[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_code module_class=”custom-cat” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
The Allman Brothers \u2013 bound by blood, scarred by tragedy \u2013 were the six-man \u201ctrain wreck\u201d with jazz chops and keen appetites who gave Southern rock its heart and soul. With the death of brother Gregg in May 2017 a final chapter ended, yet the last Allman always found closure elusive. \u201cI always wondered if they got me just because they couldn\u2019t find anybody else,\u201d he told Alan Light.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-85217252.jpg” title_text=”Photo of ALLMAN BROTHERS” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
The Allman Brothers (l-r) Dickey Betts, Duane Allman, <\/span>Gregg Allman, <\/span>Jai Johanny Johanson, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks in March 1971<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n IT WAS THE FINAL show the Allman Brothers Band would ever play. On October 28, 2014 the group made its last appearance at the Beacon Theatre in New York City \u2013 the 232nd night of an unprecedented annual residency at the venue. They had already played three sets plus an encore of their signature epic, Whipping Post; it was, in fact, now after midnight, meaning technically it was October 29, the 43rd anniversary of the date of founding guitarist Duane Allman\u2019s death.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n The seven band members gathered for one last bow, and then Gregg Allman stepped forward to deliver perhaps his first ever speech from the stage. \u201cA few years ago,\u201d he said, \u201cjust a few years ago, I was called to come and meet these guys in Jacksonville, Florida. And it was kinda, like, a little stiff in the room, until one of them handed me a lyric sheet and said, \u2018Sing.\u2019 This was about 3.30 in the afternoon in Jacksonville, Florida \u2013 March 26, 1969.<\/p>\n \u201cNever did we have any idea that it would come to this. We give you a heartfelt thank you, and now we\u2019re gonna end on the first song we ever played.\u201d<\/p>\n They returned to their instruments and counted off Trouble No More, the Muddy Waters stomp that, when they recorded it about four months after that very first jam session, closed the first side of their self-titled debut album. A few blazing minutes later, the musicians wandered off the stage \u2013 with a photo of Duane projected on the screen behind them \u2013 and The Allman Brothers Band was over.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n THE PATH TO THE Allman Brothers\u2019 formation in 1969 had been complicated and unlikely, and didn\u2019t get much easier from there. The group\u2019s history will forever be bracketed by two pairs of tragedies; guitarist Duane Allman\u2019s fatal 1971 motorcycle accident was followed by bassist Berry Oakley\u2019s crash almost exactly a year later. Gregg\u2019s death from liver cancer on May 27 2017 was preceded by the suicide of drummer Butch Trucks on January 24.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Until the day he died, Gregg was always adamant that the credit for getting those four players in a room, along with guitarist Dickey Betts and drummer Jai Johanny \u2018Jaimoe\u2019 Johanson, belonged to his older brother \u2013 that the sound and structure of The Allman Brothers Band was Duane\u2019s vision, and the responsibility he carried was the maintenance of this creation. \u201cI always wondered if they got me just because they couldn\u2019t find anybody else,\u201d he told me when we were collaborating on his 2012 memoir My Cross To Bear.<\/p>\n To assemble the book, every few weeks I would travel to Gregg\u2019s house outside Savannah, Georgia. He was often wearing the purple psychedelic booties that his mother, Geraldine, already in her nineties, had knitted for him. His beloved \u201chouse manager\u201d, Judy, kept the coffee on and meticulously laid out the dozens of pills he took to maintain his immune system after his 2010 liver transplant, which followed a case of hepatitis C and then liver cancer.<\/p>\n His dogs always cheered him up. No matter what he was recounting \u2013 his father\u2019s murder when Gregg was just two years old, the years of substance abuse, the bandmates he had lost along the way \u2013 he would perk up when his two little pups would skitter into the room. And while he expressed regret for the pain he had caused others, for the chaos of his six marriages (with the book\u2019s deadline approaching, we realised that we hadn\u2019t even mentioned one of the wives, and he struggled to come up with any memories of her at all) and the messy relationships with his children, he never made excuses.<\/p>\n Above all else, it was striking how present Duane seemed to be. Gregg would bring him up constantly \u2013 he had notes from Duane framed on the walls \u2013 and imitate the way Duane called his younger sibling \u201cBay-brah\u201d, a contraction of \u201cbaby brother\u201d.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s not surprising that, 40 years after his death, his brother loomed so large; in a fatherless family raised by a working mother, Duane was a powerful influence. Later, fronting \u201cThe Allman Brothers Band\u201d as the only living Allman brother, Gregg appeared to suffer some kind of survivor\u2019s guilt, but his brother\u2019s memory also seemed to give him a drive and a purpose.<\/p>\n Make no mistake, Gregg Allman was proud of his band, and for all of his laid-back persona, he was competitive when it came to making music. He understood the Allmans\u2019 legacy in helping to create both the Southern rock and the jam-band movements, but he also knew that his group could play circles around most everyone often classified as their peers. He bristled at any comparisons to Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Grateful Dead \u2013 as far as he was concerned, the Allman Brothers were in another league. \u201cWe had the best goddamn band in the land,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are some Super Bowl motherfuckers compared to all them other bands.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a circuitous route that led them to the level they attained. But after assembling and disbanding numerous different groups, squandering some opportunities and refusing others, the Allmans created a revolutionary musical direction. Right at the moment when the world truly caught up with their sound, though, the primary architect of that dream was gone.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/04\/Eat-A-Peach-1.jpg” title_text=”Eat A Peach-1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n I DON\u2019T LIKE ANY of that contrived shit, man,\u201d Duane Allman once said. \u201cWe\u2019re just plain ol\u2019 fuckin\u2019 Southern cats, man. Not ashamed of it or proud of it, neither one. Ain\u2019t no superstars here, man.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Gregg had picked up a guitar first. He spied one on a neighbour\u2019s front porch and begged the guy to show him how to play. After he learned a few chords, he set out to get an instrument of his own, taking on a paper route to earn the money for a guitar at a Sears store; he triumphantly marched in with the 21 dollars indicated on the price tag, only to have to return home and get another 95 cents from his mother for the tax he hadn\u2019t taken into account.<\/p>\n Duane was more interested in motorcycles then, but he started borrowing Gregg\u2019s guitar and practising, and when he quit school, he stayed home playing all day. By the time they started The Escorts, Duane was playing lead and Gregg became lead singer.<\/p>\n They performed constantly around Daytona Beach, Florida \u2013 \u201cThe social scene in Daytona Beach was simple,\u201d Duane once said, \u201cthe white cats surf and the blacks play music.\u201d Their set consisted of R&B covers, Beatles songs, You\u2019ve Lost That Lovin\u2019 Feelin\u2019 (\u201cwhich we butchered,\u201d said Gregg), and Wild Thing, which \u201cgot us real close to getting fired several times.\u201d<\/p>\n By 1965, other band members had come and gone, but the group \u2013 renamed The Allman Joys \u2013 was the hottest thing in town. They established a work ethic that would hold for years: \u201cWe would rehearse every day in the club,\u201d said Gregg, \u201cgo have lunch, rehearse some more, go home and take a shower, then go to the gig. Sometimes we would rehearse after we got home from the gig, too, just get out the acoustics and play.\u201d They took to the road, pulling a trailer of gear in a beige Chevy station wagon (including a Vox organ that Gregg had now added to the mix) and playing five sets a night, six nights a week.<\/p>\n They were starting to get some notice from more established figures, including John D. Loudermilk in Nashville (who had written such hits as Ebony Eyes for The Everly Brothers) and Bill McEuen, manager of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who gave the Allmans the cash to go to Los Angeles. Now renamed Hour Glass, the band was soon opening for The Doors and Buffalo Springfield, and signed to Liberty Records.<\/p>\n But the recording of their self-titled 1967 debut was a huge disappointment, as they were given material much poppier than their sound on stage. \u201cWe hated the whole process,\u201d said Gregg, \u201cbecause every time we tried to loosen it up a little bit, they would stiffen it right back up\u2026 the music had no life to it.\u201d<\/p>\n A breakthrough came when Duane was confined at home after a horseback riding accident. He holed up with a Taj Mahal album and taught himself to play slide guitar, using a Coricidin cold medicine bottle as his slide. They cut a second Hour Glass album, Power Of Love, which they liked a little better, but the world still didn\u2019t notice. A tour took them back to the East Coast, and when they got to Muscle Shoals, Alabama they recorded some songs (including a medley of B.B. King hits) they were actually excited about, but Liberty had no interest in releasing.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s when we knew the whole LA scene had gone sour on us,\u201d Gregg once said. \u201cDuane got\u00a0fed up\u00a0and when my brother got fed up, he got fed up. \u2018Fuck this,\u2019 he kept yelling. \u2018Fuck this whole thing. Fuck wearing these weird clothes. Fuck playing this goddamn In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida shit. Fuck it all!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n DUANE RETURNED TO Florida, while Gregg stayed in LA and tried to fulfil Hour Glass\u2019s contract with Liberty. Eventually, Duane drifted back to Muscle Shoals, where he began to play on sessions at Rick Hall\u2019s Fame studio. He was booked for a Wilson Pickett album, and suggested that Pickett record The Beatles\u2019 current hit Hey Jude (when the notoriously difficult singer resisted the idea, Duane said, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? You don\u2019t got the balls to sing it?\u201d). Their fiery call-and-response on the recording would chart a new path for Duane\u2019s future.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cMost people have to work their way in,\u201d said Fame guitarist Jimmy Johnson. \u201cWhen Duane did that date with Pickett, he was in\u2026 the players that had been playing lead, we just didn\u2019t use them any more.\u201d<\/p>\n When Atlantic Records chairman Jerry Wexler heard Pickett\u2019s Hey Jude, he immediately bought Duane\u2019s contract from Rick Hall and put him in the studio with Atlantic stars including Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Percy Sledge, and many more. \u201cHe was a kick-ass good ol\u2019 boy with a beautiful personality and great feel on his axe,\u201d Wexler wrote in his memoir, Rhythm And The Blues. \u201cHe played no-bullshit blues, and he phrased like the authentic black guitarists, weaving melodic segments like elaborate tapestries.\u201d<\/p>\n Phil Walden, who had been Otis Redding\u2019s manager, began managing Duane, and first envisioned building a Cream-style power trio around the guitarist. Walden dispatched former Redding drummer Jaimoe to Muscle Shoals, where they joined up with bassist Berry Oakley, whom Allman knew from the Florida circuit. But the Chicago-born Oakley was still playing in a band called The Second Coming, with a hotshot \u2028guitarist named Dickey Betts, and none of the three was a strong enough singer to carry a trio.<\/p>\n Eventually, Duane moved back to Jacksonville, bringing Johanson with him. (\u201cPeople ask me things like, \u2018Was I in the original band?\u2019\u201d Jaimoe once said. \u201cShit, I was with the band when it wasn\u2019t no band.\u201d) They moved in with another drummer, Butch Trucks, who was playing in a more folk rock-oriented outfit called The 31st Of February.<\/p>\n Duane sat in with Betts and Oakley\u2019s band, and things started to gel. \u201cIt came on kind of gradually,\u201d said Betts, \u201cbut there was a certain point where everybody knew it was gonna be real interesting, and it was gonna be real different\u2026He and I started to jump into some areas that we hadn\u2019t quite seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n Duane gathered all of these players \u2013 Jaimoe, Trucks, Oakley and Betts, plus Second Coming keyboard player Reese Wynans \u2013 at his house. \u201cWe set up the equipment and whipped into a little jam, and it lasted two and a half hours,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we finally quit, nobody said a word, man. Everybody was speechless. Nobody\u2019d ever done anything like that before\u2026 Right then, I knew. I said, Man, here it is \u2013 here it is!\u201d<\/p>\n But he also knew there was one element missing. So he called his brother in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/04\/the_allman_brothers_band-1.jpg” title_text=”the_allman_brothers_band-1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n I GOT THESE TWO DRUMMERS\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cThat was how Duane started his call,\u201d said Gregg, \u201cand I\u2019m thinking, Two drummers? Sounds like a train wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n But Duane made his pitch, and Gregg \u2013 eager to escape the ongoing frustrations of LA \u2013 sprinted back to Florida. He got back in time for that fateful version of Trouble No More in March 1969 \u2013 \u201cone of the finer days of my life,\u201d he called it. He played the others his original songs Dreams and Not My Cross To Bear, and they were off and running, with Gregg designated as not only the lead singer and organ player, but the main songwriter. (Reese Wynans, meanwhile, would later become part of Stevie Ray Vaughan\u2019s Double Trouble.)<\/p>\n The sound they created was magical. The sextet had the high-flying technique and sensitivity of a jazz group, rooted in muscular rock\u2019n\u2019roll power \u2013 the double-drummer \u201ctrain wreck\u201d allowed for an innovative rhythmic fluidity and flexibility \u2013 fronted by a genuine blues singer, tying up all the elements with undeniable soul. In addition, Jaimoe\u2019s presence made them an integrated band, a strong statement in the American South of the 1960s. Gregg\u2019s suggestion for a band name was Beelzebub, but the others voted that the aggregate would be known as The Allman Brothers Band.<\/p>\n They moved to Macon, Georgia to be closer to manager Walden, who was also establishing his Capricorn Records imprint through Atlantic. Playing free concerts in Macon Central City Park every weekend and cramming into \u2018The Big House\u2019, a sprawling mock-Tudor edifice on Vineville Avenue rented by Berry Oakley\u2019s wife Linda (today it\u2019s The Allman Brothers Band Museum), their sound and repertoire were exploding. Just a few months later, in August, they went to New York to record the first Allman Brothers Band album at Atlantic Studios.<\/p>\n Given only two weeks in an unfamiliar and intimidating setting, they had a tough time. \u201cI felt that we had been rushed through an artistic piece that was only about halfway done,\u201d said Gregg. Though the album included such classics as Dreams and Whipping Post, it barely grazed the charts, despite the group\u2019s tireless touring to promote it. The band had rented a cheap cabin on a lake outside of Macon as a rehearsal\/party headquarters; they jokingly compared the heavy traffic in and out to New York\u2019s Idlewild Airport. The nickname stuck as the title of the second Allman Brothers album, 1970\u2019s Idlewild South.<\/p>\n With the group playing over 300 live dates that year, recording was accomplished on the fly \u2013 in Macon, Miami and New York, working around Duane\u2019s historic sessions with Eric Clapton\u2019s Derek & The Dominos for the Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs album. (Clapton asked Duane to join the group permanently, but his allegiance to the Allman Brothers was too strong.) Though the material was solid \u2013 including Midnight Rider and two significant contributions from Betts, Revival and In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed \u2013 the album sold only marginally better than its predecessor.<\/p>\n The Allmans were struggling to capture the intensity of their monumental live shows in the studio, so the answer seemed obvious: the next album would be recorded live, in the friendly setting of New York\u2019s Fillmore East, where a seemingly unlikely urban crowd had taken to the band. \u201cThe stage is really our natural element,\u201d said Duane before the March 1971 recordings. \u201cWe kind of get frustrated doing the records, so consequently our next album will be for the most part a live recording to get some of that natural fire on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Recorded over two nights, and blasting out of the gate with an incendiary version of Blind Willie McTell\u2019s Statesboro Blues, At Fillmore East is a regular top-fiver among the greatest live albums of all time, and a definitive showcase for the Allmans\u2019 interplay and improvisation. No track comes in at under four minutes, and You Don\u2019t Love Me and Whipping Post each fill a complete side, but the energy and ideas never wane. And, against all conventional record company wisdom (Wexler wanted it cut down to a single disc), the live album is what finally connected the band to record buyers; At Fillmore East peaked at Number 13 on the US charts and was certified gold in October 1971.<\/p>\n But just days after the album was recognised for that sales landmark, Duane Allman was back in Macon, riding his motorcycle. A truck carrying a lumber crane stopped suddenly at an intersection, forcing him to swerve sharply. He struck either the truck or the crane and was thrown from the motorcycle, which bounced into the air, landed on top of him, and skidded another 90 feet with him pinned underneath. He was alive when he was brought to a hospital, but died several hours later from massive internal injuries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe night before he got killed,\u201d Allman Brothers roadie Joseph \u2018Red Dog\u2019 Campbell told Rolling Stone\u2019s Cameron Crowe, \u201cDuane and I were talking. We had just gotten into Macon a couple of days before. \u2018We\u2019ve got it made now,\u2019 he said. \u2018We\u2019re on our way. Ain\u2019t gonna be no more beans for breakfast.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy brother never got to live to see the big money start rolling in,\u201d said Gregg. \u201cWhat we had been trying to do all those years \u2028finally happened, and he was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n How does that feeling ever leave you?<\/p>\n \u2028\u201cI don\u2019t know what getting over it means, really,\u201d said Gregg. \u201cI don\u2019t stand around crying any more, but I think about him every day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n At Duane\u2019s funeral, Gregg took the rest of the band aside, telling them, \u201cIf we don\u2019t keep playing, like my brother would\u2019ve wanted us to, we\u2019re all gonna become dope dealers and just fall by the wayside.\u201d The group hung in, and were rewarded.\u2028 At Fillmore East went back up the charts, and its 1972 follow-up Eat A Peach, combining more of the Fillmore recordings with such extraordinary studio tracks as Melissa, Blue Sky and Ain\u2019t Wastin\u2019 Time No More, shot to Number 4 and served as a eulogy for the guitarist.<\/p>\n It was as if their triumphs and catastrophes were umbilically linked. Devastated by Duane\u2019s passing, Berry Oakley had undertaken to \u201cget high, be high, and stay high\u201d. The rest of the group were not far behind, but the bassist developed a kind of death wish. After troubling his bandmates with his increasing recklessness, he was killed in a bike smash three blocks from the spot of Duane\u2019s. Oakley, Duane \u2013 and now Gregg \u2013 occupy adjacent plots in Rose Hill Cemetery, Macon.<\/p>\n Recorded either side of Oakley\u2019s death and released in August 1973, Brothers And Sisters topped the Billboard album chart, making superstars of a band who were now banking $100,000 a show and hiring out Led Zeppelin\u2019s Boeing 720B jet (\u2018The Starship\u2019), but found themselves increasingly alienated from one another. Betts \u2013 the star of Brothers And Sisters, for which he wrote the hit Ramblin\u2019 Man \u2013 took on more of a leadership role, butting heads with Allman, who maintained an off-and-on solo career and joined the tabloid circus with his short-lived 1975 marriage to Cher. Substances, however, were a more \u2028constant partner (Allman claimed his first date with Cher ended with him shooting heroin and passing out) and it was Gregg\u2019s testimony against tour manager Scooter Herring \u2013 charged with dealing cocaine in 1976 \u2013 which many observe spelt the end of the Allmans\u2019 fraternal bond.<\/p>\n Yet the band itself didn\u2019t die. 1978-82 and 1986 saw revivals, and from 1989 regular tours have turned the name into an institution \u2013 Allman, Trucks, Betts and Jaimoe (mostly) constants, with transfusions of new blood, most crucially guitarist Warren Haynes. Yet in 2000 there was a reminder of group\u2019s capacity for drama when Betts was fired, Allman\u2019s allegations of unprofessional conduct contested furiously by the guitarist.<\/p>\n Through the group\u2019s more recent travails, Duane was rarely far from Gregg\u2019s thoughts, maybe even more so as his health issues became more serious. Our first session for Gregg\u2019s book was set for sometime in the spring of 2011, less than a year after his liver transplant. And then, before we met up, he suffered another medical emergency \u2013 this time going Code Blue in the hospital after blood had seeped into his lungs.<\/p>\n We first sat down together in northern Florida, where Gregg had gone to rest and recover. He needed a walker to move around, and he looked old and very fragile. As soon as I turned the recorder on, he told me about a vision he had while he was unconscious in the emergency room, a dream in which he came to a bridge and someone with long hair \u2013 Duane, he assumed \u2013 stood on the other side, but he decided that it wasn\u2019t time to go across. It was eerie, and ended up being the prologue to My Cross To Bear.<\/p>\n Gregg had a hard time slowing down. At his house, when we would finish up a day\u2019s interview session, he would take me out to his garage and show off his motorcycles, dreaming of being able to get back in the saddle and open them up on the highway. But as I drove away from the house, I would see him and Judy in my rear-view mirror, climbing onto bicycles for a careful lap around the block, helping him build back his strength.<\/p>\n Material for a book gets stitched together out of order sometimes, so I don\u2019t know exactly when Gregg said the words that come near the end of My Cross To Bear. But I remember him saying them with crystal clarity. \u201cWhen it\u2019s all said and done,\u201d he told me, \u201cI\u2019ll go to my grave and my brother will greet me, saying, \u2018Nice work, little brother \u2013 you did all right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in Issue 286 of MOJO<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Song Of The SouthThe Allman Brothers \u2013 bound by blood, scarred by tragedy \u2013 were the six-man \u201ctrain wreck\u201d with jazz chops and keen appetites who gave Southern rock its heart and soul. With the death of brother Gregg in May 2017 a final chapter ended, yet the last Allman always found closure elusive. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"akindell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2262,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions\/2262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cWe\u2019re just plain ol\u2019 Southern cats, man. Ain\u2019t no superstars here, man.\u201d<\/h2>\n
Duane Allman<\/h2>\n
\u201cThe night before he got killed Duane said \u2018We\u2019ve got it made now. Ain\u2019t gonna be no more beans for breakfast.\u2019\u201d<\/h2>\n
Joseph \u201cRed Dog\u201d Campbell<\/h2>\n
\u201cWe are some Super Bowl motherfuckers compared to all them other bands.\u201d<\/h2>\n
Gregg Allman<\/h2>\n