The Final Note is a live album by the Allman Brothers Band. It was recorded on October 17, 1971 at the Painters Mill Music Fair in Owings Mills, Maryland. It was released on October 16, 2020.
The Final Note documents the last performance by guitarist Duane Allman, who died in a motorcycle accident twelve days later. The album includes part of the concert, and was recorded by a music journalist using a hand-held cassette recorder with an internal microphone.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Critical reception
On AllMusic, Thom Jurek said, "The band's eight-song performance is deeply satisfying musically. From top to bottom, they leave everything on the stage, with no letup.... If you can forgive the somewhat dodgy sound, The Final Note is an essential addition to ABB lore and captures the band at their kinetic best."[1]
In the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Wade Tatangelo wrote, "The Final Note presents not just Duane Allman’s last show but a band at the height of its power with an audience elated to witness the pioneering Southern rockers.... And the sound quality, it should be stressed, will be fine for anyone with bootleg ears, and is likely to grow on the uninitiated."[2]
In Under the Radar, Frank Valish said, "Given that The Final Note was sourced from a cassette tape crowd recording from the early '70s, the sound quality is not terrific. But fidelity aside (and the sound here is not bad, considering the circumstances), the historic nature of the concert takes ultimate precedence.... Duane Allman's slide guitar takes front and center stage from the opener..."[3]
In All About Jazz, C. Michael Bailey wrote, "An audience recording made on a 60-minute cassette tape by radio music journalist Sam Idas, the performance sounds exactly like that, an audience live recording, probably like the myriad of similar recordings made of the Grateful Dead by enthusiastic fans. The recording has a deeply organic and spontaneous sound. Hearing it today is akin to reading the Dead Sea Scrolls in all of their flawed glory on the day they were discovered."[4]
