Whipping Post
by The Allman Brothers Band
- 97
- BPM
- E minor
- Key
- 9A
- Camelot
- 32
- Danceability
- 33
- Acousticness
In late March 1969 the Allman Brothers Band had only just formed. Gregg Allman had failed to make a name in Los Angeles and was close to quitting music. Then his brother Duane called to say a new band needed a vocalist. Gregg showed them 22 songs. Only "Dreams" and "It's Not My Cross to Bear" were usable. He was asked to write more that fit the group, and in the next five days he wrote several, among them "Whipping Post". He put the pattern and lyrics down on an ironing board cover in the middle of the night, using charcoal from burned kitchen matches.
The Allman Brothers Band recorded the studio version on August 7, 1969, in New York, with Adrian Barber producing. Bassist Berry Oakley devised the part that plays the introduction. It made the song more menacing than the melancholy blues Allman had written. The album sold poorly, and "Whipping Post" sat last on it.
Live, the song grew. On March 13, 1971, at the Fillmore East, two fans yelled for it as Duane began to introduce the next tune. The performance on At Fillmore East runs 22 minutes and 40 seconds and fills the whole final side of the double album. Near the ten-minute mark the band drops into near silence, and Dickey Betts plays light jazz lines while Duane adds quiet chords. The final seconds lead straight into "Mountain Jam".
Whipping Post runs at 97 BPM, the tempo of hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.47 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 619 ms. It is in E minor, Camelot 9A, which shares its notes with G major and mixes cleanly with A minor and B minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.