CAMERON CROWE: |
In which a rock & roll band from
Dixie struggles in dreary motels,
six-session-a-night grinds and a $48,000
debt, then a couple years later plays to
sellout crowds for $100,000 a night...all
the while riding the shotgun to death.
The accent comes up out of Nashville, by way
of Georgia, makes a dash across the States
and ends up vaguely California. He sounds a
bit like Kris Kristofferson, looks uncannily
like his late brother, Duane. The hotel
television is on; the sound is off. It is
late, and the black and white movie
something surely about horror and death at
this small hour - glows up on Gregg Allman's
tired face like a moonscape in Macon's Rose
Hill Cemetery.
Rose Hill is where the band - the Allman
Brothers Band - went in the lean scuffling
days, back when they all lived in a
two-room, $50-a-month apartment. Sometimes
they'd eat psilocybin for inspiration.
Sometimes a lonely, bluesy wail would rise
out of that old graveyard: a song like Dicky
Betts' "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." It was
a grassy, quiet place to be alone together
and to talk about music, and love, and
finite thoughts. In later years, Duane
Allman would be buried there and the band
would play a deeply felt set at the funeral
in his memory. Bassist Berry Oakley, too,
would die, ominously almost a year to the
day after Duane. Eerily, the circumstances
of the accident would - even the place where
it happened - recapitulate the tragedy of
Duane Allman. And Berry Oakley would be
buried at Rose Hill.
Gregg Allman stares moodily at the silent
television. The writer is asking him about
the band's latest successes: about the rave
reviews of their two-week long West Coast
tour, about the new album, Brothers and
Sisters, topping the charts. All six of
their albums have now made over a million
dollars; most have sold over a million
units. In the past six months the Brothers
have grossed between $50,000 and $100,000 on
an average night. They headlined before
600,000 at Watkins Glen, and though an
agreement with the promoter prevents an
official statement on the Allmans' gross, a
spokesman for Capricorn Records, the
Brothers' company, states flatly that it was
"astronomical." They have played to sell-out
crowds in America's largest arenas and
stadiums.
But Gregg Allman's mind, this quiet night
after a tour de force marathon set at San
Francisco's Winterland, is back in Macon, at
Rose Hill. "The real question," he says, "is
not why we're so popular. I try not to think
about that too much. The question is what
made the Allman Brothers keep on going. I've
had guys come up to me and say, 'Man, it
just doesn't seem like losing those two fine
cats affected you people at all.'
"Why? Because I still have my wits about me?
Because I can still play? Well that's the
key right there. We'd all have turned into
fucking vegetables if you hadn't been able
to get out there and play. That's when the
success was, Jack. Success was being able to
keep your brain inside your head."
Duane and Gregory Allman were born in 1946
and 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee, just as
the city was experiencing its first
studio-building boom. In 1949, the boys'
father, an Army first lieutenant, returned
home from the Korean War for the holidays.
The day after Christmas, he picked up a
hitchhiker...who murdered him.
"You've got to consider why anybody wants to
become a musician anyway," Gregg says. "I
played for peace of mind."
The boys' mother, Geraldine "Mama" Allman,
went to school and became a CPA. "Somebody
suggested that she put us in an orphanage.
She politely told them to fuck off and we
went to Castle Heights Military Academy in
Lebanon, Tennessee. I couldn't get it on in
school worth a shit."
In 1958, the family moved to Daytona Beach,
Florida. In the summer of 1960, 13-year-old
Gregg took a summer job as a paperboy.
"Worked all summer and cleared 21 bucks. It
was getting toward the end of summer, the
mornings were getting colder and I was in
Sears and Roebuck to get some gloves with
the money when I strolled by the guitar
department and fell in love with those
beauties. Found one that was $21.95 and the
bastard behind the counter wouldn't let me
have it. I came back the next day, got it,
and proceeded to wear that son of a bitch
out. I wouldn't eat or sleep or drink or
anything. Just play that damn guitar."
The same summer, Duane Allman bought his
first motorcycle, a small Harley. Gregg
remembers the bike with a bittersweet smile
and a small shake of the head. "Duane was
sure a bastard when he was a kid," Gregg
says with real admiration. "He quit school,
I don't how many times too. But he had that
motorcycle and drove it until it finally
just fell apart. When it did, he quit
school. When I was gone, he'd grab that axe
and start picking. Pretty soon we had fights
over the damn thing, so when it came around
to our birthdays - mine was in December and
his was in November - we both got one. I got
mine a little earlier than my birthday,
actually. Matter of fact, I put hands on my
first guitar November 10th, 1960 at three
o'clock that Saturday afternoon. Duane's
guitar got into the picture shortly after
that."
Gregg gave the Sears guitar to a family
friend and it is probably still somewhere in
Daytona Beach the way Gregg last saw it
painted flat black with gold strings on it
and containing two potted plants.
The Allmans took their electric guitars to
Ted Connors, "a really intense cat who knew
how to teach. He's probably still down
there. He didn't teach any of that bullshit
minute waltz business. I said, 'Man, I want
to learn some goddamn Chuck Berry music,' -
and he taught me."
While Gregg muttered and cursed his way
through Sea Breeze Senior High School,
"Duane stayed at home in the woodshed and
got very good. Very fast. The local R&B
station was always on and he had some old
Kenny Burrell, Robert Johnson and Chuck
Berry albums that he'd listen to over and
over again to get the structure down. Duane
Allman was the best guitar player I ever
heard who didn't read a note."
After a year of practice, Duane and Gregg
were playing with the local bands like the
Shufflers, the Escorts, the Y-Teens. "The
social scene in Daytona Beach was simple,"
Duane Allman once said, "the white cats surf
and the blacks play music." The Allmans, of
course, played music, and in 1963, in the
era of civil rights marches and murders.
Duane and Gregg joined a mixed band, the
House Rockers.
"That's when the trouble started in the
family," Gregg recalls. "Going to play with
them niggers again? We had to turn my mother
on to the blacks. Took awhile, but now she's
totally liberated."
Duane never quite finished high school, but
Gregg graduated in 1965. "That summer we
went on the road as the Allman Joys. We had
our own sound system, amps and fucking
station wagon. Big time. Our first gig was
in Mobile, at a place called the Stork Club.
Boy, it was a nasty fucking place. I was
homesick and the band had broken up about 14
times before we got there."
Significantly, the internal bickering and
the homesickness faded away as soon as the
band began playing live club dates. It is as
if the band draws its strength and
determination from being "the hottest band
around." They not only stayed on the road,
they worked seven nights a week, six sets a
night. Joe Tex's manager caught the Allman
Joys at one of the Southern teen clubs and
they eventually recorded two albums worth of
material for his label, Dial Records. One
single was released, a "terrible
psychedelic" version of Willie Dixon's
"Spoonful" which went mercifully unnoticed.
After listening to the other tracks, Killen
advised the band to "go look for a day job."
While a year of constant playing and touring
strengthened Gregg and Duane's determination
and musicianship, it devastated drummer
Manard Portwood, who was eventually fired.
The bass, Bob Keller, was in and out of the
band, trying to strengthen up troubles with
his wife. One of the two percussionists in
the present Allman Brothers Band, Butch
Trucks, played the same club circuit with
his band the Bitter End and sometimes sat in
with the Allman Joys.
The Allman Joys crumbled in St. Louis in
early 1967. They were drummerless, and the
new bass, Billy Canell, enlisted in the Navy
to beat the draft. The pickup bass was
caught trying to make off with the brothers'
equipment. "We stole his bass and told him
to get the fuck out," Gregg says. "Sent his
ass home."
Which is pretty much the way the Allmans
handled such problems a few years ago.
Things have changed a bit. When the fired
drummer, Portwood, went out on the road a
few months ago, he billed himself "the
original drummer of the Allman Brothers
Band," a cheap but embarrassing gimmick that
raised the hackles on Gregg's neck. "We sent
an attorney out there to talk that over with
him," he says without particular emphasis,
as if this is the way civilized folks deal
with the irritating problems.
In '67, following the demise of the Joys,
Gregg and Duane were living out of a van
without so much as a telephone to contact a
lawyer, or anyone else. They cruised on down
to Nashville, and combined forces with
drummer Johnny Sandlin, keyboard artist Paul
Hornsby, and a "cat called the Wolf" on
bass; part of another fragmented band called
the Five Minutes. "They were a strong
outfit," Gregg says, "and they were stuck
without a singer or a guitarist. It all fell
together and we started cooking." The new
band played Nashville as the Five Minutes,
then rambled back up Highway 41 to St. Louis
and used the name Allman Joys.
"There were posters all over," Gregg says.
"THE ALLMAN JOYS ARE BACK! That band was
really tight, playing R&B and Yardbirds
tunes by the hundreds. Duane loved the early
days of Jeff Beck."
One night, the then high-riding Nitty Gritty
Dirt Band stopped into a St. Louis club to
hear the Allman Joys. Their manager, Bill
McKuen, was impressed. He told the group
that they didn't have to play the Southern
club circuit, and they could easily make it
nationally. All they had to do was come out
to California and he would take them under
his wing. "Just come and see what you
think..."
Gregg wasn't so sure it was all that good an
idea. He was happy playing live club dates
to wildly enthusiastic audiences and had the
gut feeling that he wasn't going to get to
play in California.
"I said, 'No, Duane, that's a jive lick.
Let's don't do it.' He said, 'C'mon, man,
we'll go to L.A. We'll see all those pretty
women and fine looking cars.' What could I
say? It was unanimous."
In the end, it was Gregg who was right. The
group signed with Liberty Records under the
name of Hour Glass. "The record company's
line," Gregg says, "was, 'We'll make you the
next Rolling Stones.' All we wanted to do
was play, but they wouldn't let us do live
dates. We would have done small clubs in the
valley, but they told us we'd blow the whole
image if we did that. What did we know?
They'd dress us up in these funny duds and
we just felt silly."
Liberty picked the material for the two Hour
Glass albums, Hour Glass ("a pendulum of
psychedelic and soul..." read the liner
notes), and Power Of Love. Though the
material was good - Jackson Browne and
Carole King compositions were included - it
was not the Allmans' music. Furthermore,
they hadn't played enough to live audiences
and it sounded stiff, like the tracks on the
Liberty LPs.
"We were misled," Duane once said of the
Liberty period. Gregg is a bit more blunt.
"Together those two records form what is
commonly known as a shit sandwich." Neither
record sold, and the band was in debt.
"Liberty was paying all our expenses for us
until we earned enough to pay them back."
But a company pays only so much money on
losing items and soon Hour Glass was,
"groveling for money just to get a burger."
It got worse.
"We stayed first at the Mikado Motel, then
at the Caheunga down by the Hollywood Bowl.
A real garbage motel, and all of us in one
room. The manager caught us and we moved
down to an even worse joint on Lash Lane.
This place had no name at all. I got up the
first morning we lived there, thinking I'd
go swimming. As I'm walking down the hall,
there was this door open. I happened to look
in and there's this cat lying on the floor,
covered up with a blanket. Cop standing
there. The cat had left a note and downed 95
Seconals. It was the first dead person I'd
ever seen."
The dead man in that sleazy room weighed on
the brothers' minds. The same kind of down,
dead things were happening to their spirits
and their music. "I think that's when we
knew the whole L.A. scene had gone sour on
us. Duane got fed up, he got fed up. 'Fuck
this,' he kept yelling. 'Fuck this whole
thing. Fuck wearing these weird clothes.
Fuck playing this goddamn 'In a Gadda-Vida'
shit. Fuck it all!"
Hour Glass packed up and headed east, to
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and Fame studios,
where they taped some of their own material
without outside interference. Some of these
tracks, including the "B.B. King Medley,"
appear on Duane Allman/An Anthology. After
the sessions, Hour Glass split and Duane and
Gregg took the van to Jacksonville, Florida,
where their friend and sometimes pick up
drummer, Butch Trucks, was preparing to
record an album with his band (now called
the 31st of February).
The Allmans worked on the LP as sidemen, and
were paid as such. At one point in the
sessions, Truck's lead singer was not around
to do vocals, so Gregg sang through a few of
the tracks in rehearsal. An album of those
outtakes has recently been released as Duane
Allman and Gregg Allman, on Bold Records. A
31st of February album was never released,
which is just as well with Trucks, since he
now considers his work on those sessions
excruciatingly embarrassing.
Meanwhile, the host of L.A. and past
expenses began looming over the Allmans.
Gregg got a call from Liberty "telling me to
get my ass back to California or they'd sue
us for $48,000 that Hour Glass still owed
them." For the first and only time in their
musical careers, Duane and Gregg split. In
L.A., Liberty recorded a solo album with
Gregg Allman - and, as expected, they did it
their way. "They did all the arrangements
and all the songs. It was a 26-piece studio
band and it was like they said, 'Stay in the
corner out of the way boy. We're cutting you
an album.'"
Duane stayed in Jacksonville, hanging out at
a club called the Scene and jamming with the
Second Coming whose line-up included future
Allman Band members: Berry Oakley on bass
and lead guitarist Dicky Betts. Betts
remembers that the Second Coming did "double
lead guitar, the same sort of thing that
Duane and I did later. A guy named Larry
Rheinhardt and I would do twin guitar runs
for 30 bars or so. Fast harmony playing.
Which is where Duane and I got the idea for
doing that kind of thing, only we did it
much better, later."
Back at Muscle Shoals, Fame studios
owner-operator Rich Hall as gearing up for
an important Wilson Pickett session.
Remembering Duane Allman's work with Hour
Glass, he sent a telegram to Jacksonville.
Duane jumped at the chance for a paying job.
He suggested that Pickett record the Beatles
tune, "Hey Jude." Wilson refused to sing any
song with the refrain, "Hey Jew." Eventually
enlightened, he cut a track with Duane on
lead guitar. It sold a million singles, and
Duane was invited to stay in Muscle Shoals
and play with some of the finest musicians
in the country.
Rick Hall signed Duane to a contract. That
paper was purchased by Atlantic VP Jerry
Wexler on the strength of Duane's guitar
work with Pickett. Wexler then sold the
contract to Phil Walden, the young manager
of Sam and Dave and Otis Redding. Walden was
putting together a roster for his Atlantic
custom label, Capricorn Records.
It was at Fame that Duane met Jai Johanny
Johanson, a knock-around drummer who had
worked behind the late Otis Redding, Percy
Sledge and Joe Tex, among others. The two
formed a fast friendship and Duane told
Jaimo that whatever his next move was, he
wanted Jaimo to be his drummer. "People ask
me things like, 'Was I in the original
band?'" Jaimo says. "Shit, I was with the
band when it wasn't no band."
Also at Fame, Duane cut a solo album with
Berry Oakley and Sandlin and Hornsby from
Hour Glass. The only track Duane ever liked
was "Going Down Slow," a haunting blues tune
on which he makes a rare vocal appearance.
"He wasn't really hot on doing the solo
album," Dicky Betts says. "See, Rick Hall
wanted him to do a Hendrix power-trio thing.
But Duane was too warm and personal for
that. He needed a lot of other guys to get
that full sound he wanted."
In search of those musicians - and with the
Capricorn-Walden contract in hand, Duane
moved back to Jacksonville with Jaimo. They
slept on the floor at Butch Truck's place
and took to jamming Sunday afternoons in the
park. It took four or five Sundays to hit
the right note: the day of the Legendary
Jacksonville Jam, as Trucks calls it, "We
set up at Oakley's house. Duane was there,
so was Dicky and Jaimo and Berry and myself.
We played three or four hours without
stopping and when we finished, Duane looked
around and said, 'Man, this is it.' He got
on the phone and called Gregg in
California."
That was March 23rd, 1969. In an
introspective mood in the late hours of the
night, Gregg once wrote a letter to a friend
about his lonely California days. "I had
been building up nerve to put a pistol to my
head," he said. Depending on his degree of
sincerity - and Gregg asks that he be taken
seriously on that - that call from
Jacksonville may have saved his life.
Despite his continuing debt to Liberty,
Gregg left a note "and caught the first
thing smokin' toward Jacksonville."
After nearly five years of squalor and
frustration, of roadhouse and studio
playing, the final and ultimate Allman
Brothers Band had been formed. It was to be
marked by a fanatic familial closeness, by
talent and determination, and tragedy.
The Allman Brothers Band moved to Macon,
where manager-label president Phil Walden
was setting up Capricorn Studios. In the
first weeks they lived in a house at 309
College Street: two rooms with a bath and a
kitchen that didn't work. Walden and the
whole band lived there with occasional
female visitors from nearby Wesleyan
College.
Twiggs Lydon, the band's first road manager,
remembers that. "The band lived there a
while and when we began to get $100-a-night
gigs, Duane moved a block and a half away
and Dicky moved down the street. At the foot
of College Street is this old cemetery, Rose
Hill. We all used to go down there and have
a good time. Dicky would sometimes go down
there at night with his acoustic guitar and
write songs. In fact, most of the songs from
the first album, The Allman Brothers Band,
came out of writing done at Rose Hill."
The most famous of the Rose Hill songs is
Betts' "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." "I
wrote that song for a certain person," Dicky
says, "but didn't know what to call it.
There was a tombstone nearby that read IN
MEMORY OF ELIZABETH REED, so that's what I
called the tune. Some writer once asked me
how I wrote the song and Duane said, 'Aww,
he fucked some girl across a tombstone and
that's what it's about' Don't' you know that
got printed in an instant. You can imagine
how the girl I wrote it for felt after
that."
With the new material rehearsed, the band
chose an agent and set out on the road doing
nearly 500 dates in two years. "For a long
time," says Butch Trucks, "our only mode of
travel was an Econoline van. Eleven of us,
with nine sleeping in the back on two
mattresses. The only way we made it was with
a great big old bag of Mexican reds and two
gallons of Robitussin HC. Five reds and slug
of HC and you can sleep through anything."
The first two or three tours bombed but,
says, Trucks, "Phil Walden had complete
faith in us, and I'll respect him forever
for that. I think he sunk about $150,000 in
us. He was close to bankruptcy a lot of the
time and Atlantic kept telling him we didn't
have a chance. But during that first three
years, Phil never once tried to change us."
The Allman Brothers Band was released in
1970. It was a moderate critical success,
but didn't do much for the band's financial
status. "We found out in New York once that
we had to be at the Fillmore West in a
week," Twiggs remembers. "We barely had
enough money to make it and when we came
across the Golden Gate Bridge, we couldn't
scrape up the toll between 11 of us. We had
to park and go around hitting up people.
'Hey, we're the Allman Brothers and we're
playing the Fillmore. We'll let you in free
if you give us a dime.'"
By the time Idlewild South, the second
Allman Brothers album, was released, the
band had picked up a growing and dedicated
audience. More attention was focused on the
group after Duane's work with Eric Clapton
and Layla. Even though Duane appeared once
or twice with Derek and the Dominoes, roadie
Red Dogs says, "He never forgot about the
Allman Brothers Band. He might be out there
playing for a week, a week and a half, then
he'd have to come back...he was the father
of the family."
By October of 1971, the third album, The
Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore East,
was on its way to the top of the charts and
million-selling status. There were overflow
crowds at every stop, and it seemed time,
after two years on the road, to take a short
vacation and enjoy some success.
It was on that vacation that Duane Allman
was fatally injured in a motorcycle
accident. "The night before he got killed,"
says Red Dog, "Duane and I were talking. We
had just gotten into Macon a couple of days
before. 'We've got it made now,' he said,
'We're on our way. Ain't gonna be no more
beans for breakfast.'"
The next day, October 29th, 1971, Duane
visited the Oakley house to wish Berry's
wife, Linda, a happy birthday. Shortly after
leaving the house about 5:45 p.m. he swerved
to avoid a truck, which was moving in the
same direction, but which he had apparently
not seen in time after it turned onto the
street. The cycle skidded and flipped over,
dragging Allman nearly 50 feet. He died of
massive injuries at the age of 24.
Stricken and grieving, the band returned to
Macon from various vacation sites. There was
no question in anyone's mind: The band would
carry on. They played at the funeral in
Macon's memorial Chapel: a hollow, moving
set; and joined hands with folks like Dr.
John and Delaney Bramlett to sing "Will the
Circle Be Unbroken."
A month later, they made good on two
scheduled Carnegie Hall dates, then threw
themselves into feverish work completing the
fourth album, Eat a Peach, released in early
1972. And success, like tragedy, dogged the
band.
But the real question, as Gregg Allman puts
it, is not why the Brothers are popular; it
is how they managed to survive the loss of
their driving force, the focus of their
energy, the "father of the family."
"I think," says a close friend of the
Brothers, "that Duane's loss was much more
traumatic than anyone realizes. He was
pretty arrogant sometimes, and I think one
critic said he had 'an ego that could fill
the Grand Canyon,' but he had a talent to
match. Most of the guys at that funeral were
stuporous with grief, but they handled it
beautifully, and I think you really have to
look at it communally. Duane's death was
like an amputation. The organization
cauterized the wound and tried to forget
about it. They had to.
"See, most of the Brothers are from rural
areas in the south, from tight, close-knit
families. They took their new identity
partially from Duane and partially from the
band. When Duane died, the question of
identity became paramount. They switched
their total allegiance to the family: The
constant mention of brothers and sisters
isn't any sham. It's a necessity.
"But if the band hadn't made it, it would
have fractured the structure of their
identities. They had to be successful, and
if they hadn't - in 1971 anyway - I think
each and every one of those guys could have
tumbled off the deep end in some way."
For a while there was talk that the Brothers
were looking for a replacement for Duane,
but the idea was never discussed within the
band. Betts tells why. "I think replacing
Duane would have been one of the most
uncreative morbid moves anyone could make.
It would have cheapened our whole
organization to hire someone and teach him
Duane's licks."
The first few tours in 1972 weren't too easy
for the band. "We played some blues, let me
tell you," Trucks says sadly. "We still do.
There's one place in our set...and it's for
Duane. I'm not going to tell you exactly
what or where it is, but it's always there.
I feel it every night we play. We all do."
The new album, Brothers And Sisters, was
begun last spring, and keyboard artist Chuck
Leavell joined the band early in the
sessions. He has added to the Allman sound,
and freed them from an exclusive blues base.
"I don't think I've changed the band as much
as broadened them," Leavell says.
Most of the brothers believe that it was the
new musical direction that brought Berry
Oakley out of a year-long depression he had
suffered after Duane Allman's death. "When
Duane died," Red Dog says, "Berry died. He
loved and idolized Duane. For quite a few
months, that's all he thought about. He was
obsessed with Duane."
Oakley's playing degenerated, and though the
band doesn't admit it, there had been some
vague thought given to perhaps replacing
him. "He wasn't himself during that time,"
Jaimo says. "He had lost all interest. Then
when we got Chuck in the band, it was like
seeing the light. He was back being the old
Berry again, playing his ass off. Then it
happened."
Not long after the band cut the best-selling
"Ramblin' Man," Berry Oakley's motorcycle
slammed into a Macon city bus. He was thrown
20 yards and died several hours later of a
brain concussion. The accident occurred only
three blocks from the site of Duane Allman's
fatal crash, a year and two weeks later.
Both were 24. Both buried at Rose Hill
Cemetery.
"It was so hard to get into anything after
that second loss," Gregg says. "I even
caught myself thinking that it's narrowing
down, that maybe I'm next."
Typically, the Brothers chose to drown this
kind of morbid speculation in hard work.
Three weeks after the accident, the band
began auditioning bassists. Lamar Williams
had played with some solid groups before his
Capricorn audition, but he had listened hard
to the previous Allman records. At one point
in the jam, Lamar stopped a band member and
tactfully pointed out that he hadn't played
his part correctly. Williams got the job,
and now, almost a year later, says he feels
"quite at home."
Still, it was a difficult thing to get in
the studio and brush up Brothers And
Sisters. Sometimes the band would spend a
month on a single rhythm track. The record
was finally released. It was an overnight
gold record that gathered well-earned
critical praise.
Recently, both Dicky Betts and Gregg Allman
have been working on solo albums. Gregg's
Land Back was recently released. Rumors that
either of them will soon embark on a solo
career "are horseshit," Gregg says. Betts,
who has taken to dressing a bit like a young
Nashville sideman, has established the north
American Indian Foundation, an organization
designed to "raise money for the Indian
people through benefits and fundraisers."
Gregg still dresses in the patchy street
style of his shuffling days. Last month he
took a fancy to a $44,000 burgundy-black
Rolls Royce. He strolled into the New York
showroom on little more than a whim and
informed the salesman that he'd write a
check for the Rolls in the window.
"I should have known they'd want cash,"
Gregg says. "Fucking cash! They must figure
I go around carrying a suitcase full of
bucks. I told them to stick it. Good Lord,
to get that much money from my bank up there
they wanted 20 percent. Isn't that shitty?"
Maybe so, but it's also a far cry from being
95 cents short on a $21.95 guitar.
(The author is a 16-year-old college student
from San Diego who has written for Rolling
Stone and the L.A. Times).
How They Grew
The Y-Teens - Dayton Beach, Fla., 1961,
Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg Allman:
rhythm guitar
The Shufflers - Daytona Beach, Fla.,
1961, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar
The Escorts - Daytona Beach, Fla.,
1962 - 63, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar
The House Rockers - Daytona Beach,
Fla., 1963 - 64, Duane Allman: lead guitar;
Gregg Allman: rhythm guitar
The Untils - Daytona Beach, Fla.,
1964, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar
The Allman Joys - Daytona Beach,
Fla., 1964 - 66, Duane Allman: lead guitar;
Gregg Allman: rhythm guitar, organ & vocals;
Bob Keller: bass; Manard Portwood: drums
(replaced by Billy Canell)
The Five Minutes - Nashville, Tenn.,
1966, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar, piano & vocals; Paul
Hornsby: organ; Johnny Sandlin: drums;
Mabron McKinney: bass
The Allman Joys - Daytona Beach,
Fla., 1966 - 67, Duane Allman: lead guitar;
Gregg Allman: rhythm guitar, piano & vocals;
Paul Hornsby: organ; Johnny Sandlin: drums;
Mabron McKinney: bass
The Hour Glass - Hollywood, Calif.,
1967 - 68, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar, piano & vocals; Paul
Hornsby: organ; Johnny Sandlin: drums; Jesse
Willard (Pete) Carr: bass
The 31st of February - Jacksonville,
Fla., 1968, Duane Allman: lead guitar; Gregg
Allman: rhythm guitar & piano; Scott Boyer:
guitar & vocals; David Brown: bass; Butch
Trucks: drums
The Allman Brothers Band -
Jacksonville, Fla., 1969 - 71, Duane Allman:
lead, acoustic & slide guitar; Gregg Allman:
organ, piano & vocals; Dickey Betts: lead
guitar; Berry Oakley: bass & vocals; Butch
Trucks: drums; Jai Johanny Johanson:
percussion
The Allman Brothers Band - Macon,
Ga., 1971 - 72, Gregg Allman: organ, piano &
vocals; Dickey Betts: lead guitar; Berry
Oakley: bass & vocals; Butch Trucks: drums;
Jai Johanny Johanson: percussion
The Allman Brothers Band - Macon,
Ga., 1972, Gregg Allman: organ & vocals;
Dickey Betts: lead guitar; Berry Oakley:
bass; Butch Trucks: drums; Jai Johanny
Johanson: percussion; Chuck Leavell: piano
The Allman Brothers Band - Macon,
Ga., 1972, Gregg Allman: organ & vocals;
Dickey Betts: lead guitar; Butch Trucks:
drums; Chuck Leavell: piano; Jai Johanny
Johanson: percussion;
The Allman Brothers Band - Macon,
Ga., 1973, Gregg Allman: organ & vocals;
Dickey Betts: lead guitar; Butch Trucks:
drums; Jai Johanny Johanson: percussion;
Chuck Leavell: piano; Lamar Williams: bass
What They Played
"Spoonful" - Dial Records, 1966, The
Allman Joys
Hour Glass - Liberty Records, 1967, The Hour
Glass
The Dynamic Clarence Carter - Atlantic
Records, 1967, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Power of Love - Liberty Records, 1968, The
Hour Glass
"Me & Bobby McGee" - regional label, 1969,
The American Eagles (Chuck Leavell, Buck
Wilkin, Johnny Weicker)
Instant Groove - King Curtis, Atlantic
Records, 1969, Duane Allman: slide guitar,
electric sitar
Southern Fried - John Hammond, Atlantic
Records, 1969, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Ronnie Hawkins - Cotillion Records, 1969,
Duane Allman: slide guitar
Boz Scaggs - Atlantic Records, 1969, Duane
Allman: slide guitar
The Allman Brothers Band - Capricorn
Records, 1969, The Allman Brothers Band
Ton Ton Macoute - Johnny Jenkins, Capricorn
Records, 1969, Duane Allman: slide guitar;
Berry Oakley: bass
Arthur Conley - Atlantic Records, 1969,
Duane Allman: slide guitar
Percy Sledge - Atlantic Records, 1969, Duane
Allman: slide guitar
Two Jews Blues - Barry Goldberg, Buddah
Records, 1969, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Soul '69 - Aretha Franklin, Atlantic
Records, 1970, Duane Allman: slide guitar
This Girl's In Love With You - Aretha
Franklin, Atlantic Records, 1970, Duane
Allman: slide guitar
Morning in the Morning - Otis Rush,
Cotillion Records, 1970, Duane Allman: slide
guitar
Sundown - Sundown, Exit/Ampex Records, 1970,
Chuck Leavell: piano
In Search of Food, Clothing, Shelter & Sex -
Buck Wilkin, Buddah Records, 1970, Chuck
Leavell: piano
Layla - Derek & the Dominoes, Atco Records,
1970, Duane Allman: slide guitar
To Bonnie from Delaney - Delaney & Bonnie,
Atco Records, 1970, Duane Allman: slide
guitar
The 31st of February - Vanguard Recording
Society, 1970, The 31st of February (Scott
Boyer, David Brown, Butch Trucks)
Christmas and the Beads of Sweat - Laura
Nyro, Columbia Records, 1970, Duane Allman:
electric guitar
Idlewild South - Capricorn Records, 1970,
The Allman Brothers Band
The First Great Rock Festival of the
Seventies - Columbia Records, 1970, The
Allman Brothers Band ("Statesboro Blues," "Whippin'
Post")
Push Push - Herbie Mann, Embryo Records,
1970, Duane Allman: slide guitar
The Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore
East - Capricorn Records, 1971, The Allman
Brothers Band
Motel Shot - Delaney & Bonnie & Friends,
Atco Records, 1971, Duane Allman: slide
guitar
Spirit in the Dark - Aretha Franklin,
Atlantic Records, 1971, Duane Allman: slide
guitar
The Stories We Could Tell - The Everly
Brothers, RCA Records, 1971, Duane Allman:
slide guitar
Five'll Getcha Ten - Cowboy, Capricorn
Records, 1971, Duane Allman: dobro; Chuck
Leavell" piano
Hawk - Ronnie Hawkins, Cotillion Records,
1971, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Hard And Heavy - Sam Samudio, Atlantic
Records, 1971, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Dinnertime - Alex Taylor, Capricorn Records,
1971, Chuck Leavell: piano
The Best of Barry Goldberg - Buddah Records,
1972, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Eat A Peach - Capricorn Records, 1972, The
Allman Brothers Band (Duane Allman appears
posthumously on sides 2, 3 & 4)
D & B Together - Delaney & Bonnie & Friends,
Columbia Records, 1972, Duane Allman: slide
guitar
History of Eric Clapton - Atco Records,
1972, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Mar Y Sol - Atco Records, 1972, The Allman
Brothers Band ("Ain't Wastin' Time No More")
Eric Clapton at His Best - Polydor Records,
1972, Duane Allman: slide guitar
An Anthology - Duane Allman, Capricorn
Records, 1972
Duane & Gregg Allman - Bold Records, 1972,
31st of February (rehearsal session
outtakes)
Dialogues - Capricorn Records, 1972, Duane
Allman interview
Beginnings - Atco Records, 1972, The Allman
Brothers Band (repackage of Idlewild South
and The Allman Brothers Band)
Brothers And Sisters - Capricorn Records,
1973, The Allman Brothers Band (Berry Oakley
appears posthumously on "Wasted Words" and "Ramblin'
Man")
The Hour Glass - United Artists Records,
1973, The Hour Glass (repackage of Hour
Glass and Power of Love)
Early Allman - Dial Records, 1973, The
Allman Joys (Duane Allman, Gregg Allman,
studio sessionmen)
Clapton - Eric Clapton, Polydor Records,
1973, Duane Allman: slide guitar
Why Quit When You're Losing - Cowboy,
Capricorn Records, 1973, (repackage of Reach
for the Sky and Five'll Getcha Ten)
Laid Back - Gregg Allman, Capricorn Records,
1973, Gregg Allman: organ, acoustic guitar &
vocals; David Brown: bass; Scott Boyer:
acoustic, electric & steel guitars, piano;
Butch Trucks: cabasa; Chuck Leavell: piano &
vibes; Jai Johanny Johanson: congas; Paul
Hornsby: clavinet, organ; Johnny Sandlin:
bass
(Compiled by Cameron Crowe and Faybeth
Diamond)