Warren Haynes has been one of the greatest, most active musicians on the roots and jam scene for four decades now, working with Gov’t Mule, the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead, among many others. Yet the new Million Voices Whisper is only his fourth studio solo album across all those years.
Like its predecessors, it’s a collection that focuses a bit more on the songcraft than jamming, a diverse set of songs with a heavy soul underpinning.
The headline for fans of the Allman Brothers Band is that Derek Trucks appears on three songs that the two guitarists co-produced. Though they’ve played together on stage many times since the ABB’s last show a decade ago, these tracks represent the first studio collaboration between Haynes and Trucks since 2003’s Hittin’ the Note, the ABB’s final album.
One of the songs, Real Real Love, was based on lyrics written by Gregg Allman, who never completed the song. These three tracks go a long way in completing an unbroken circle for Haynes and Trucks, who played together in the ABB from 2001 to 2014.
“I always wanted to do one more Allman Brothers studio record, but that just wasn’t meant to be,” Haynes says.
The Allman Brothers Band’s final concert, which took place October 28, 2014, was released in a newly remastered version on the 10th anniversary of the show, further adding closure to Haynes and Trucks’ sparkling partnership in the group.
Million Voices Whisper also features guest appearances by Lukas Nelson and Jamey Johnson, whom Haynes toured with for several years as part of The Last Waltz Tour, a tribute to the Band.
The album’s core band, now on the road with Haynes, is John Medeski on keyboards, New Orleans drummer Terence Higgins and Gov’t Mule bassist Kevin Scott. Though the quartet had never played together before the album sessions, Haynes says, “it felt really natural really quickly.”
Haynes has been a fixture since he came to national prominence as a member of the reformed Allman Brothers band in 1989. Gov’t Mule, which began as a side project for him and ABB bassist Allen Woody, who passed away in 2000, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.
He’s also worked extensively with the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, toured as a member of the Dead and been at the center of countless classic jams, including at his mostly annual Christmas Jam.
The holiday tradition has brought musicians including Dave Grohl, Billy Gibbons, John Paul Jones, Gregg Allman, Bob Weir and Dave Matthews to Haynes’ hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, raising millions of dollars for Habitat for Humanity, building more than 50 homes and creating three new neighborhoods.
![Warren Haynes [left] and Derek Trucks trade licks onstage. Haynes wears a dark shirt and plays a Les Paul in Heritage Cherry while Trucks wears a plaid shirt and plays his trusty Dickey Betts SG.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/LD56LTyzGPt9mXTWSKWJgf-1200-80.jpg.webp)
Million Voices Whisper feels a little different from anything else you’ve done. The songs really work together as a cohesive album. Did you write specifically for this project or did you end up with a certain number of songs that felt similar and then decide you should make a solo album?
When I finished writing Real Real Love, I sent Derek a work tape and said, ‘We need to record this tune together.’ It just made sense to have him on that side because of the Gregg connection
“A little of both. I wrote a few of the songs during the lockdown, but most of them are brand new, and once I started writing with a sonic goal in mind, it became easier to focus on what songs belonged together.
“It’s a very song-oriented album that falls somewhere between Ashes and Dust and Man in Motion, which it’s closer to because it’s also very soul-music influenced.”
Real Real Love is a song Gregg Allman started and you finished. You co-wrote a lot with him. Was this something you had worked on together?
“No. He had shown it to me, but we never did tackle it. Bert [Holman, Allman Brothers Band manager] sent me a copy of Gregg’s incomplete lyrics and asked if I remembered the song, which I did.
“I don’t know if he had music to it or not, but there’s no evidence if he did. So I wrote the music and finished the lyrics, all based on how he would do it. We spent enough years writing together that I had a good idea of how to shape it in a way that would be reflective of what he would want it to be.”
Did that impact how you sang it? Did you have his voice in your head?
“Yeah, absolutely. More so than probably anything I’ve ever done. I was thinking of how he would sing it and how he would arrange it. That was one of the reasons I added the horn section – because I could hear Gregg saying, ‘Hey, we need to add horns.’”
Lukas Nelson, Jamey Johnson and Derek Trucks all make significant contributions to the album. Did you make a conscious decision that you wanted to do a project with a lot of collaborations?
“Not really – except for Derek. When I finished writing Real Real Love, I sent Derek a work tape and said, ‘We need to record this tune together.’ It just made sense to have him on that side because of the Gregg connection.
“Then we decided to get together and write, so “I went down to his farm in Georgia and we spent three days writing together and wrote quite a bit of music, including These Changes, Hall of Future Saints and a couple of others that I think will surface because I really like them a lot.”
Of the three songs, Hall of Future Saints has the most extended guitar jamming. Was it structured that way?
“Sort of, but we were really getting into it in the studio and it became over nine minutes long with that extended outro. We kept the long jam at the end as opposed to fading it or cutting it out just because we felt like the fans would want to hear it.
“I think what we wound up with is the proper way to capture what we were trying to do, which is capturing the live energy and chemistry of everyone playing together in real time in addition to the songs themselves.”
How did Lukas and Jamey end up on Day of Reckoning?
“We worked together on The Last Waltz shows, and I loved the way our voices blend together and wanted to do something with the three of us. Lukas co-wrote Day of Reckoning, making some suggestions that made a big difference, and then Jamie co-wrote Go Down Swinging.
“Lukas plays the first two solos on Day of Reckoning, and it was very exciting as it happened, which wasn’t necessarily how it was structured. He was playing his Les Paul Junior through an AC30 that was in the studio, and it sounded amazing.”
Lies, Lies, Lies sounds like it could slide onto a Gov’t Mule album, partly because it’s so driven by Kevin Scott’s bassline. He seems to have unleashed something in your playing since he joined last year, and he’s the only other connection between the two bands.
“Kevin is such a strong musical personality that he’s constantly pushing everyone else to play differently, based on his approach. Much of my music is pretty bass-driven, but Kevin takes it the extra mile.
“This was the first time we had worked in the studio together, and it was interesting to watch the way he approaches recording as opposed to live performance. It’s a very different thing, but his playing is very similar in both contexts, and I love that.
“Most of the musicians I choose to work with don’t get caught up in the recording traps. It’s nice if we can approach the music much more similarly to the way we approach it on stage than the average person does.”
“I’ve always tried to do that, but it’s interesting getting other people’s perspective on it, and we were forming a new band in the studio rather than on stage. Terence [Higgins, drums] and John [Medeski, keyboards] are such strong players that we easily forced a chemistry upon ourselves.
“I had played with everyone individually, but the four of us had never played together until then; it felt like a band right from the beginning, which is the most you can hope for. I always want a band, not a group of backing musicians, and I could feel that growing day by day.
“Then when we went on the road, we added [saxophonist] Greg Osby to the fold, which brought another fantastic sonic layer and it has continued to grow.”
Your playing on You Ain’t Above Me is very B.B. King inspired, almost a tribute. That may have sounded derivative 20 years ago, but it’s so welcome now. B.B. is gone, and for those of us who miss him and that type of playing so much, it’s very powerful and heartening to hear it so well executed – and there aren’t many people who can do it justice.
“Thanks. I agree that the more time that passes, the more it’s not only okay to honor your heroes and influences, but absolutely the right thing to do. A lot of guitar players are going to keep B.B.’s style alive, but he influenced us all more than most people even realize. Still, this is just what happened naturally responding to what I was hearing. I did not write the song as a tribute to B.B.
“In fact, I thought of it more like a soul ballad, which is just a short walk away, and when we started playing it, I naturally gravitated toward that B.B. influence when Medeski started playing that gospel organ intro. That kind of thing is why I like to let the songs breathe and unfold as we work them out.”
If you get the right people in the room, the right things will happen.
“Yes, exactly right. You know, there’s also a strong B.B. influence on Go Down Swinging, so the second and third songs on the album tip the hat to B.B. King, which is fine by me.”
On the bonus track, Baby’s On the Move, I played a signature J Mascis guitar that he gave me when I sat in with him
You have a very nice, mostly clean, tube-driven sound throughout the album. What was your primary gear?
“My two main guitars were my signature Les Paul and my blonde 335. On the bonus track, Baby’s On the Move, I played a signature J Mascis guitar that he gave me when I sat in with him. It’s basically a Squier Jazzmaster, a very inexpensive, fantastic-sounding guitar. I really don’t think I had ever played a Jazzmaster and certainly had never recorded with one and it was very cool and a lot of fun.
“I used a combination of three amps, as I’ve been doing a lot recently. It was mostly my little Alessandro recording amp, a Homestead combo and one of my Gibsons, mostly the prototype of the new Falcon. We swapped some stuff out, but that was my main combination. We would record all three, then decide what combination we wanted to use, which was different on every track but worked well.”
“Effects wise, the [Hughes & Kettner] Rotosphere appeared here and there. I used a Boss OC-2 octave divider on the solo for Day of Reckoning and there are a couple of backwards solos on Lies, Lies, Lies, where I just stepped on the Hardwire DL-8 [delay/looper] pedal while playing.
“Maybe one was overdubbed and one was live. I keep saying I’m going to do more overdubbing, but I wind up keeping the solos from the track because it’s so much more fun.”
You’ve been telling me “The next one will have more overdubs” for 30 years!
“I know. I start every album saying I’m going to do more overdubbing on this record and there are a few here, but I’m always going to favor playing live!”
- Million Voices Whisper is out now via Fantasy.
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