Into the Mystic With Kirk West

A tribute to Tour Mystic Kirk West, the man who made me an ABB insider - and a Brothers and Sisters excerpt.

Today is Kirk West’s 72nd birthday, a fine day to pay tribute to the man known as the Tour Mystic, and the single individual most responsible for my transition from journalist covering the Allman Brothers Band to an ABB insider. We met in 1990, when I did my first big Allman Brothers piece, for Tower Pulse magazine upon the release of Seven Turns. By the next year, I was working as Guitar World Managing Editor and we became increasingly friendly as I kept writing about the ABB. to make a long story short, I ghost wrote a story with him on the band’s history, we worked closely on it, and got along great, and he loved the way it came out, and started asking me to work with him on archival releases and other things.

I visited him at his house in Chicago, and in Macon shortly after he and his wife Kirsten bought the Big House, the pro cess which started it towards being the fabulous museum it is now. When we met, he was well known as both an intimaditing presence patrolling the aBB stage and the friendly guy who helped the ABB fan community be a community. He also was an ex addict who chain smoked filterless Camels, lighting one cigarette off another - 4 packs a day, I think. Then he quit cold turkey, with the help of an acupuncturist. Amazing.

He’s been one of my best friends for decades, and we have stirred up some shirt together! I’m very proud that I helped bring him back into the ABB world he was leave behind after retiring from the road when I asked him to be the photo editor of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. For all these reasons and many more, he was a crucial part of the writing of my recent book, Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s. Details below in the book’s excerpted Author’s Note.

Kirk holding down the stage, early 90s. Tbis is the guy I met.

• BROTHERS AND SISTERS - AUTHOR’S NOTE

In September 2021, I flew back from Macon, Georgia, carrying a dusty suitcase full of hundreds of cassette tapes that an old friend promised would shed new light on the Allman Brothers Band and American culture.

Kirk West, the longtime Allman Brothers insider, had recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with the band in the mid-1980s for a book he never wrote. Some forty years had passed, and no one had ever listened to most of them—not even Kirk. I carried the precious cargo on the plane with tender, loving care, as if I were transporting sacred texts. I had already started writing this book, convinced that there was a lot more to be said about the Allman Brothers and their impact on America beyond music, even after so much had been written about the band, including my own bestselling oral history One Way Out.

Kirk passing the baton - tapes - to me. Macon, September, 2021. Photo by my son Jacob Blumenstein Paul.

The era that was the most crucial yet most under-explored was the time before and after Brothers and Sisters, an album recorded and released in 1973. It became the Allman Brothers Band’s first true hit, pushing them beyond their devoted circle of hardcore fans to superstardom as they rose above the status of great American rock band to become a national institution. Telling the story of the album reveals a larger story, a story about the nation itself.

I dug into the making of the album and the events of 1971–76, stitching together a broader story that explains how and why the band was so deeply influential period during this period. They helped elect Jimmy Carter. They hosted the largest rock concert ever. They were at the center of events involving a who’s who list, including Cher, the Grateful Dead, and Geraldo Rivera. I did thorough research and dozens of fresh interviews, but my secret weapon was contained in that suitcase: Kirk’s cache of never-before-heard interviews.

The subjects were talking to someone they deeply trusted during a lull in their careers. In the mid-1980s, the band was twice broken up with no plans to reunite, and everyone was bracingly honest and deeply reflective and insightful. When the Allman Brothers Band did reunite in 1989, Kirk became a central figure during their final  twenty-five years together, serving as “Tour Mystic,” photographer, and historian, as well as conceiving and founding Macon’s Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House.

Beacon, 2000 with Jacob, who loved the ABB. This little baby took the picture above.

Before any of that, however, he was a major fan researching a book and conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with founding members Dickey Betts, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and Jaimoe, as well as crew members, wives, siblings, and promoters like Bill Graham. When Kirk got hired by the band, he shelved the book and stored his tapes in the two-sided case, which was stashed under a desk in his office and left to gather dust  until he entrusted it to me.

I digitized the cassettes with the help of Alan Friedman, a local audio expert, and spent endless hours listening to the members and their extended band family tell their stories and share their thoughts. The interviews provided original insights beyond what I could have imagined, leading me to a deeper understanding not only of this era but of the band’s entire history and the real personalities and motivations of the members, and their relationships with one another.

Kirk and Kirsten, City Winery 7/30/23

There is a symmetry in having Kirk’s interviews hold such a central spot in this book. He is the reason I became an Allman Brothers insider in the first place. Our relationship began grounded in mutual professional respect and blossomed over thirty-plus years into one of my most valued and important friendships. Kirk was with me every step of the way in writing Brothers and Sisters.

Excerpted from Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, copyright Alan Paul, 2023.

Note also that the audiobook includes 40 clips from these interviews! You can buy it here.

Me and Kirk at the grave, Rose Hill, Macon, 1993. My first visit.

Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, was my third straight instant New York Times bestseller, 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. We may well be playing near you soon. Click here to find out.