Warren Haynes Had to be Jerry Garcia and Duane Allman — In the Same Year

In 2004, Warren Haynes played 80+ shows across The Dead and the Allman Brothers — learning 150 songs while both bands told him: don’t imitate the legend before you.

Warren Haynes joined the Allman Brothers Band in March 1989 as a temporary reunion hire. He stayed twenty-five years. Along the way, both Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts told him the same thing Phil Lesh would later say about Jerry Garcia’s music: bring your own voice. Don’t copy the original.

In 2004, The Dead — Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Jimmy Herring, Jeff Chimenti, and Haynes — launched the Wave That Flag Tour. Haynes learned 150 songs for a band that changed its setlist every night while rotating who called each song. Three days after playing the Tweeter Center in Camden with The Dead, he’d be at Jones Beach singing “Sugaree” without imitating a single Garcia phrase. Then back to the Allmans for “Blue Sky” — on a Stratocaster, not Duane’s Les Paul.

This video traces Haynes from his years with David Allan Coe through the Phil Lesh Quintet, Gov’t Mule, and the final Allman Brothers show at the Beacon Theatre on October 28, 2014 — and argues that carrying a legacy forward means refusing to pretend you’re someone you’re not.