Album: The Allman Brothers Band <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Eat a Peach, MERCURY

The week's second Seventies classic is this 1972 double-album from The Allman Brothers Band, released shortly after the slide guitarist Duane Allman's death in a motorbike accident. At the time, Allman was one of the golden prospects of blues-rock thanks to his work on "Layla" and Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude". The Allmans were like a Southern version of the Grateful Dead, their R&B-soul roots ensuring that their blues-based improvisations rarely strayed from the core themes. Notable for the half-hour-plus live "Mountain Jam" that originally sprawled across two sides of vinyl, Eat a Peach shows just how graceful Southern rock could be. There are hardly any unnecessary longueurs, and both "Blue Sky" and the concluding showcase "Little Martha" exhibit a subtle charm and delicacy matched by few other bands of that era; while, on the raunchier side, "One Way Out" packs a punch that would have amazed even its author, Elmore James. This edition includes a second disc with the group's final Fillmore East concert: 76 more minutes of Duane's quicksilver genius to marvel at.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'One Way Out', 'Blue Sky', 'Little Martha'