Happy Birthday Jaimoe: Watch Allman Brothers Band Perform At Woodstock ‘94

The Allman Brothers Band co-founding drummer Jaimoe turns 78 today. To celebrate, JamBase takes a look at Jaimoe’s musical journey as well as ABB’s set from Woodstock ’94 for this edition of Full Show Friday.

Born John Lee Johnson in Ocean Springs, Mississippi on July 8, 1944, Jai Johanny Johanson or Jaimoe as the drummer would come to be known, began his early career as a member of Otis Redding’s touring band and also played with Sam & Dave. The legendary soul/rhythm and blues acts cut records at the storied FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. This put Jaimoe on the radar of the studio’s ace session guitarist, Duane Allman.

Duane and Jaimoe began laying the foundations for what would become The Allman Brothers Band in February 1969 with fellow founding members bassist Berry Oakley, guitarist Dickey Betts, keyboardist Gregg Allman and drummer Butch Trucks joining to found ABB a month later. Jaimoe and Trucks soon became one of the greatest drum tandems of all time and provided perfect foils for each other with Butch delivering his “freight train” style of playing and Jaimoe providing the bells and whistles to extend the metaphor. Although steeped in R&B playing with Redding, Sam & Dave and many others, Jaimoe’s first love was jazz.

“I wanted to be the world’s greatest jazz drummer, and I thought rock or funk were too easy—then I got a chance and couldn’t play what needed to be played,” Jaimoe recalled in a 2020 interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I had to learn, and music was everything to me.”

The drummer also stated in the interview, “Music is music, and there’s no such things as jazz or rock ’n’ roll.” Jaimoe began developing this philosophy in ABB and in turn helped develop the band’s signature sound, blurring the lines between 3-minute powerhouse rock and the improvisational landscape of jazz. That combination would later underpin what is called jam music today.

In 1994, as the jam scene was in its infancy, The Allman Brothers Band performed at the 25th-anniversary celebration of Woodstock on August 14, 1994 in upstate New York. The lineup at the time included founding members Jaimoe, Gregg, Butch and Betts as well as guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody and percussionist Marc Quinones with the latter adding to Trucks and Jaimoe’s rhythm-scape.

Woodstock ‘94 saw the band delivering a scorching set with Haynes ripping right into “Statesboro Blues” to start things off followed by great solos from Gregg and Dickey all driven by the three-pronged percussion attack of Jaimoe, Trucks and Quiñones. Dickey then led the band through his ABB classic “Blue Sky” before welcoming his 16-year-old son Duane Betts on Willie Dixon’s “The Same Thing” and Warren Haynes’ “Soulshine,” which originally appears on the Allman’s album at the time, Where It All Begins.

Next, Gregg characteristically dons his acoustic guitar for “Midnight Rider” ahead of the adventurous ABB classic instrumental “Jessica” which always gives the percussionists a chance to shine. Following Dickey’s “No One To Run With” and “Back Where It All Begins,” ABB closed out the set with “One Way Out,” with its percussive breakdown from Jaimoe, Trucks and Quiñones before Betts, Haynes and finally Gregg bring the song home. The band returns to encore with a fiery “Whipping Post.”

To celebrate Jaimoe’s birthday, watch The Allman Brothers Band perform at Woodstock ‘94 below: