Butch Trucks
Long-serving drummer with the Allman Brothers Band
BUTCH TRUCKS, who has died aged 69, was one of two drummers in the original Allman Brothers Band, purveyors of a brand of southern Rock whose easy-going mixture of blues, rhythm and blues, country and Gospel influenced other musicians from the South such as the Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The six-piece ensemble was formed in 1969 when the brothers Gregg and Duane Allman, who had already recorded two albums as Hour Glass, decided to hire a second drummer to accompany the one they already had because, as Duane explained, “Otis Redding and James Brown have two”.
Trucks was, by his own account, “a bundle of insecurity”, but Duane, the band’s charismatic leader, helped him to conquer his self-consciousness and brought out the best in him.
Nicknamed “The Freight Train”, Trucks was valued for his muscular, “strong in the pocket” beat, while the other drummer, Jaimoe Johanson, provided complementary embellishment. A key early influence on Trucks was the improvisations of the British supergroup Cream.
The Allman Brothers Band released two studio albums followed in 1971 by a live double-lp set, At Fillmore East, which burst into the US Top 10 and saw the band acclaimed in the press as “America’s best rock and roll group”. Songs such as Whipping Post, Midnight Rider and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, which during concerts formed the basis of freewheeling jams, attracted legions of discerning fans.
But as the money began rolling in, tragedy struck. In the autumn of 1971 Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia, and a year later so was Berry Oakley, the bassist; he crashed three blocks from the site of Allman’s wreck.
The band soldiered on nevertheless, increasingly led by the guitarist Dickey Betts. In 1973 they appeared with the Grateful Dead and The Band at an all-day rock festival in Watkins Glen, New York, in front of a crowd of 600,000, in a performance Trucks remembered as “an absolute disaster” since The Band were “drunk as skunks”, the Dead “tripping” and the Allman Brothers “full of coke”.
The son of an optician, Claude Hudson “Butch” Trucks was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 11 1947. He took up the drums in primary school, but his Baptist parents would not allow him to have his own drum kit until he was in the sixth form. He also learnt to sing in the church choir.
At Englewood High School he played in two bands, the Vikings and the Echoes, and served as a timpanist in two orchestras. From there he went on to Florida State University but dropped out after a year. He formed the Bitter Ind, later renamed The 31st of February, and was playing with that band when he encountered the Allmans.
After the success of At Fillmore East, the Allman Brothers Band enjoyed a run of hit albums: Eat a Peach, Beginnings, and Brothers and Sisters, which produced their only Top 10 single, Ramblin’ Man, inspired by the Hank Williams song.
But by the time Win, Lose or Draw was recorded in 1975, the band members were squabbling and were addled by drink and drugs; the resulting songs lacked lustre.
It was in live performance that they were at their most harmonious, and through myriad break-ups and reformations Trucks continued touring with the band. In recent years, until the disbanding of 2014, he was joined by his nephew Derek on guitar. The last studio album was Hittin’ the Note in 2003.
The Allman Brothers Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. They disliked the southern Rock tag because of its association with “redneck” culture.
Trucks, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, is survived by his wife of many years, Melinda, their two children and two children from an earlier marriage.
Butch Trucks, born May 11 1947, died January 24 2017