it: Hal Leonard Corporation published a multi-volume sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
book of the Allman Brothers' work in 1995, and it took 42 pages to transcribe all the guitar solos in the At Fillmore East rendition of the song. "Whipping Post" has also made an impression on writers and been frequently referred to in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. Ron Rash
Ron Rash
Ron Rash , an American poet, short story writer and novelist, is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and is a graduate of Gardner-Webb...
's 2006 novel The World Made Straight
The World Made Straight
The World Made Straight is a 2006 novel by Ron Rash.-Plot introduction:In 1970s Western North Carolina, a young man stumbles across a grove of marijuana, sees an opportunity to make some easy money, and steps into the jaws of a bear trap...
features a character listening to the opening bass line of the song at so loud and close a volume that the speakers shake. Douglas Palermo's 2004 Learning to Live imagines future aliens exploring a desolate Earth and discovering the At Fillmore East recording; the aliens study it and eventually succumb to an overdose of emotion, Tim McCleaf's 2004 novella For They Know Not What They Do uses the song as a metaphor for suffering, while Mary Kay Andrews' novel Little Bitty Lies refers to the song as an example of "soul-scorching blues". In non-fiction, John C. Leggett and Suzanne Malm's 1995 work The Eighteen Stages of Love uses "Whipping Post" as a metaphor for a romantic relationship in which the participants masochistically stay in though it has gone bad. In comedic context, the song was featured in the 2008 My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl is an American television comedy series created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States...
television series episode "Joy in a Bubble", in which Joy gets sick and Earl has to perform all of her regular duties.
Other Allmans versions
Live versions of "Whipping Post" surfaced on other, later Allman Brothers Band albums, although none approached At Fillmore East in sales, airplay, or influence. The Allmans closed Fillmore East on June 27, 1971 with a concert broadcast over many radio stations; that rendition of the song was in 2006 incorporated into a Deluxe Edition extra CD of the Eat a PeachEat a Peach
Eat a Peach is a 1972 double album by the American Southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band; it was the last to include founding member and lead slide-guitar player Duane Allman, who was killed in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971 while the album was being recorded.-History:This album...
album, although the Allmans' into-the-early morning performance the night before, which also included "Whipping Post", is considered more memorable. Earlier 1970 renditions of "Whipping Post" have subsequently been released, such as an 8-minute run on Fillmore East, February 1970
Fillmore East, February 1970
Fillmore East, February 1970 is a live album by the rock group the Allman Brothers Band.-The February 1970 concerts:On February 11, 13, and 14, 1970, the Allman Brothers Band, along with the Grateful Dead and Love, played at Bill Graham's Fillmore East auditorium in New York City...
and a 14-minute effort on Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival: July 3 & 5, 1970
Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival: July 3 & 5, 1970
Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival: July 3 & 5, 1970 is a live album released by the Allman Brothers. It features their two performances at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia, USA. The festival took place nearly a year before the concerts that appear on At Fillmore East...
. Some additional website-only Allmans archival releases, such as Boston Common, 8/17/71
Boston Common, 8/17/71
Boston Common, 8/17/71 is a live album by the rock group the Allman Brothers Band. As the name suggests, it was recorded at Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 17, 1971. It is the fifth archival release by the Allman Brothers Band Recording Company, and the third one to feature the...
, also capture "Whipping Post" takes from the original band.
The archival release Macon City Auditorium: 2/11/72
Macon City Auditorium: 2/11/72
Macon City Auditorium: Macon, GA 2/11/72 is an archival live album by the Allman Brothers Band. It is the first archival live album not to feature guitarist Duane Allman and, per the band's website, documents the critical "Five-man band" period during which the group decided to carry out after...
features a "Whipping Post" from the five-man-band period following Duane Allman's death. Keyboardist Chuck Leavell
Chuck Leavell
Chuck Leavell is an American pianist and keyboardist, who was a member of The Allman Brothers Band throughout the height of their popularity, a founding member of the jazz-rock combo Sea Level, a frequently-employed session musician, and later, the keyboardist for Eric Clapton and The Rolling...
was then added to the band, and for a very brief period in late 1972 was there while Berry Oakley was still on bass. A November 2, 1972 performance of "Whipping Post" from Hofstra University
Hofstra University
Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian institution of higher learning located in the Village of Hempstead, New York, United States, about east of New York City: less than an hour away by train or car...
was shown on the national late-night ABC In Concert
ABC In Concert
In Concert is a late-night television series created by Don Kirshner. Hosted by Don E. Branker, the series was a showcase for bands of the era to be taped "in concert" and then broadcast on ABC on Friday nights.-In Concert:...
show, introducing television audiences to both the band and song for the first time. Briefer than usual, and with Leavell taking an electric piano
Electric piano
An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
solo in the first slot, Betts still led the band through some of the tempo changes and emotional currents of the song. At the end, Gregg Allman changed the lyric to "... That I feel, that there just ain't no such thing as dying." But within days, Berry Oakley too would be gone.
After the Allmans broke up and re-formed in 1989, "Whipping Post" was carried forward by various personnel configurations. A 2003 Beacon Theatre performance showed up the following year on the live album One Way Out
One Way Out (album)
One Way Out is a live album by The Allman Brothers Band. It is the first live album to feature Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks together, although both had appeared separately on previous live albums...
, and features the Warren Haynes
Warren Haynes
Warren Haynes is an American rock and blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. Haynes is best known for his work as long time guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey...
/Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks is a Grammy Award-winning, American guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He founded The Derek Trucks Band and worked as a session musician when he was still in his early teens. Throughout those teenage years, he toured with The Allman Brothers Band primarily as a slide...
era of the band.
Gregg Allman himself performs "Whipping Post" with his outside-the-Allmans Gregg Allman and Friends group's concerts, but in a style that he describes as "its funky, real rhythm n’ blues-like" and in which he plays guitar rather than organ. Allman re-recorded the song for his 1997 album Searching for Simplicity, giving the song a jazzier groove, but rendering it in straight 4/4 time instead of the complex triple time of the original composition.
Other artists
In a 1974 concert in Helsinki, Finland, a drunken audience member repeatedly disrupted a Frank ZappaFrank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
performance by shouting a request for "Whipping Post." Zappa responded by playing a southern rock version of his song "Montana
Montana (Frank Zappa song)
Montana is a song composed by Frank Zappa for his 1973 LP Over-Nite Sensation. The last track on the album is one of Zappa's most famous and renowned compositions...
", subtitled "Whipping Floss". (This incident was eventually captured on his You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 is a live album by Frank Zappa. Despite the subtitle "The Helsinki Concert," the album is not one complete concert, but was, in fact, assembled from two different concerts performed in Helsinki in 1974...
live album, released in 1988.) In 1981, Zappa's band learned "Whipping Post" and added it to their repertoire, since the band's new singer and keyboard player Bobby Martin knew the song and sang the lead vocals on it. Zappa recorded a studio version of the song for the 1984 album Them or Us
Them or Us
Them or Us is an album by Frank Zappa, released in October 1984. Its opening and closing tracks are covers: "The Closer You Are", which was written by Earl Lewis and Morgan Robinson and originally released by The Channels; and "Whippin' Post", originally recorded by The Allman Brothers Band. ...
; a live recording of the song featuring Frank's son Dweezil Zappa
Dweezil Zappa
Dweezil Zappa is an American rock guitarist and occasional actor.-Early life:Zappa was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of musician Frank Zappa and Adelaide Gail Sloatman, who worked in business. He is the second of four siblings: his older sister, Moon, younger sister Diva and younger...
on lead guitar was released in 1986 on the Does Humor Belong in Music?
Does Humor Belong in Music? (album)
Does Humor Belong in Music? is a live album by Frank Zappa. It features concert recordings from October–December 1984. It was the first album by Zappa to be released on CD only ....
album and associated video
Does Humor Belong in Music? (video)
Does Humor Belong in Music? is a one-hour Frank Zappa concert video composed of live performances at The Pier in New York City along with a few interview segments. It was released on VHS by MPI Home Video in 1985 and reissued on DVD in 2003 by EMI...
.
Rock cult figure Genya Ravan
Genya Ravan
Genya Ravan, aka Goldie Zelkowitz is an American rock singer and producer. She is the former lead singer of The Escorts, Goldie & the Gingerbreads, and Ten Wheel Drive....
produced the best-known recording by a female singer, with a screaming take on her 1974 album Goldie Zelkowitz, which was subsequently sampled in Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
's "Oh My God" from his 2006 album Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come (Jay-Z album)
Kingdom Come is the ninth studio album by American rap artist Jay-Z. It was released on November 21, 2006. It was considered a "comeback album" for the established rapper, as 2003's The Black Album was slated to be his final release...
.
The most-heard rendition of "Whipping Post" by any other artist came during Season 4
American Idol (Season 4)
The fourth season of American Idol premiered on January 18, 2005 and continued until May 25, 2005. It was hosted by Ryan Seacrest. Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell also returned to judge. It was won by Carrie Underwood, who has gone on to become a five-time Grammy-winning country megastar...
of top-rated television competition American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
in 2005. Contestant Bo Bice
Bo Bice
Harold Elwin "Bo" Bice, Jr. is an American singer and musician who placed second to Carrie Underwood in the fourth season of American Idol. He has recorded three studio albums, including one on RCA Records...
gave a shot in the arm to Southern rock
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...
with an impassioned performance during the show's semi-finals round, pleasing Randy Jackson
Randy Jackson
Randall Darius "Randy" Jackson is an American bassist, singer, record producer, music manager, A&R executive, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is best known as a judge on American Idol and executive producer for MTV's America's Best Dance Crew...
and the other show judges to 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.