Photo: Emma Delevante
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Devon Allman looks at his career the way he looks at a chessboard. The Texas-born, St. Louis-based musician is constantly contemplating his next move—and the move after that. Two years ago, he dropped into a famed Florida studio for a week-long, big-budget recording session with some heavyweight friends, only to shelve the results while he pivoted to recalibrate his annual Allman Family Revival event with Duane Betts, record an EP with Donavon Frankenreiter, twice resurrect The Allman Betts Band, run his expanding record label, and, oh yeah, set a new U.S. touring record.
On this Thursday afternoon in June, Allman is looking ahead to the moment when he will finally unveil Miami Moon, the LP they tracked during those seven days in the Sunshine State back in 2022. The album, infused with funk and neo-soul, is a conspicuous departure from the blues-and-rock hybridized style he’s cultivated steadily over the course of his stints with Honeytribe, Royal Southern Brotherhood and his recent solo efforts, not to mention another two albums with The Allman Betts Band. This latest effort is likely to surprise his audience, as it did Allman himself—so much so that he delayed its release until this summer. Right now, though, Allman’s next move is getting some coffee.
After a bumpy, overnight ride in from western Pennsylvania, Allman and The Allman Betts Band arrive in Tarrytown, N.Y., for the first night of a four-show run through the region as part of their six-week spring reunion tour. Properly caffeinated, Allman settles into the back lounge of the bus, raving about the group’s current performances. “Everybody’s playing in top form,” Allman says. “The setlists have been wacked out and different every night. It’s been fun.”
Different and fun could just as easily describe the forthcoming, nine-song Miami Moon. The album’s origins began—where else—in the back of a tour bus, during the Devon Allman Project’s 2021 joint outing with Samantha Fish. Allman’s personal playlist at the time was heavy with Curtis Mayfield, the Bee Gees and Nile Rodgers-produced records, plus go-to favorites Steely Dan and Sade.
On the road, Allman was delighting in the flashback grooves of the ‘70s and ‘80s. A guitarist by trade, he found himself, instead, grabbing a bass and thumbing out riffs as he relaxed in the bus lounge. Several of his basslines struck him as infectious enough to develop and refine.
He recruited Devon Allman Project guitarist Jackson Stokes to join him in the back of the bus, and the two shaped the nascent riffs into song ideas. Allman shared with Stokes the notion of forming a supergroup for a potential recording session. “I looked at the core of musicians he had [in mind] and I said, ‘Let’s lean into that. Let’s find a way to breed Devon’s style with these legendary artists,’” Stokes says.
The legendary artists that Allman had lined up were all icons of the funk and jam world: The Meters bassist George Porter Jr., Dumpstafunk keyboardist Ivan Neville and Lettuce drummer Adam Deitch. He had also settled on North Miami’s Criteria Studios as the ideal locale for the session and blocked out a week for recording in February of 2022.
If there is one thing that has remained consistent throughout each and every album or group Allman has been a part of, then it is his sense of narrative. As a teen, he studied a bit of theater, and he continues to bring that firm commitment to the story with him. For Allman, it’s nothing less than essential.
“Stories will last forever. A story is what gets someone intrigued,” Allman says. “Why should someone buy a record? There couldn’t be a more important aspect of a project, album or tour than the storyline.”
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Miami Moon has a clear origin story. It had its central cast of performers in place. And, it had a chosen location.
In recent years, Allman has assembled a mental list of venerated studios where he’s wanted to record. With The Allman Betts Band, he tracked two albums at the famed Muscle Shoals in Alabama, the hallowed brickhouse on Jackson Highway. For any musician, Criteria exudes that same kind of historical import. It’s where Allman’s father and uncle, and their seminal group, The Allman Brothers Band, made Eat a Peach, and where Derek and the Dominos cut Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs—a pair of albums very close to Allman’s heart.
“We live in a day and age when you can go into your basement or your bedroom and turn out a record. And that’s great. It really is. There were times in the 1990s when it was such a struggle to capture a song when I didn’t have the money to go into a studio. So there are some distinct advantages to today’s technology,” Allman says. “But, the fact remains, there weren’t any legends that went into your bedroom or your basement and made a record.”
Deitch, too, enjoyed dancing with Criteria’s ghosts. “It’s where James Brown recorded his hit, ‘I Feel Good.’ Just to be in that spot was incredible,” the drummer says. “The first beat I played when I walked in there was the beat from ‘I Feel Good,’ just to see what it sounded like in this big room. I was like, ‘Yup, that’s it.’ You could hear the reverberations of the room naturally. It has that sound.”
Most of the repertoire that Allman brought to Criteria stems from his recent collaborations with Stokes. They had a particular trio of funky, groove-based songs begging for a mirror ball, beginning with “Body Electric”—which is notable, as well, for having the first lyrics ever to rhyme “decorum” with “The Forum.” “White Horse,” the album’s eventual lead single, and “Climb Aboard” came next.
“I see songs and albums in colors, always. After we wrote ‘Body Electric,’ I was like, ‘Wow, that feels so great. You can dance to this. It slams. You could have a killer sax solo. This is a neon-colored song,’” Allman says. “This time I said, ‘This is fun. This is up.’ I looked at Jackson Stokes and I said, ‘This is it. This is a pink album.’”
At the Criteria sessions, Stokes charted out arrangements and ran down the material with Neville, Porter and Deitch. Allman, with simultaneous reverence and trepidation, shared his basslines with Porter Jr. “It was very daunting. I did not know how he would react to that,” Allman says. “And he was so sweet. He would add something or play it just the way I had it. He was so cool—no ego on the floor, and he really embraced what we had written.”
They ordered in Cuban food and watched NBA hoops during breaks. The album’s producer, Tom Hambridge, occasionally doubled on drums with Deitch and tracked the band live to 2-inch tape, another Allman insistence.
Effectively, the album is a mood piece, sequenced to unfold like a night out on the town. There is the initial burst of anticipation in “White Horse,” the assertive “Incredible” and the after-dinner cocktail of “You.” The title track follows, with rolling surf and an approaching flight, as the evening gets a little warmer and darker.
“Oh, the song ‘Miami Moon,’ certainly, is my proudest moment on the record,” Allman says. “It’s definitely a highlight for me.”
From there, the club-hopping starts, beginning with one of the album’s two instrumentals—“Sahara”—which sizzles, as advertised. Then, the dance-floor couplet of “Climb Aboard” and “Body Electric” takes effect. Another instrumental, “Take Time to Taste It,” suggests savoring the night’s last sparks, before a rendition of Van Morrison’s “You Gotta Make It Through the World” offers a nightcap and the promise of tomorrow.
Allman set up Neville with a bank of vintage keyboards. They utilized background singers, tympani drums and string sections—all buffed to a high polish, with no expense spared. And that killer sax Allman envisioned? He enlisted current Rolling Stones saxophonist Karl Denson to bring some seductive heat.
“I knew the components I needed to have for this album,” Allman says. “I knew the musicians and the location would ramp up the budget. But, I said, ‘Let’s go all in. This record deserves it.’”
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A few months after the session, with the final mix complete, Allman threw a plot twist into the Miami Moon story. He made the surprising decision to stow away the album, indefinitely.
“I was like, ‘I can’t put this out,’” Allman says. “There was a fear there. My fans don’t know me to make this type of music. I’m going to piss them off. I walked away from this album for a year.”
Instead, Allman turned his attention back to his solo touring vehicle, the Devon Allman Project, and hit the road, including a spot in May at BeachLife 2022, a three-day festival in Redondo Beach, Calif., where he dropped “Body Electric” into a set dotted with guest appearances from Fish, Neville and Frankenreiter. In August of that year, Allman turned 50. At his birthday party, he spoke with his manager and his agent about an idea he’d been holding onto for some time.
Allman wanted to set a touring record by performing 50 shows, in all 50 U.S. states, in 49 days. He wanted to make his attempt in the summer of 2023, and he suspected he had the perfect man to help him do it. “I knew Donavon Frankenreiter was a touring lunatic. This is the guy,” Allman says. “Because that’s not an endeavor I want to do alone, I called him, and before I even finished the pitch, he says, ‘Let’s go.’”
Before they embarked on their See It All tour, the pair wrote and recorded a six-song EP, Rollers. Produced by North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson, and featuring a guest spot from Maggie Rose, the release served as the springboard for a trek which would wrap up at BeachLife Ranch, in Redondo, that September.
“We were madmen to even attempt that tour. It was mind-blowing. No one got hurt. No one got sick. No one lost his voice. We didn’t have a bus breakdown,” Allman says. “The day after it ended, the bass player got COVID. The next day, the bus broke down and sat waiting for a part for four days. So, it was really like all the forces aligned for us to complete that mission. No one can take that away from us.”
Allman spent part of the summer, as well, reconvening The Allman Betts Band for a short series of dates, reuniting after he and Betts put the group on hiatus in December of 2021. The two also refreshed their flagship Allman Family Revival, rebranding it as The Allman Betts Family Revival.
What began in December of 2017 as a posthumous 70th birthday party for Allman’s father, Gregg, who’d passed the previous spring, has gradually evolved into an annual 19-city U.S. fall tour celebrating the individual and collective music of Gregg, and Duane’s dad, Dickey Betts. It was on the Revival tour where Allman initially befriended Neville and Porter Jr. and where he imagined his supergroup’s possibilities. “Aiming for the top of every single category was really what this was about,” Allman says. “I thought, ‘Adam Deitch would murder these songs. George Porter would murder these songs. And Ivan Neville would be so sick.’”
Yet, there the album sat, essentially unheard outside of those who made it.
In 2023, Allman’s longtime manager, Rueben Williams, insisted he revisit the record. With fresh ears, Allman pondered the purpose of his pink album. “This is the first record of my career where I didn’t think about if this would fit in the blues category, or if guitar guys will like this, or if Allman Brothers fans will like this,” he says. “All of those thoughts have come to the precipice whenever I’ve made an album—every time, I can’t avoid it. But, I made this one for me.”
Allman decided to let the chips fall where they may, and he started formulating the album’s aesthetic and marketing strategy. In June, he teased his social media followers with a screenshot from the “White Horse” video shoot—a lone silhouette, backed in neon pink—and a simple caption, June 7, that hinted at the single’s release date. “Building excitement is really fun,” Allman says. “It makes people feel like they’re along for the ride.”
After The Allman Betts Band reunion tour wraps, Allman has a few days off before taking DAP to Holland for a one-off festival gig. In July, he’s scheduled to head out for a festival date in California with The Allman Betts Band, then a DAP tour of Europe and then Allman Betts Band stops in Hawaii and Japan, before another slate of festival slots with DAP in August. All of this precedes Miami Moon’s August 16 release on Allman’s own Create Records label, which most certainly will lead to more touring.
“Yes, he’s a workaholic,” Stokes says, laughing. “And he’s taught me to be one, too.”
Allman, who even performed with the house band at his own wedding, remains resistant to agree unequivocally. “I can see it as obsessive, someone who is diabolical and will stop at nothing for success. Then, I can see it in the other light—someone who is really driven,” Allman says, noting that he has two more albums completed and ready for release. “The fact is, I love the work. I love making records. I love being on tour, taking the music to people. I love producing albums and watching artists grow. You want to leave something behind, right?”
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