Allman Brothers Band "At Fillmore East" [1971]

The record company came to their senses when they decided to forgo the original title: "When Rednecks Take Over." Ripping off blues slide guitar, vocal lines and lyrics, peddling them to a room full of New York hippies and then selling it all at the concert-going heyday as one of the "greatest albums of all time," the Allman Brothers probably took years off Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's already tenuous lives. It's one thing to be ripped off for your pocket change outside the club, but quite another to have the very style of music you created and struggled to make relevant yanked out of your decrepit hands by a couple long-haired blonde rube junkies. Theremin-yelping guitarist Duane and his honky singing brother Greg take black people down more pegs than George Wallace and Strom Thurmond combined. It worked out so well for the music biz that they went even whiter, which is why we eventually wound up with Edgar and Johnny Winter. Not content with simply robbing fat, sweaty Chicago musicians, the Allmans also deftly target sophisto-jazzers like the Crusaders, minus the piano playing and anyone with the slightest trace of melanin. It was just the fertile fields for Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels and Molly Hatchet to lay their own brand of cow patties on everyone. And you thought the 70s were liberal.