The Photo That Signaled the Allman Brothers Band Were Back

Today is the anniversary of Seven Turns, the 1990 album that relaunched the Allman Brothers Band and started their longest run. It was released by Epic Records on July 3, 1990. The cover image was photographed by Kirk West. When I asked him about it, I thought the story was worthy of sharing. Here it is.

“Dickey had the vision and I found the locale,” says West. “We were at Criteria recording and Dickey said, ‘Let’s talk about the album cover’ and he took me out to the lobby with an acoustic guitar and played me ‘Seven Turns’ and said, ‘That’s what I want the album to look like.’ It was one of the most amazing moments, because he saw me as an artist and knew that I could see his visions.

“I spent a few days driving around looking for the spot and I found this out on Alligator Alley, about an hour from the studio. I took Polaroids at two or three different locales, but I thought this was the one that was the best. It was an outlet road that we weren’t supposed to go through and I posted them all up against that.

There was a concrete overpass and then there was this spot. what were you going to do with seven guys other than line them up? They weren’t fashion models. Dickey knew how to pose. He had star quality. Gregg was too inhibited or shy or whatever. Warren was pretty good. Woody had in his mind. “I am a motherfucker and I will look like a motherfucker.” Jaimoe didn’t give a shit. He was always great to shoot because there was no telling him what to do. He’d show up in Bermuda shorts and boots. Butch was easy to work with, but he didn’t really assert his opinion about such things at this time.”

“We had a bucket brigade keeping that water there. It was right next to a canal and I had Red dog and Dave Lori, Gregg’s manager at the time, keeping the water level. Red Dog got really tweaked at me because there was an alligator in the water.

“Dickey loved the album cover, which is why he put up with so much of my shit for Shades of Two Worlds, where we shot pictures for four days. By the time we got to An Evening With, they gave me half an hour to do the whole thing outside the Orpheum in Boston. I loved the Seven Turns photo and I still do.”

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Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s was my third straight book to debut in the New York Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List, following Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. My first book was Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about my experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band. It was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions. I am also a guitarist and singer who fronts two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.