Southern rock pioneer knew tragedy, triumph
It began like a blues lyric: Gregg Allman hustled up a paper route and used the money to buy a $21.95 Silvertone guitar from Sears. He and his brother, Duane, fought over it until their mother quieted them with a second one. Duane could play like lightning, which meant Gregg, despite a voice of scrape and rasp, was going to have to sing.
“My brother, Duane, could not sing,” Gregg told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2013. “He said, ‘You have to learn to do something.’ So I started to sing. I have a reel-to-reel tape recording of my third night attempting to sing. It sounded atrocious.” ‘Blues everyman’
Those early recordings were the seeds that would help send the Allman Brothers Band to prominence with a hardchurning brand of soulful Southern rock that rattled the 1960s and ’70s. The brothers created a brash, uncompromising sound that exploded into a blend of wild living, jazz and blues that would influence groups such as the Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Gregg Allman died Saturday at 69. A statement posted on his official website said Allman, who had canceled concerts and entire tours in recent years as he battled a variety of health issues, “passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah, Ga.”
With Allman as the frontman, Duane on slide guitar and two drummers, the group was a kinetic live band, often improvising versions of songs like “Midnight Rider,” “Whipping Post” and “Stormy Monday.”
“I have lost a dear friend and the world has lost a brilliant pioneer in music,” said Allman’s manager, Michael Lehman. “He was a kind and gentle soul with the best laugh I ever heard. His love for his family and bandmates was passionate as was the love he had for his extraordinary fans.”
Considered a “blues everyman,” Allman was the lead singer, organist and primary songwriter of the group, which he formed with Duane in 1969. There have been several iterations since, but the original troupe consisted of the brothers, guitarist Dickey Betts, bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson.
With a hulking presence and an iconoclast’s defiance, Allman, whose key influence was soul singer Little Milton, was known as much for his personal travails as his music. His life was inlaid with tragedy and rough times, from the deaths of band members (his brother and Oakley died in similar motorcycle accidents and, more recently, Trucks committed suicide), six failed marriages (one to singer and actress Cher), legal disputes and publicized battles with drugs, alcohol and health problems.
Allman and his bandmates became such a cautionary tale about the hardliving rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle that they served as source material for the band depicted in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 rock film “Almost Famous.”
“Sure, there have been (difficult times), but I’ve had lots of good times, too, and that’s what I think of when I look back. If I just thought about the bad things, I’d probably be in the rubber room,” Allman told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. With several career highs, such as the band’s highly regarded 1971 live album “Allman Brothers at Fillmore East,” Allman was democratic about where he played, both with the band and by himself, be it a biker club or an arena. He averaged more than 150 shows a year late into his career.
“I care more about playing, playing well, than about being up on the charts somewhere, and it doesn’t matter the size of the hall,” he told the Times. “When I look back, some of the greatest gigs were at the Fillmore, but some of the best playing was at rehearsals. I’ve always tried to play every night as if it was my last show, as if the Russians were in Key West and headin’ our way.”
Born Dec. 8, 1947, in Nashville, Tenn., Gregory LeNoir Allman was the younger son of Willis Turner Allman and his wife, Geraldine Alice Robbins. His father, who stormed the beaches of Normandy during World War II, was killed by a hitchhiker when Allman was 2, and the family moved to Daytona Beach, Fla. From guitar to organ
The brothers debuted onstage as part of a YMCA youth group in Daytona, forming their first band — the Misfits — while attending a military academy in Tennessee. In 1963, the brothers returned to Florida and formed the Shufflers, followed by the Escorts and then the Allman Joys. As the Vietnam War intensified, Allman decided to avoid the draft by shooting himself in the foot.
After recording a regional hit song called “Spoonful,” the brothers moved to Los Angeles and recorded two albums for Liberty Records under the band name Hour Glass. Unhappy with their creative output, Duane headed back home and later persuaded Gregg to return and join a new group he was putting together. There was one catch: With Duane and Betts, there was no room for another guitarist. Duane, ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the best guitar players ever, urged his brother to take up the organ, specifically a Hammond B3. He agreed and hitchhiked east.
“They hoped like hell I could play it,” he said of his conversion from guitar to organ. “I showed them my 22 songs; one was ‘Dreams,’ the other was ‘It’s Not My Cross to Bear.’ I was in, I belonged, which was great because I’d just spent the last 14 months in California listening to my hair grow. Me and Beverly Hills, it’s not my habitat.”
The group released its critically acclaimed, self-titled debut album in 1969. Their second album, “Idlewild South,” which featured his composition “Midnight Rider,” had much better sales. Increasingly, the group became known for its powerful live shows, often stretching songs into 20-minute jam fests.
Their third album, the monster LP “Allman Brothers at Fillmore East” established the group as a national force. The band was midway into recording the eventual follow-up, “Eat a Peach,” when Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971. His brother’s death took a toll on Gregg, and the band’s lineup soon began to change.
“We were like Lewis and Clark, man — we were musical adventurers, explorers,” Allman wrote in his memoir. “We were one for all and all for one.”
Oakley died in a similar motorcycle accident a year later and at the same age as Duane. The band followed up “Eat a Peach” in 1973 with “Brothers and Sisters,” a commercial success that included the hit “Ramblin’ Man.” While the group endured as one of the most popular rock bands in the U.S., the pressures of success and the excesses of the road took a toll.
Between tours, Allman performed solo and released several albums before having a surprise hit in 1987 with “I’m No Angel,” a slickly produced album that sold well. The band lives on
But Allman had fallen out of favor with his bandmates after testifying against his personal road manager, John “Scooter” Herring, who was charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Allman had been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony, and several members of the band saw it has an act of betrayal. For Betts, Allman’s testimony poisoned the water, and the Allman Brothers Band lineup began to unravel.
The Allman Brothers Band got back together in the early 1980s, but Allman said it was a hollow experience.
His later years were marked with health problems. Allman had a liver transplant after contracting hepatitis C, which he blamed on a dirty needle that was used during a tattoo session. Then, citing health issues, Allman began canceling concerts with regularity. In early 2017, Allman’s spokesman denied rumors that the musician was under hospice care.
But the Allman Brothers Band, and its newest iterations, continued despite the absence of the band’s namesakes. When asked by Canada’s Globe and Mail in 2012 if the band might actually outlive both Allman brothers, he said, “I’d like to think so. I’d really like to think so.”