If asked to compile a "best of
the Allman Brothers live" disc, most
Allmans fans probably would just pick the band's
At Fillmore East album and have done with it. That would be a little too long for the single-disc confines of Universal Music Group's discount-priced best-of series
20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection Live, however, not to mention being too unimaginative for the directors of the series to bear. Still, they have taken three of the six tracks on this disc from
At Fillmore East, and two more were recorded at the Fillmore East and later included on the follow-up to
At Fillmore East,
Eat a Peach. The only real holdout, then, is the final track, "You Don't Love Me/Soul Serenade," drawn from a radio concert performed in 1971 (the same year as all the other tracks). This version is not superior to the one of "You Don't Love Me" on
At Fillmore East, but it will be less familiar to many fans, having appeared previously on the 1989 box set
Dreams. In addition to some powerful guitar work, it boasts an introduction by
Duane Allman in which he speaks feelingly of the funeral of
King Curtis, which had taken place less than two weeks before and which
Allman clearly had attended. ~ William Ruhlmann