Delaney and Bonnie no longer friends

Delaney and Bonnie no longer friends

Posted on January 26th, 2009 by Christopher Guerin

I noted with sadness recently the passing of Delaney Bramlett. Those of us over 40 remember the group Delaney and Bonnie and Friends as one of the high points of late 60’s/early 70’s music. As this Rolling Stone article from 1969 indicates, they were something. Melding southern rock, soul, and gospel, they made one of the greatest live albums of all time with “Delaney and Bonnie On Tour With Eric Clapton.” George Harrison once asked to join their band, and they recorded with some of the finest players of their time, including Leon Russell, Steve Cropper, Duane Allman, and Billy Preston. Their album “Motel Shot” was one of the templates for the stripped-down Americana so popular in the last decade, and my favorite, “Accept No Substitute,” includes the incredible “The Ghetto,” which made anything Elvis did on that topic sound bloodless and trite.

I had the pleasure of spending time with Bonnie Bramlett a year ago when I managed a concert featuring her and backup band, Mr. Groove. She’s still got one hell of a voice, though aged with smoke, and she can still sell a song like “Superstar,” which she co-wrote (later a big hit by the Carpenters), like her life depends on it.

I couldn’t help asking her about those years (and getting her to sign my still-pristine copy of “Accept No Substitute”) and she was happy to talk. Why had they broken up? She was quick to clarify that it had nothing to do with Eric Clapton. “Eric was no Delaney,” she said, “There was never anything between Eric and me.” The truth was much more mundane and predictable. At the height of their popularity, two things took control — cocaine and the record company execs wanting to make big solo artists out of each of them. They didn’t take long to tear them apart. And, as usually happens, the work they did solo was never as popular.

As Bonnie talked, about her kids and how she and Delaney communicated through them — “Hell, we still like all the same things, even television shows!” — and the way she went out of her way to say nice things about Delaney — “He was a hell of a man!” — I couldn’t help asking, “So, you’re still friends?” “Hell no!” she exclaimed. “I can’t stand him!”

Check out those Delaney and Bonnie albums, and Bonnie’s recent release. Awesome.

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Christopher Guerin

Christopher Guerin is the author of two books each of poetry and short fiction, a novel, and more than a dozen children’s books. If he hadn’t spent 26 years as an arts administrator, including 20 years as President of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, perhaps he’d have worked a little harder getting them published. His consolation resides in his fiction and poems having been published in numerous small magazines, including Rosebud, AURA, Williams and Mary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Wittenberg Review, RE: Artes Liberales, DEROS, Wind, and Wind less Orchard. His blog, Zealotry of Guerin, features his fiction and poetry, including his sonnet sequence of poems after paintings, “Brushwork." He is the V.P. of Corporate Communications at Sweetwater Sound, Inc., the national music instrument retailer.