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From Skydog: The Duane Allman Story by Randy Poe:

"With two studio albums under their belt, the Allman Brothers were about to fulfill one more of Duane's dreams. In 1970 he had told disc jockey Ed Shane, "You know, we get kind of frustrated doing the records, and I think, consequently, our next album will be... a live recording, to get some of that natural fire on it." The live recording that Duane had hoped for would eventually consist of performances from Friday, March 12, and Saturday, March 13. The band actually played three straight nights at the Fillmore, beginning on Thursday. Ads for the show read: "Bill Graham Presents in New York-Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop Group, Extra Added Attraction: Allman Brothers." Extra added attraction indeed. No matter that Johnny Winter was billed as the headliner-by the final night, the Allman Brothers were closing the show.

Tom Dowd was back to produce the album, but this time he was flying by the seat of his pants. He hadn't even planned to be in New York when the live album was being cut. "I was supposed to be in Europe," he told Hittin' the Note's Bill Ector. Dowd had been in Africa, working on the film Soul to Soul. From there he planned to vacation in Rome, but when his plane touched down, he discovered it was snowing. "I looked and I thought, 'I don't need Rome in the snow.'" So Dowd caught the next plane to Paris, eventually arriving in New York at the crack of dawn on March 10.

After checking into a hotel near the Atlantic Records office, he slept all day. The following afternoon he called Jerry Wexler to let him know he was in town. "That's great," said Wexler, "because the Allman Brothers are recording tonight at the Fillmore." With such short notice, Dowd had no time to speak to Duane or any of the other band members. He took a taxi down to the Fillmore East and hopped into the truck that housed Location Recorders' mobile studio.

"The band didn't even know I was back," said Dowd. "I'm sitting in the truck and prompting the engineers. So the band comes onstage and all of a sudden I hear horns, and I like to nearly wet my pants! I went out of that truck, I mean, I came tear-assing down. And when they came off, I grabbed them and said, 'Get the fucking horns out of my life. They are out of tune, they don't know the songs - whose stroke of genius was this?’ "

When the band finally calmed him down, they asked Dowd if they could keep one horn player and Thom Doucette on harmonica. He agreed, but the initial show was a lost cause. "The first show, half the tracks that I could have used were wasted because I had horns on guitar parts, and they were terrible. It was pretty grim," said Dowd. "So that night, in order to make a point, we went up to my studio with the tapes under my arms, and I played the whole concert back to them. They were sitting there and said, 'Yeah, you're right.' When they did the next night, I didn't have to worry about the horns."

Although the eventual album would include tracks from both the 12th and 13th, Dowd felt the contributions by saxophonist Rudolph "Juicy" Carter-who had been featured on some of the second night's performances-weren't quite gelling with the band. By Saturday's gig, Carter was sitting out. In fact, for a while on Saturday - thanks to someone phoning in a bomb threat - it looked as if everybody might be sitting out. But after the Fillmore had been searched, the show resumed. Much of what was recorded during the post-bomb-scare set on the night of the 13th became the material on At Fillmore East.

Technically, the Allman Brothers' late show actually took place on the morning of March 14. By all accounts, the band didn't hit the stage until sometime after 2:00 a.m. Recollections of the duration of that final set vary greatly, depending on who’s telling the story-but it's safe to say that it went on for well over three hours. The final encore (which didn't make it onto the original album) was "Drunken Hearted Boy," featuring Elvin Bishop on guitar and vocals, Steve Miller on piano, and Bobby Caldwell on percussion. At the end of the song, Duane said, "That's all for tonight." But nobody wanted to go home. As the crowd continued to cheer for more, Duane - in semi-disbelief - told them, "Hey, listen. It's six o'clock, y'all." When the cheers continued, he tried a different tactic: "Look here, we recorded all this. This is gonna be our third album, and thank you for your support. You're all on it. We ain't gonna send you no check, but thanks for your help." And with that, the Allman Brothers' three-night stand at the Fillmore East was finally over."