When the first band you join is that of David Allan Coe's, good things are to come. Throw in The Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule, The Dead, a band with your namesake, affiliations with Dave Matthews Band and legends like Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker, and Bonnie Raitt, and an annual star studded Christmas Jam and guitar god Warren Haynes calls it a career.
In 1989, Haynes got a call to join the Allman Brothers Band then in 1994, bassist Allen Woody who also joined the Allman Brothers and Haynes created Gov't Mule. He played with the remaining members of The Grateful Dead after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. Bassist of The Grateful Dead Phil Lesh went out on tour with his friends and Haynes played lead guitar for three years on that project.
For a couple of years Haynes was without a band so god forbid he stop writing music. He started his solo career in 2003 with the release of an EP and a live show from Bonnaroo. In the past 15 years he has had a strong relationship with Dave Matthews Band. Haynes had played with them at 28 concerts and 45 songs including the release of 2 concert DVDs. In 2011, The Warren Haynes Band released its first music in Man in Motion.
Many jam artists have created their own entities of music as the aforementioned Lesh has and Haynes is no different. Since 1989, Haynes has been the host of an annual charity benefit show called The Christmas Jam. Originally, the show was created in Haynes's hometown of Asheville, North Carolina where all the great musicians would get together and play because it would be the only time they would be in town at the same time. Now the event includes many artists Haynes has grown close to over the years including members of The Allman Brothers Band, Blues Traveler, Umphrey's McGee, Living Colour, Phish, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, The Tedeshi Trucks Band, and Drive-By Truckers.
Just this summer he has been playing the music of Jerry Garcia across the country with various symphonic orchestras, and playing festival shows and a European tour with Gov't Mule. In August, he will start playing shows with The Allman Brothers Band where they will play with Steve Winwood and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. And while he is at it, at the Interlocken Festival, he will perform with Gov't Mule and The Warren Haynes Band in the same day. Sure why not?
Oh and no big deal but Rolling Stone named Warren Haynes as the 23rd best guitarist of all time.
When Haynes was a boy, he wanted to be a singer because he was hearing James Brown and Aretha Franklin. According to Haynes's website, it was when he heard the three Kings of blues (Freddie, Albert, and B.B.) that he wanted to pick up the guitar because they showed him that you can do both really well.
Two distinct characteristics always sit in his music: his hearty, gravely voice and his Gibson guitars. He cannot change either of these. His voice is his and Gibson guitars have chosen him like a wand choose its owner. But their cohesion and combined energy is something that we will never be able to understand; just something we can attempt to soak in.
His desire and persistence to work and work and work and to play, play, play just beyond incessant and just crazy. The amount of music he has created and produced is hardly to be matched. What separates him from others is his natural talent to bend music styles to the environment he is in. Sure, musicians like Bob Dylan has created a mass of a catalog, but Warren Haynes has created that catalog with such a diverse group of musicians in genres of many different ages and styles.
Warren Haynes is beyond my understanding not just as a guitar player but as a man. Everything he does turns to gold. His best is yet to come. Maybe he will sit down and rest one of these days, but if will let him do that for too long, I assume he will just play B.B King style. The desire is insatiable.
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