Gregg Allman is to be the subject of a brand-new documentary film that captures “the artistry and the humanity behind the legend.”

The news comes amid a slew of biopic movie releases spotlighting some of guitar’s biggest artists, from the Beatles and The Boss to B.B. King. The documentary, due for release in the summer, charts the guitarists’ role in architecting southern rock as part of the legendary Allman Brothers Band.

The Music of My Soul will be the inaugural release from Subtext, founded in January 2026 by documentarians Danielle DiGiacomo, Brian Levy, and Teddy Liouliakis to “champion music-driven and culturally resonant cinema.” The film was made in association with Rolling Stone Films and is due for a theatrical release.

The Music of My Soul “traces Allman’s journey through profound personal tragedy and hard-won redemption, revealing how his raw honesty and blues-soaked power permanently reshaped American music.”

It is driven by never-before-seen interviews and from-the-archive performance footage to paint an “intimate portrait of Allman” both on and off the stage. That means that, while musical reflections soak up the Allman Brothers at their creative peak, bigger-picture reflections detail how the band shaped American culture, highlighting Allman’s deep-rooted respect for Black musicians against the grain of contemporary thinking as he and the band rejected racial divisions.

On a more personal note, it will also explore his complex relationship with fame, the death of his brother, Duane, and his much-publicised marriage to pop icon, Cher.

It’s been directed by Grammy and Golden Globe Award-winning filmmaker James Keach, who was a key figure in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, and more recent films on Glen Campbell, David Crosby, and Linda Ronstadt.

“Gregg Allman’s music is woven into the fabric of American culture, and this film captures both the artistry and the humanity behind the legend,” says Subtext’s Brian Levy. “We’re proud to bring the film to American audiences, offering devoted fans rare insight and archival material while introducing Gregg’s legacy to a new generation.”

In 2024, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks teamed up to complete unfinished Gregg Allman songs for Haynes' studio album, Million Voices Whisper. It revived an ABB guitar partnership that had lasted 13 years, between 2001 and 2014.

Darling Blue is the Marcus King Band's first album since 2018’s Carolina Confessions. This might sound weird about a group that has been road warriors since they debuted with 2014’s Soul Insights. But King’s last three albums have been solo efforts, recorded with producers Dan Auerbach and Rick Rubin and their crews of session musicians.

While King says he learned a lot working with these seasoned pros, he was eager to get back to working with his road band. Emphasizing this back-to-his-roots approach, King recorded Darling Blue at Macon, Georgia’s Capricorn Studios, where the Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie and many others recorded landmark Southern music.

“It was really healing to be back in that room,” King says. “And just to be in Macon, a city with a lot of magic and musical history.”

Darling Blue represents a huge leap in King’s songwriting, with confessional lyrics and earnest love songs that never sound contrived. Musically, it shows King and company leaning into country sounds, with plenty of acoustic guitars and fiddles.

The King band has toured in recent years with Chris Stapleton, the Zac Brown Band, and are hitting the road with Dwight Yoakam and Eric Church. Guests on Darling Blue also include bluegrass king Billy Strings and country crooners Jamey Johnson and Kaitlin Butts. There is also les shredding on Darling Blue, but plenty of tasty playing by both King and guitarist Drew Smithers.

“We just tried to play to fit the songs and I’m proud that everyone did that so well,” King says.

The album’s Americana blend also shows the influence of Motown, Sly and the Family Stone and King’s beloved South Carolina homeboys the Marshall Tucker Band. King’s passion for Tucker is highlighted by his role in the Toy Factory Project, a group put together by MTB founding drummer Paul T. Riddle to pay homage to his original band.

It also features Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke), bassist Oteil Burbridge (Dead and Company, Allman Brothers), keyboardist Josh Shilling and fiddler Billy Contreras, who also plays on Darling Blue. The band debuted last summer with a single show, with more to come, as well as an album that also features Derek Trucks.

“I was very excited to breathe new life into this music that I hold so dear and that I've been so influenced and encouraged by,” King says. “and it made recording at Capricorn all that more special.”

Why did you choose to work at Capricorn Studios, an intimate place with an incredible history?

“It was the first time the band and I had been in the studio together in a minute. The band is really me and my drummer, Jack Ryan. We started the band together and it was time for us to get back in the studio together. We settled on Capricorn because we wanted to feel like we were at home, and we wanted to echo the influence that the bands that recorded there had on us.”

Why did you not record together for so long?

“I moved to Nashville and Jack was back in the Carolinas and was working on a side-project. I was working with Dan Auerbach, who likes to have a house band, sort of a Southern fried version of Phil Spector's wall of sound.

“He works with the remaining Memphis boys who played on Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man and Elvis’ Suspicious Minds and a lot of other stuff that I love. I grew a lot from the incredible experience of working with all those guys, as well as with the people Rick Rubin brought in for Young Blood, but it’s just different.”

Musically, you've moved towards Americana, with more country influence, more acoustic guitar, different songwriting. Is this just a natural evolution?

“As I've grown as an artist, I've gotten more confident in my songwriting and more meaningful with the lyrics. I have a better chance of articulating what I want to say and I feel the song deserves to be heard in the best light.

“I wouldn't say that the playing was gratuitous on our past works, but it was more instrumentally focused. When we play live, we stretch all these songs out and leave room for improvisational creativity, but the songwriting has progressed and evolved, so we fell in line behind that.”

I think the songs sound very natural.

“Thanks. I'm so proud of this work, and it did happen organically. It’s not contrived in any way. There’s room for pop country and hip-hop country - and there's certainly room for Southern rock country, which is what I think we do. I love the fans that we've met being out with Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown Band. The country community is a strong, loyal fanbase.”

You have some interesting guests here, including Billy Strings.

“Yeah, we have my old neighbor William on there. Me and Bill used to be neighbors over in East Nashville and I love that guy so much. The song is just a cowboy number, inspired by people like Toy Caldwell, but applying some of the real life strife that I've gone through lyrically. I heard Billy on it right away and he was kind enough to give me some of his busy time.”

Your playing has shifted along with your songwriting, with less overdrive and more Tele sounds. Which shift came first?

“That's a fine question. When I'm at home, I don't like to touch the guitar. I play a lot of piano, which I write on. Or I'll sit and I'll play my pedal steel guitar or my fiddle, banjo, ukulele – anything but the guitar. If I do pick up a guitar it's a gut-string fretless number.

“The guitar is something that I'm so familiar with. It's like riding a bike or speaking the English language. If I moved abroad and only spoke Spanish for six months, it's not like I will forget how to speak English. Guitar is so deeply rooted in me. I like to play different instruments, and it helps my playing when I go back to the guitar.

“I read Victor Wooten's book [The Music Lesson] and he harped on the importance of being a musician not a bass player and I have always been influenced by that idea. It’s a holy experience to be able to sit at a guitar and say exactly what I have on my mind.”

You’ve had a second guitar player, Drew Smithers, in your band for a few years, but this is the first you’ve recorded together. I love the way you play together. Is the slide on the album all him?

“He plays most of the slide but Carry Me Home is us playing harmony, which evokes George Harrison. We met when his former band opened for us and we’d always end up hanging out, talking about music and life, and quickly became good friends.

“He’s one of the finest people I’ve ever known and the chemistry of how we played together was just profound right away. He was the only person I considered as a second guitar player and it was a way to take a little pressure off, being a frontman, but it became a whole new tool in our bag.

“We play like one player. Taking a page from Eric Clapton, it's inspiring to have another guitar player on stage and it makes me play better.”

Carolina Honey is an unabashed love song. Is that about meeting your wife?

“It is. It’s one of two songs that form the theme of the record, along with Die Alone, and they are about two days that happened back-to-back, the day before and the day I met my wife. Carolina Honey is about her ability to make me see that life was worth living. She gave me the kick in the ass I needed to start living it.”

Die Alone is a heavy theme.

“I had gone back out on the road with the intention of drinking and drugging myself to death. When I met her, all that changed. Growth is the hardest thing we can do as human beings, but after the fact you're thankful for it.

“My wife doesn’t put up with no bullshit, and I was just baggage. I was in real rough shape, but she saw the potential in me and helped me get back up on my feet. I'm always just floored by that woman and I’m thankful that she took a chance on me like she did.”

It's great that you've been so open about your struggles, because they are so widespread in our world and not everybody is so open about it. And I believe that talking about it is helpful to other people.

“Thanks. I just talk about it like anything else going on. If I'm having mood swings or I'm depressed out on the road, I speak about it openly on stage and with my bandmates. It's just part of our makeup, especially kids in my generation.

“It's a mindfulness practice because you gotta do it every day or you'll fall back into those habits: depression, substance abuse, suicidal tendencies and all of that. It's got many faces and the ability to suck you back in even when you think you're doing all right.”

I love Honky Tonk Hell, which has a Sturgill Simpson vibe, with that country funk and the horns. Has he been a big influence on you?

“Oh yeah. I love Sturgill and I don't think I'm unique in that. He's one of the baddest motherfuckers on two legs and I'm always influenced by him, but it’s the horns that really gave it that Sturgill vibe and I was adamant about that.

“That was one of the very few disagreements I’ve had with my producer. I was so influenced by Sturgill’s magnum opus Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. I just want to do some country funk, man.”

Paul T. Riddle loves the term country funk. You did the Toy Factory Project with him, Charlie Starr and Oteil Burbridge, playing terrific version of Marshall Tucker songs. This feels like a labor of love for everyone.

“Oh yes. The Marshall Tucker Band is the best export we have in South Carolina, second only to peaches. As a kid, them being 30 minutes away from where I was made a big impression. Paul and I were connected by my guitar instructor, Steve Watson, and we immediately hit it off.

“When he asked me to be a part of this project I was honored. It's been a painstakingly slow process with everybody being in different label deals, but everybody's there for the right reasons: for that music and its importance and its cultural impact.

“I say that to my friends at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because they’re not in there, which is a miscarriage of justice. The Marshall Tucker Band needs to be inducted right away.”

They all knew and respected your father, Marvin. Your grandfather was also a musician. What did he play?

“My grandfather was a country and western musician and a career serviceman in the United States Air Force. He met my grandmother when he was stationed in Munich, Germany. He was head of the culinary arts for the Air Force and was also in charge of the NCO clubs and their dances.

“He hired people like Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride, and they would come over to play, backed by his band, with him on bass. My grandfather was a career musician, a weekend warrior who played every honky tonk between here and the moon. He was one of my greatest influences and supporters.

“And he was just a bad dude. I owe so much to him and the rest of my family too because they always viewed music as an honest way of making a living, not a pipe dream. It was like learning the family trade.”

Your grandpa’s guitar is the Gibson ES-345 you’ve played a lot and now have a Gibson signature guitar based on. Do you still play it on the road?

“It depends. If I'm flying, I usually bring a backup model, but if the bus is leaving from Nashville, I'll bring it with me because nothing plays quite like it. It's a family heirloom and the most inspiring instrument I have in my arsenal.

“It was his dream to play the Grand Ole Opry and he won a fiddle contest to do so but was already overseas when he found out he had won. I always bring his guitar there, because that's the only way I can bring him to the Opry with me.”

What is the Telecaster that you're playing?

“I've been playing a 66 Esquire. I was drinking a lot and forgot that I bought it. The folks at Carter Vintage called me and were like, ‘You gonna come get this guitar?’ It's probably the only good thing that ever came from my drinking.”

Did you use any inspiring vintage gear at Capricorn?

“The Hammond organ and piano we used were Chuck Leavell’s, which is mega-inspiring. Otis Redding's upright piano is also there. It’s unusable, but we sure tried. Just having it there was inspiring. The whole town is.

“We went down to Rose Hill Cemetery [where four members of the Allman Brothers Band are buried] and spent a day visiting our heroes. You got a town where the Allman Brothers lived and Little Richard and Otis Redding grew up on the same street.

“I wanted to put bass on a track and didn’t have an instrument, so I called our good friend Richard Brent at The Big House Allman Brothers Band Museum and asked if he had anything inspiring of the bass guitar variety and he brought me over Gregg Allman’s ’66 Guild Starfire.

“It’s like riding Dale Earnhardt's motorcycle; it's not something that he's really known for, but it's still cool that Gregg Allman played a small part on this record!”

• Darling Blue is out now via Republic.

Guitarist and songwriter Mac Gayden – best known for his work on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and co-writing the long-standing pop hit Everlasting Love – has died at the age of 83, at his home in Nashville. According to his cousin, Tommye Maddox Working, the cause of death was complications due to Parkinson's disease.

Gayden played a key role in helping turn Nashville into the cross-genre recording hub it is today. As part of an elite group of session players known as the “Nashville Cats,” Gayden gained a solid reputation for being the first call from that group. Bob Dylan producer Bob Johnston once dubbed him, “The best guitar player I ever heard.”

One of his most notable contributions was his work on Dylan's seventh studio album Blonde on Blonde. His percussive guitar work on Absolutely Sweet Marie showcases his breadth as a player – which makes it all the more unfortunate that it went uncredited for decades.

Non-country artists flocked to Nashville to work with Gayden – which is why he ended up on records by Elvis, Simon & Garfunkel, The Valentines, Linda Ronstadt, Leonard Cohen, Bobby Vinton, and The Pointer Sisters.

“I first met Gregg and Duane [Allman] when they first came to Nashville and played the Briarpatch for a while. Jammed a little with Greg one night and did a session with Duane at RCA studio B one night,” he told Blues GR in 2013, giving a sneak peek into his day-to-day life as one of Nashville's hottest tickets.

“We were both beginning to play slide guitar at the time. So we would swap licks with each other in between songs. Everyone thought that it sounded cool but it didn’t go down on record.”

In fact, it was his slide guitar and wah pedal combination – epitomized on J.J. Cale’s 1971 Top 40 single Crazy Mama – that cemented his signature technique and sound.

“A few years ago, a writer called me ‘father of the wah slide,’” Gayden wrote in his 2013 autobiography, Missing String Theory: A Musician’s Uncommon Spiritual Journey. “It’s humbling to realize I developed a stylistic approach to playing slide.”

As a songwriter, his most enduring success came in the form of Everlasting Love – the evergreen song he co-wrote with Buzz Cason and which eventually found its way onto records by artists as diverse as Town Criers, Gloria Estefan, Sandra Cretu, Love Affair, and even U2.

However, his exploits didn't end there. As the ’60s rolled into the '70s, Gayden and a couple of other alumni of the early ’60s pop combo the Escorts formed two improvisational country-rock outfits: Area Code 615 and later, Barefoot Jerry.

The former – a supergroup of sorts consisting of some of Nashville's most prolific session musicians – was formed in the wake of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album and managed to record two albums, which included their best-known track, Stone Fox Chase, before resuming their session work.

Barefoot Jerry, on the other hand, was an early Southern rock group, which also featured Gayden on vocals and a hodgepodge of Nashville session players. Gayden would depart after just one album to record his first solo album, McGavock Gayden, in 1971.

After a series of other projects and accomplishments – including being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as part of the Nashville Cats, and being featured in the 2015 exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville – Gayden released his last album, Come Along, in 2020.

Speaking about his intimate relationship with music and its links to spirituality in the Blues GR interview, Gayden concluded, “I knew from an early age that music comes from another dimension, because it grounded me. In other words it relaxed my physiology and allowed me to feel Bliss, something as child that comes naturally.”

“On days when I didn’t have some music or art, I felt something was missing. So as an adult, meditation takes me every day to that subtle place of experiencing the world, and thus feeling that inspiration and bliss once again.”

The Allman Betts Band have managed to round up some stellar guests for their ongoing Allman Betts Family Revival. However, on Monday night, at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, it reached new heights with Slash joining the bill.

The Guns N' Roses guitarist's special appearance came late in the second set, as he delivered blues-heavy shredding on the Muddy Waters-penned-turned-Allman-Brothers-classic, Trouble No More.

The highlight of his performance, however, was his solo on Dreams, which included an impressive blues-rock run on his goldtop Les Paul, propped on his knees, and trading solos with pedal steel virtuoso Robert Randolph. Slash closed the set with his own take on 1969's Whipping Post, from The Allman Brothers Band's self-titled debut album.

The star guitarist joined a lineup of marquee-worthy names, which, apart from Randolph, also included Larry McCray, Maggie Rose, Luther Dickinson, Jimmy Hall, Lamar Williams Jr., Sierra Hull, Sierra Green, Lindsay Lou, Grace Bowers, Jackie Greene, Jake Shimabukuro, and Donavon Frankenreiter.

Led by Devon Allman and Duane Betts – the respective sons of Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts – the Allman Family Revival started in 2017 as a star-studded celebration of the legendary catalog of The Allman Brothers Band and has since become an annual live event.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Allman said, “We never would’ve thought that this is what it would become, ever. It’s a kind of family reunion. We get to see everyone and celebrate one of the best songbooks in rock & roll.”

And as for Slash's involvement in this year's event? “I think he’s wanting to jump into some circles that are a little more blues-oriented,” he commented. “We’re just happy to have him.”

Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes has announced his forthcoming solo record, which will feature a long-lost Allman Brothers song that’s been revived and completed with the help of Derek Trucks.

Million Voices Whisper will find Haynes lean further into soul music, with Trucks set to feature on three songs. One of those, Real, Real Love, was initially co-written with Gregg Allman and later finished by Haynes in the late guitarist’s style.

The song was completed to honor the guitarist, who Haynes says “lived to perform… There was no separation between Gregg and his music.”

The record marks the first time Haynes and Trucks have shared a studio together since their time in the Allman Brothers Band, which ended in 2014. Trucks also features on album opener These Changes and closer Hall of Future Saints.

Among the four bonus tracks on the deluxe CD version is a new version of the Trucks-Haynes composition Back Where I Started, originally recorded by the Derek Trucks Band. This new version sees Haynes take center stage on lead vocals and slide guitar.

“This album is quite different than my previous solo records,” Haynes says. “There's a lot of soul music influence but [it’s] very song-oriented with subtle nods to a few of my heroes,” with longtime bandmate Gregg Allman chief among them.

“And what a treat to get back into the studio with my brother Derek,” he continues. “Big shoutout to him as well as Lukas [Nelson] and Jamey [Johnson, producers] for being a part of it. I'm really proud of this new album.”

We’ll have to wait a little longer to hear any of the Haynes-Trucks tracks – including the unearthed ABB song – but the first track, This Is Life As We Know It, can be heard via the video above.

Real Real Love will follow Everything a Good Man Needs, which featured Gregg Allman on guitar alongside Taj Mahal. The song was released posthumously in 2018.

Haynes' new album releases November 1 via Fantasy Records.

Million Voices Whisper is available to preorder now.

Thanks to a distinct melting pot of genres, a scintillating dual guitar act that reinvented the wheel for two-pronged player partnerships and a borderline unrivaled live energy, the Allman Brothers Band became one of the most influential rock groups of their time.

Born into the music world at the turn of the ‘70s and initially masterminded by Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts and a handful of other instrumentalists, ABB helped progress the Southern rock sound, and pushed the boundaries of the jam genre in the process.

Across the band’s lifetime – which bore witness to tragedy, turmoil and triumph in equal measure – Allman and co. commited countless hits to tape. 

Theirs is a history that can be charted through their music, from the timeless live cuts of At Fillmore East in 1971, recorded before the untimely death of Duane Allman, to the comeback singles of the ‘90s, when Betts’ penchant for country music shone through.

Here, we take you through the ABB story by counting down their 25 greatest tracks, starting with a little number lifted from one of rock’s most enduring live records…

25. Stormy Monday

At Fillmore East (1971)

The Allman Brothers Band were essential in bringing classic blues music to a worldwide audience in the late Sixties/early Seventies, and their masterful rendition of the T-Bone Walker classic (Call It) Stormy Monday, from At Fillmore East, introduced the song to a new generation of listeners.

Duane and Gregg had been playing the song for years as it was a staple in their set with the Allman Joys, basing their version on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s cover. Here, Duane and Dickey display their complete mastery of the blues idiom.

“My biggest blues guitar influences would be T-Bone, B.B. King and Albert King,” said Betts. “A big part of Albert’s signature style was his use of extremely wide bends. He would bend notes all over the place while staying on one string at one fret; he could get four or five different notes out of one single position!

“Albert sounds sort of like a trumpet player on licks like these. On the Fillmore versions of both Stormy Monday and Whipping Post, you can hear examples of Albert’s influence on my playing in terms of using wide bends such as these.”

24. Hot ‘Lanta

At Fillmore East (1971)

Made famous as an impeccably recorded live performance at one of the legendary 1971 Fillmore East shows, this cookin’, jazzy instrumental, an ABB compositional collaboration, features a brisk swing groove in 3/4 meter – a “jazz waltz” – that recalls the feel of Whipping Post but is slightly faster and edgier, with Oakley laying down an aggressive and tastefully crafted walking bassline, lots of Duane’s and Dickey’s signature harmonized lead guitar melodies and some of Gregg’s most inspired and ambitious B3 playing ever.

The tune is based on a repeating blues progression in A minor that’s extended from the standard 12 bars to 13 (if counted in 12/8 meter instead of 3/4), via a dramatic and decidedly jazzy twist – a chromatically descending dominant seven sharp-nine chord, starting on the five, E7#9, and traveling down to C#7#9 – before restating the intro organ riff as a one-bar turnaround.

Gregg, Dickey and Duane all take fiery, well-conceived improvised solos, two choruses each, that lead up to an exhilarating duet drum break. Not content, however, to just leave it at that and come back in with a restatement of the “head” (melody), the Brothers inject a clever ensemble interlude riff into the arrangement, built around the drum break, giving both the composition and their performance of it added richness and depth.

23. No One to Run With

An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: 2nd Set (1995)

One of the highlights from the two excellent live albums the released by the ABB in the Nineties. Betts’ ode to the good old days and lost running buddies quickly became a tribute to Duane, Berry, Lamar and every other fallen brother – sadly added to over the next 20 years.

This live number features a signature Allen Woody bassline, great Haynes and Betts guitar parts, a growling Allman vocal and a spotlight on the three-man rhythm section, with Trucks and Jaimoe augmented by Marc Quinones. In other words, the whole Allmans enchilada. No wonder the song remained in heavy rotation until the final show.

22. You Don’t Love Me

At Fillmore East (1971)

“Everything Duane and I play on the extended ending of that track was completely improvised,” said Dickey Betts. “I played a piece of an old gospel song, some train sounds and things like that, and Duane picked up on those things and went off into his own improvisations.”

The success of the Allman Brothers Band exploded with the release of the incendiary masterpiece At Fillmore East, recorded over two nights in New York City, March 12 and 13, 1971. What is largely forgotten is that the band was originally the “special guest” opening act for Johnny Winter, but in short order the Allmans were switched to headliners.

You Don’t Love Me is an old blues tune originally written and recorded by Willie Cobb in 1960. In 1965, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy released a cover version on Junior Wells’ debut release, Hoodoo Man Blues, upon which the Allmans based their version. The band uses this track as a vehicle for a near 20-minute jam, comprising the entire second side of disc one. Duane and Dickey trade intensely burning solos through the first segment of the performance, joined by Thom Doucette’s harmonica.

At the seven-minute point, the band stops and Duane ventures into a two-minute unaccompanied improvisation that is simply stunning, followed by an equally inspired solo turn by Betts.

“What you hear was played in the spur-of-the-moment, which is exactly what the blues is all about,” said Betts. “You have to be fast on your feet, and react instantly to all of the sounds around you, allowing the music to happen in as spontaneous a way as possible.”

21. Seven Turns

Seven Turns (1990)

The Allman Brothers Band had a lot to prove when they regrouped for the second time in 1990 – namely if they could really make a run at the glories of the original golden era with new members Warren Haynes and Allen Woody. The title track of their comeback album answered a lot of questions.

A classic Betts, country-tinged rocker, it tipped its hat to Native American philosophy, offered Blue Sky-like uplift and featured Haynes’ slide and Betts’ leads side by side. The signature call-and-response vocal that closes the song came about naturally. Gregg Allman was shooting pool as Haynes and Betts worked out vocal harmonies and unconsciously answered their lines. Haynes had the good sense to recognize the missing piece to the puzzle.

20. Black Hearted Woman

The Allman Brothers Band (1969)

Like Whipping Post, this early Gregg Allman–penned gem from the band’s debut album features one of their earliest uses of odd meter, opening with a bluesy, repeating one-bar ensemble riff in A that drops an eighth note from the last beat, resulting in a meter of 7/8, before giving way to a more “stable” groove, in this case 4/4.

The song’s funky, hard-driving verse sections are based on a clever twist on the standard 12-bar blues form that extends it two bars, with the two-dominant chord (B7) interjected after the five (E7#9) and the progression capped off by an octave-doubled ensemble break riff that brings to mind the soulful themes of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies repertoire.

Duane and Dickey both serve up inspired, fiery licks throughout the arrangement, their guitars panned hard left and right in the stereo mix, with punchy lead tones and aggressive string bends and finger vibratos. Gregg kills it vocally, Berry Oakley’s bass line cooks and Butch Trucks’ and Jaimoe’s percussion interlude/breakdown, featuring drums and congas, ushers in a dramatic minor pentatonic “tribal” riff that Oakley scat sings along to, adding intensity and soul to an already earthy melody.

19. Come and Go Blues

Brothers and Sisters (1973)

This underrated masterpiece, originally conceived by Gregg on a fingerpicked acoustic guitar in open G tuning, is built around a hauntingly beautiful, descending blues turnaround that repeats over a G bass pedal tone for the song’s verses. (Check out his stirring live solo performance video of the song from 1981 on YouTube.)

The full ABB reading of Come and Go Blues featured on Brothers and Sisters, with bassist Lamar Williams admirably stepping into the late Berry Oakley’s large musical shoes, develops the composition into a rather ambitious arrangement, with inventive instrumental interludes and ensemble breaks throughout and tasteful improvised solos by Leavell and Betts.

18. One Way Out

Eat a Peach (1972)

One Way Out is a blues song originally recorded (or so it seems) by Elmore James in 1960/’61. Before the Elmore version was released, however, Sonny Boy Williamson II recorded it for Chess Records, releasing it in September 1961. He then re-recorded the song with blues guitarist Buddy Guy in 1963, and this latter version features the arrangement covered by the Allman Brothers, replete with the well-known signature guitar line. Elmore’s version was released posthumously in 1965, bearing a closer resemblance to the earlier Sonny Boy track.

The version released on Eat a Peach was recorded during the band’s final performance at Fillmore East on the night of the venue’s closing, June 27, 1971. It is included on the deluxe, expanded editions of At Fillmore East. The track fades in on Betts’ statement of the primary guitar lick, with the entire band dropping in 16 bars later as Duane emulates Sonny Boy’s harmonica lick with slide guitar. Dickey takes the first solo and it is simply stunning, with laser beam-like intensity and, probably, the greatest Les Paul/Marshall guitar tone ever heard.

Following a brief drum solo, Dickey and Duane trade four-bar licks, and during Duane’s last phrase, bassist Berry Oakley enters a beat early, briefly throwing the band off kilter. They quickly readjust, and this wrinkle is considered an essential part of the song’s charm. The Allmans’ version of One Way Out has been featured in many films, none more effectively than Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, used as the backtrack to a brutal bar fight.

17. Little Martha

Eat a Peach (1972)

Duane Allman’s sole songwriting credit closes Eat a Peach on a wistful note, as it did every Allman Brothers concert of the last 20 years, piped through the P.A. Said to come to Duane in a dream and pieced together over the years, the lilting dobro duet with Betts is played in open Eb. Like so much about Duane, it leaves you wondering “what if.”

“My brother loved playing that kind of stuff, and I have to think there would have been more music coming out of him,” said Gregg.

16. Nobody Knows

Shades of Two Worlds (1991)

The Allman Brothers are revered for instrumental masterpieces like Jessica, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Hot ‘Lanta, Don’t Want You No More, Mountain Jam, Little Martha and Les Brers in A Minor, but they have on occasion directed that instrumental magic touch to vocal tunes such as Whipping Post, as well as this tour de force from the band’s early Nineties incarnation.

Gregg Allman had derided the tune for being too similar to Whipping Post – both songs are in A minor with a 6/8 feel (as is Hot ‘Lanta) – but make no mistake; Nobody Knows is as powerful a track as any in the band’s history.

“Nobody Knows is one of the best lyrical songs I’ve ever written,” Betts said in ’91. “These are nice, abstract, poetic lyrics. I wrote that about as fast as I could write the words down, at 4:30 in the morning after rehearsal.

“[Producer] Tom Dowd had said, ‘We could use a tune as heavy as ‘Whipping Post” for this record,’ and I thought, ‘Man, that’s a tall order!’ I sat down and those words just started flying out. In 30 minutes I’d written the whole thing, like I was writing a letter to someone.”

15. Mountain Jam

Eat a Peach (1972)

Based on the 1967 Donovan song There Is a Mountain, Mountain Jam served as an extended instrumental jamming vehicle for the Allman Brothers Band throughout the band’s long history.

The first recording of the song is from one of their very first gigs, May 4, 1969; they also played the song on the very last night the Allman Brothers Band ever performed, October 29, 2014. This is wholly appropriate, as no song better represents the adventurous, experimental spirit of the band’s musical DNA.

Listeners get the first hints of Mountain Jam and the end of the album that precedes Eat a Peach, At Fillmore East, following the last strains of Whipping Post as the album fades out.

At nearly 34 minutes in length, Mountain Jam is a wild ride, through beautifully delicate harmonized guitar lines, intensely extraordinary guitar solos from Duane and Dickey, expressive Hammond organ work from Gregg, and lock-tight, swinging rhythm section work from Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks and Jaimoe. Dickey and Duane burst into improvised harmonized lines, all the while displaying incredible chops and dreamlike Les Paul/Marshall stack guitar tones.

A furious tandem drum solo is followed by a deeply syncopated bass solo from Berry and a shift to a shuffle feel and reference to Jimi Hendrix’ Third Stone from the Sun, transitioning seamlessly to a 6/8 instrumental take on Will the Circle Be Unbroken.

14. Statesboro Blues

At Fillmore East (1971)

For a great many of us – especially those who were teenagers in 1971 when At Fillmore East was released – Statesboro Blues represents the very moment the Allman Brothers Band blasted into our lives.

As an aspiring young guitar player, its impact was instantaneous. Duane Allman’s dramatic and distinct slide guitar intro grabs you from the very first note and, as the opening track on what would be the band’s breakthrough album, the hard-rocking, lock-tight sound and spirit of the Allman Brothers was now firmly set in stone. Even Michael Aherns’ understated introduction, “Okay, the Allman Brothers Band,” is now considered an essential part of the track.

Statesboro Blues was written by Piedmont blues guitarist/singer Blind Willie McTell, who first recorded the song in 1928, backing himself on acoustic guitar. Blues singer/guitarist Taj Mahal recorded a great version of the song on his 1968 eponymous debut, featuring guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, and this version is the one Duane heard, inspiring him to learn to play slide guitar.

The story goes that brother Gregg had given Duane the album for his birthday, simultaneously giving him a bottle of Coricidan, a cold medication, as Duane was sick at the time. Inspired by the recording, Duane emptied the pills from the bottle and, wearing it on the ring finger of his fretting hand, taught himself to play slide guitar. 

Today, millions of guitarists the world over use bottle-type slides on their ring fingers – such as Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks – in emulation of Duane Allman.

13. Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’

Idlewild South (1972)

Rhythm and blues and soul were the two styles of music that had the strongest influence on Gregg Allman as a performer and as a composer. He had stated often that such artists as Ray Charles, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Little Milton were hugely influential on his singing style and musical sense.

According to Gregg, “When I heard Ray Charles, I said, ‘That’s my goal in life.’ Ray Charles is the one who taught me to just relax and let it ooze out. If it’s in your soul, it’ll come out.”

Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ kicks off with a dual slide guitar/harmonica lick, followed by a funky blues-like rhythm part laid down by Dickey Betts, abutted by slide guitar from Duane and harmonica from Thom Doucette. Duane plays a stinging, high slide solo that culminates with a syncopated band figure similar to those heard on Black Hearted Woman.

12. Les Brers in A Minor

Eat a Peach (1972)

Like Betts’ earlier masterpiece, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, this majestic nine-minute instrumental, penned by the guitarist in 1971 and recorded by the ABB in the wake of brother Duane’s tragic death late that year, showcases Dickey’s eclectic musical sophistication as a composer and grasp of both jazz harmony and classical orchestration.

The piece begins with an extended, mesmerizing intro, featuring a highly interactive ensemble crescendo that swells from a whisper through a series of meditative tonal-center shifts, from A to G and back, performed in a “floaty” free-time feel and culminating in a climactic succession of loud, dramatic “orchestra hits,” in a way that brings to mind the opening strains from the first and second movements of Beethoven’s ninth symphony.

Near the four-minute mark, Berry Oakley nimbly kicks off the tune’s main theme and establishes its brisk tempo with a growling, flat-picked bass riff, a repeating ostinato figure that outlines an A minor hexatonic tonality, over which Dickey and Gregg then proceed to double the tune’s melody in unison over a rich, syncopated percussion groove.

This is followed at 4:25 by an inventive, jazzy bridge, or interlude, that momentarily interrupts the driving 16th-note groove for about 20 seconds with a somber melody, set to an intriguing chord progression played with a half-time feel, followed by a return to the 16th-note groove and some inspired open-ended soloing and jamming, with each individual solo bookended and punctuated by tight ensemble riffs.

11. Ain’t Wasting Time No More

Eat a Peach (1972)

As the lead single from Eat a Peach, the first Allman Brothers Band album released following the tragic death of founding band member and leader Duane Allman, Gregg Allman’s heartfelt composition captures, in part, his feelings at one of the most difficult times of his life.

The lyrical content of the song deals with overcoming depression, with lines like, “Last Sunday morning the sunshine felt like rain, the week before, they all seemed the same... But with the help of God and two friends, I’ve come to realize, I still have two strong legs and even wings to fly,” and also, “You don’t need no gypsy to tell you why, you can’t let another precious day go by.”

The song is driven by Gregg’s rock-solid piano playing, supplemented by lyrical slide guitar playing by Dickey Betts, ably picking up the Duane Allman mantle, as well as gently flowing percussion from Jaimoe.

10. Ramblin’ Man

Brothers and Sisters (1973)

Written by Dickey Betts in 1972, Ramblin’ Man was the Allman Brothers Band’s only top-10 hit single and the last song recorded by bassist Berry Oakley, shortly before his untimely passing in November of that year. Inspired by a 1951 Hank Williams composition of the same name, the song features Betts singing lead vocal.

Ramblin’ Man saw the Allmans reach a commercial peak and, together with other Betts-penned songs included on the album, represented a stylistic change in direction for the group, from their foundational blues-based and jazz-tinged rock to more of a country-pop flavor, while still upholding their credo of collective improvisation and the jamming spirit that the ABB has always embraced.

Ramblin’ Man was written and performed in the key of G, but the original recording was sped up in the mastering process, which, in addition to increasing the tempo by a few beats per minute, raised its pitch a little more than a half step, resulting in the finished track sounding slightly sharp of the key of Ab.

Along with other Betts compositions featured on Brothers and Sisters, namely Southbound, Pony Boy and the instrumental Jessica, Ramblin’ Man represented Dickey’s emergence as one of the outfit’s principal songwriters, alongside Gregg, and demonstrated that the guitarist could admirably carry the torch as the band’s only full-time guitarist, as they chose, for the time being, not to replace Duane with another six-stringer, instead bringing in the very talented pianist Chuck Leavell as a second instrumental soloist.

Ramblin’ Man gloriously showcases Betts’ signature lyrical soloing style, which is characterized by owing eighth-note rhythms, rolling melodic contours, soar- ing, pedal steel-like bends, smooth legato phrasing and the frequent use of the major hexatonic scale, a sound that is regarded by many as his musical calling card.

Guitarist Les Dudek made a guest appearance on the track, providing the arrangement’s signature sweet harmony leads, which he layered by overdubbing single-note parts.

9. Revival

Idlewild South (1970)

Revival, aka Revival (Love Is Everywhere), represents Dickey Betts’ first songwriting credit with the band. “Revival started out as an instrumental tune,” said Betts. “In fact, we would refer to that first instrumental section of the song as ‘The Gypsy Dance.’ When I wrote it, I had the image of gypsies dancing around a fire in my mind, and I tried to conjure that spirit in the music.”

The song opens with Duane Allman’s strummed acoustic-guitar rhythm part, followed immediately by an evocative, bluesy harmonized guitar line. Once again, the influence of modal jazz is present, as the song moves seamlessly through different tonalities, such as major, natural minor and the Dorian mode.

Drummer “Jaimoe” Jai Johanny Johanson is featured on percussion on the track, lending a Latin feel. This Latin feel, also present on In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, was inspired in part by Latin jazz as well as the Latin flavors South Florida musicians like Mike Pinera (Blues Image) were incorporating into their music at the time.

“In writing this tune – or any of the instrumentals – you have to decide what you are trying to do, and then see if you can make it happen,” said Betts. “These are the mental tools I use to help guide me through, to find the proper direction for whatever piece of music I am working on. I used this approach for songs like In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, High Falls and Revival. Just like the use of words in the telling of a story, every note is of essential importance in crafting a successful instrumental.”

After this initial minor-key instrumental section, the song moves back into a major key for the uplifting gospel-like vocal sections.

8. Jessica

Brothers and Sisters (1973)

Brothers and Sisters was the first album to feature neither Duane Allman nor Berry Oakley, both of whom had died tragically in motorcycle accidents over the previous two years.

Quite incredibly, the band pulled together to create the most successful album of its entire career, on the strength of such powerful Betts compositions as Jessica, Southbound and the band’s only Number One hit, Ramblin’ Man. Brothers and Sisters sold over a million copies within a month of its release, and to date over seven million copies worldwide.

“Here’s the story which has been told many times,” recalled Betts. “I had a general idea of a melody and a feeling for Jessica, but I couldn’t get started on it; nothing was really adding up. My little girl Jessica, who at the time was an infant, crawled up to me and I started playing to her, playing to the feeling of the innocence of her personality. And soon the whole song just fell together. The song was justly named after her for providing the needed inspiration.”

Jessica also displays the influence of some other elements that were important to Betts’ musical development, such as the playing of legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

“Django only used two fingers to fret with,” said Betts, “so I devised a melody that I could play with just the index and middle fingers.” Additionally, Betts’ ancestry includes the fiddle players of Prince Edward Sound, which is located in eastern Canada just above Nova Scotia.

“These fiddle players were known for possessing a very distinct style,” explained Betts, “and the style of the Prince Edward Sound fiddlers sounded just like the fiddle playing of my dad and my uncles. This provided me with an instinct for a melodic approach to playing. One of the best examples of this influence coming to the fore is Jessica.”

7. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

Idlewild South (1970) and At Fillmore East (1971)

This is the first of many distinctly original instrumental songs Dickey Betts would write for the Allman Brothers Band and, like Whipping Post, its true power, breadth and scope came to fruition in the live setting. It remains one of the most recognizable songs in the band’s catalog, and was a staple in the live shows from the song’s inception until the band’s final shows in 2014.

Said Betts, “[Late Allmans bassist] Berry Oakley and I inspired each other’s improvisational creativity while we were in Second Coming, the band that presaged the Allman Brothers.

One of our favorite things to do was to jam in minor keys, experimenting freely with the sounds of different minor modes. We allowed our ears to guide us, and this type of ‘jamming’ served to inspire the writing of songs like In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and Les Brers in A Minor. We were both fascinated with the modal jazz improvisation of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, such as that heard on Kind of Blue.”

“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed was inspired by a woman I knew named Carmella. At the time, she was involved with a friend of mine, but something started to happen be- tween her and myself. She was a very seductive, sultry, secretive woman, and I thought our little cloak-and-dagger romance was a beautiful image for a song. She and I would rendezvous in this old abandoned graveyard by the river, which was the place I liked to go to write songs.

“I wrote just about everything there at that time; I wrote Blue Sky there, too. When I wrote this song for her, the gravestone next to where I was sitting happened to say, ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’, so that became the song’s title.”

An essential signature element in this song is the brilliant use of harmonized guitar lines, present in both the initial “intro” section of the tune as well as the main theme and the harmonized melodic lines that wrap up each guitar solo section.

“I first discovered harmonized melodies from listening to western swing music, like Bob Wills, where the melodies are harmonized by guitar, pedal steel, piano and violin,” said Betts.

“Devising harmonized guitar parts became something Duane and I really enjoyed working on together. We would let our imaginations guide us as to what the harmony line should sound like. Of course, the presence of these guitar harmonies became essential to the sound of the Allman Brothers Band.”

6. Melissa

Eat a Peach (1972)

Gregg Allman said that he wrote and threw out 300-400 songs before he wrote his first keeper: Melissa, in late 1967, shortly after Duane traded a beloved guitar to get Gregg a quality acoustic. Allman said that he picked up the guitar not knowing that his brother had tuned it to open E.

“I just started strumming it and hit these beautiful chords,” he said. “It was just open strings, then an E shape first fret, then moved to the second fret. This is a great example of the way different tunings can open up different roads to you as a songwriter. The music immediately made me feel good and the words just started coming to me.”

The brothers Allman cut the song first in 1968 with Butch Trucks’ 31st of February, a demo that was eventually released under the misleading name “Duane and Gregg Allman”. After Duane’s death, as the band finished a few tracks for Eat a Peach, Gregg took out his old favorite.

5. It’s Not My Cross to Bear

The Allman Brothers Band (1969)

Along with Dreams, It’s Not My Cross to Bear is the second of two songs that Gregg had in his back pocket when he traveled from Los Angeles to join the new band in Jacksonville. And, again, it’s remarkable that he wrote such a deep, world weary blues at such a young age, promising a departing lover, “I’ll live on, I’ll be strong,” a promise that seems primarily determined to convince himself.

In a demo recorded in Los Angeles in January 1969, the song is structurally complete and Gregg’s vocals are already deep and true, but it also provides keen insight into what the band added: a sure groove and steady time through the deepest, slowest blues and two contrasting but equally powerful guitar voices, with Duane and Dickey playing solos that bleed, cry and gnash just as surely as Gregg’s simply phrased, powerfully emotive vocals.

No song better encapsulates the way in which the Allman Brothers Band delivered on the elusive goal of countless hippie rockers who loved Muddy Waters: playing blues that were equally original and rooted in the classics.

4. Dreams

The Allman Brothers Band (1969)

Gregg Allman said that he arrived in Jacksonville to join his brother’s new band with a catalog of 22 songs. His confidence in his songwriting flagged as the first dozen songs were rejected, before he got to Dreams, which he always maintained was the only song he ever wrote on a Hammond organ. (He generally preferred guitar or piano.)

The song’s minimalist lyrics read like a blues haiku, anchored by the existentialist dread of being haunted by redemptive dreams so distant you can’t even dream them.

The song, which was immediately worked up by the band, became a perfect skeleton to hang their interpretation of Miles Davis and John Coltrane’s modal jazz explorations. With a bassline directly pinched from Davis’ All Blues and Jaimoe playing drum fills from the same song, Duane Allman played a deeply moving two-part solo over a simply swinging two-chord vamp.

It is the only classic Allman Brothers song to feature one instead of two guitar soloists, with Duane playing a “straight” solo, then picking up his slide to kick the song into overdrive.

Like so much of the debut album, Dreams remained a live staple until the last show. It is arguably the band’s spiritual core.

3. Midnight Rider

Idlewild South (1970)

Gregg Allman’s theme song came to him almost whole in a flash of inspiration. “Midnight Rider hit me like a damn sack of hoe handles,” he said. “It was just there, crawling all over me. And about an hour and 15 minutes later I had the rough draft down... and was putting it down on tape.”

The only problem was that Allman’s inspiration came in the middle of the night and drummer Jaimoe was the only band member he could find to record a demo – and besides, he was locked out of the Capricorn Records studio. When studio managers said to leave them alone after being woken up at 3 a.m., Allman and roadie Kim Payne broke in. Along the way, Payne contributed a crucial line that completed the song: “I’ve gone past the point of caring/some ol’ bed I’ll soon be sharing.”

With his other bandmates nowhere to be found, Allman put a bass in the hands of the awoken road manager Twiggs Lyndon, showing him how to play the distinctive lick running through his brain and telling him to play absolutely nothing else.

After wildly flipping switches trying to turn on the studio boards, Payne managed to get tape rolling and Gregg recorded a demo of Midnight Rider with himself on 12-string guitar, Lyndon playing rudimentary bass and Jaimoe on drums, or maybe percussion – no-one’s recollection is quite clear on that.

They all say, however, that the final version differed little structurally from the quickly recorded demo, other than Duane Allman and Dickey Betts’ subtly sweet guitar work, which put the song over the top, creating a haunting, simple, perfectly crafted classic that will be played long after we are all dust in the wind.

2. Blue Sky

Eat a Peach (1972)

Blue Sky is a gentle ballad-like song with a country feel, revealing the country influences present in the songwriting style of Dickey Betts. He wrote the song as a tribute to his wife, Sandy “Bluesky” Wabegijig, who was of Native American descent.

Eat a Peach was the first album released after the passing of Duane Allman, and Blue Sky represents one of his final recordings with the band. Played rarely in concert at the time, a great version featuring Duane is available on S.U.N.Y. at Stonybrook: Stonybrook, NY 9/19/71, self-released by the band in 2003. Blue Sky, Dickey Betts’ debut as a lead singer on an Allman Brothers album, features beautifully inspired harmonized guitar lines from Dickey and Duane.

“When we originally recorded Blue Sky, Duane and I tried all different kinds of harmonies until we found the one that best suited the song,” said Betts. “We found that the softer-edged harmony was what worked best.”

In many instances, the relationship between the melody and the harmony changes to a combination of thirds and fourths, and this is exactly the case with Blue Sky. The initial guitar melody in the song is based on a scale known as E major hexatonic, which is the same as a standard major scale, but the seventh tone is removed, resulting in a six-tone major scale. The very first melodic line in the song, however, was not harmonized by another guitar.

1. Whipping Post

The Allman Brothers Band (1969) and At Fillmore East (1971)

Of the many timeless classic rock songs residing in the Allman Brothers Band canon, Whipping Post stands as the heavyweight champion of them all.

Released originally on the band’s eponymous debut, the song’s full power was realized in live performance, captured in all its brilliance on the band’s watershed double live album, At Fillmore East. At 22 minutes in length, this version comprises the entire fourth and closing side of the album. It is widely revered as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

This live version showcases everything original – and everything truly extraordinary – about the Allman Brothers Band: distinctly original music, soulful, expressive vocals and lyrics from Gregg Allman, fiery, virtuoso guitar playing from Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, and jazz-like musical intricacy and precise band interplay.

Whipping Post, written by Gregg Allman, started out as a basic slow blues in A minor. While initially working on it in rehearsal, bassist Berry Oakley said, “Hold it! I have an idea for this tune – let’s work on it tomorrow.” And the next day he came in with a completely rearranged, re-imagined structure and feel that became the Whipping Post we all know.

He had reworked the intro into an odd 11/8 meter that somehow sounds perfectly suited for the song. From there, Duane and Dickey began to forge their unique harmonized guitar lines.

“When Duane and I would work on harmonizing guitar parts, we didn’t use any kind of technical approach,” said Betts. “We didn’t study the structure of the scales or spend time figuring out on paper what should work.

“We approached harmonizing guitar parts in the same way we approached vocal harmonies: we would try a few different ideas, and go with the one that sounded the best to our ears. Usually, I’d have a certain sound in my mind that I was after, and we used a ‘trial and error’ method to find it.”

In honor of Dickey Betts, who passed away at the age of 80 on April 18 2024, we have been leafing through the archives to unearth some of his best interviews with Guitar World. The following is a comprehensive oral history of the Allman Brothers Band, featuring Betts, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and others who were part of the group's storied career. It was first published in the July 2009 issue.

"The Road Goes on Forever.” Gregg Allman wrote and sang the words in Midnight Rider, and his Allman Brothers Band (ABB) adopted them as a motto, and for good reason: despite the death of two founding members, two breakups and an acrimonious parting with guitarist Dickey Betts, this summer the band is marking its 40th anniversary and doing so in high style.

Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, who have now played together for nine years in the ABB, form a dynamic, explosive duo that blows away the competition. In that respect, some things in the Allman Brothers Band never change.

The road for the ABB began in 1968 when Duane Allman, a red-hot session guitarist who had made his mark recording with Otis Rush, Boz Scaggs, Aretha Franklin and others, headed to Jacksonville, Florida, looking to put together a band. His manager wanted a power trio – just like Cream – but Duane reportedly scoffed at the notion, saying, “I ain’t on no star trip.” 

It was a revealing statement, for the group that resulted from Duane’s quest for kindred musical souls was anything but ego-driven. The music of the Allman Brothers Band has revolved around group improvisation and dynamics since their self-titled 1969 debut.

Duane’s musical vision and open mind allowed him to ignore protocol and put together a completely unique hard-rocking outfit featuring two very different but complementary drummers (Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson and Butch Trucks), an inventive bassist who could hold down the bottom end while displaying melodic flair (Berry Oakley), a soulful singer and organist (brother Gregg), and another hot lead guitarist (Betts).

Betts would prove to be a monumental addition, for his participation underscored the band’s adherence to a rule of jazz: that a group needs multiple, equally powerful lead voices to truly generate sparks. 

Betts and Allman rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe, alternately cutting each other’s heads and joining together for marvelous flights of harmony.

The ABB’s instrumental majesty was grounded in the blues and in the excellent tunes penned by Gregg Allman and Betts. This combination of a unique vision, instrumental superiority and great songwriting has carried the band through four decades. The Allmans pushed on after Duane Allman’s and Berry Oakley’s tragic deaths, reunited after two breakups and, perhaps most shockingly, have performed without Betts since 2000.

What follows is the ultimate overview of the band’s career, an oral history told in the words of the people who lived it.

The beginning of the Allman Brothers Band

Duane Allman met drummer Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson while working on sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Duane wanted to form his own band, and his manager, Phil Walden, suggested that he create a power trio in the spirit of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. 

Allman targeted bassist Berry Oakley, a Chicago native who was then playing in a Florida band called Second Coming with guitarist Dickey Betts. At Duane’s invitation, Oakley came to Alabama for jam sessions...

Dickey Betts: “The band just sort of happened. It was supposed to be a three-piece with Duane, Berry and Jaimoe. Duane and Jaimoe kept coming and sitting in with Second Coming to get used to playing together, and as we started jamming, something clicked. 

“Eventually Duane asked if I’d go with them. When Butch [Trucks] came along one day and jammed with us, it was something special. All of a sudden the trio had five pieces. We all were smart enough to see that each of us was making a contribution to the sound.”

Butch Trucks: “I had played with Gregg and Duane before, and he called me when he came back to Jacksonville. He was jamming with lots of different people. We played, and it just worked. Jaimoe told Duane I was the guy they needed – he wanted two drummers like James Brown had – but I don’t think Duane wanted me in the band. 

“I fit musically, but I was a bundle of insecurity, and he didn’t want that. He was such a strong person – very confident and totally sure of himself – and that’s the kind of people he wanted around him.”

Betts: “It says a lot that Duane’s hero was Muhammad Ali. He had Ali’s type of supreme confidence. If you weren’t involved in what he thought was the big picture, he didn’t have any time for you. 

“A lot of people really didn’t like him for that. It’s not that he was aggressive; it was more a super-positive, straight-ahead, I’ve-got-work-to-do kind of thing. If you didn’t get it, see you later. He always seemed like he was charging ahead.”

Trucks: “One day we were jamming on a shuffle, going nowhere, so I started pulling back and Duane whipped around, looked me in the eyes and played this lick way up the neck, like a challenge. My first reaction was to back up, but he kept doing it, which had everyone looking at me like the whole flaccid nature of the sound was my fault. 

“The third time I got really angry and started pounding the drums like I was hitting him upside his head. The jam took off, and I forgot about being self-conscious and started playing music. Duane smiled at me, as if to say, 'Now that’s more like it!'

“It was like he reached inside me and flipped a switch, and I’ve never been insecure about my drumming since. It was an absolute epiphany; it hit me like a ton of bricks. I swear, if that moment had not happened, I would probably have spent the past 30 years as a teacher. Duane was capable of reaching inside people and pulling out the best. He made us all realize that music will never be great if everyone doesn’t give it all they have, and we all took the attitude that if you don’t do that, why bother?”

Betts: “Duane was a natural leader, and if he got knocked down, you’d feel compelled to do everything you could to get him back up and going again. He and I talked a lot about that and decided that would be the difference in our band as compared to every other band we’d ever been in: when someone falls, instead of talking about him or taking advantage of him, we’d pull him back up. Whenever we needed a leader, someone would step forward and lead.”

Trucks: “One day, the five of us had just played this incredible jam, and Duane went to the door and said, 'If anyone wants to leave this room, they’re going to have to fight their way out.' We all knew we had something great going, but we didn’t have a singer.”

Phil Walden [co-founder of Capricorn Records]: “They had this great instrumental presence but no real vocalist. So Duane called Gregg and asked him to come down.”

Gregg was still living in Los Angeles, having remained there after the breakup of Hour Glass, a band he and Duane had formed and which had recorded for Liberty Records. The records had little success, and Duane returned to the South, “where we belonged,” says Gregg.

Gregg Allman: “I didn’t have a band, but I was under contract to a label that had me cut two terrible records with these studio cats in L.A. They had me do a blues version of Tammy Wynette’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E, which can’t be done. It was really horrible. They told us what to wear, what to play… everything. I hated it, so I was excited when my brother called and said he was putting a new band together and wanted me to join. I was doing nothing, going nowhere.

“Duane said he was tired of being a robot on the staff down in Muscle Shoals [Sound Studio], even though he had made some progress and gotten a little fame from playing with great people like Aretha and Wilson Pickett. He wanted to take off and do his own thing. He said, 'I’m ready to get back on the stage, and I got this killer band together. We got two drummers, a great bass player and a hell of a lead guitar player, too.' And I said, 'Well, what do you do?' And he said, 'Wait’ll you get here and I’ll show you.'

“I didn’t know that he had learned to play slide so well. We were not together for the 11 months after he left L.A. – the only time we were ever apart – and that’s when he really learned to play slide. He sent me a ticket, but I didn’t have any money, so I cashed it in, stuck out my thumb on the San Bernardino Freeway and got a ride all the way to Jacksonville.

“I walked into rehearsal on March 26, 1969, and they played me the track they had worked up – Muddy Waters’ Trouble No More. It blew me away. It was so intense. I got my brother aside and said, 'I don’t know if I can cut this. I don’t know if I’m good enough.' And he starts in on me: 'Oh, you little punk, I told these people all about you, and you don’t come in here letting me down.'

“He handed me the words to the song, all written out. I said, 'Count it off, let’s do it,' and I did my damnedest. I’d never heard or sung this song before, but by God I did it. I shut my eyes and sang, and at the end of that there was just a long silence. At that moment we knew what we had. Duane knew which buttons to push. He kinda pissed me off and embarrassed me into singing my guts out.”

Walden: “Aside from a true vocal presence, Gregg brought these really important foundation songs that the band was really built around.”

Allman: “They asked if I had any songs, and I showed them 22. They rejected them all except Ain’t My Cross to Bear and Dreams and told me to get busy writing. And within the next five days I wrote Whipping Post, Black-Hearted Woman and a few others. I got on a real roll there. Those songs came out of the long struggle of trying so hard and getting fucked by different land sharks in the business – just the competition I experienced out in L.A. and being really frustrated, but hanging on and not saying 'Fuck it' and going into construction work or something.”

Betts: “Berry played a huge role in the band’s arrangements. Whipping Post was a ballad when Gregg brought it to us. It was a real melancholy, slow minor-key blues, along the lines of Dreams. Oakley came up with the heavy bass line that starts off the track, along with the 6/8-to-5/8 shifting time signature. 

“Oakley called a halt to the rehearsal and said, 'Let me work on this song tonight, and let’s get back to it tomorrow.' By the next day, he had that intro worked out. When he played that riff for us, everyone went, 'Yeah! That’s it!' Oakley morphed a lot of those songs into something different.”

Breaking through with guitar harmonies

The band’s first real musical breakthrough was the extensive use of guitar harmonies. Betts, with his knack for crafting memorable melodies, generally played the line first. Allman, with his perfect pitch and spot-on ear, picked up anything and created a harmony on the spot.

Betts: “We got those ideas from jazz horn players like Miles Davis and John Coltrane and fiddle lines from western swing music. I listened to a lot of country and string [bluegrass] music growing up. I played mandolin, ukulele and fiddle before I ever touched a guitar, which may be where a lot of the major keys I play come from. 

“But I also always loved jazz, and once the Allman Brothers were formed, Jaimoe really fired us up on jazz, which is all he listens to. He had us listening to a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and a lot of our guitar arrangements came from the way they played together.

“Duane and I had an immense amount of respect for each other. We talked about being jealous of each other and how dangerous it was to think that way, that we had to fight that feeling when we were onstage. He’d say, 'When I listen to you play, I have to try hard to keep the jealously thing at bay and not try to out-do you when I play my solo. But I still want to play my best!'

“We’d laugh about what a thin line that was. We learned a lot from each other. Duane had a strong belief in himself, and he was damn good. I was damn good too; I just didn’t believe in myself the way Duane did.”

Warren Haynes: “The Allman Brothers Band is based on the fact that no one onstage can rest on their laurels; you have to bring it. That’s where that fire comes from, and it certainly emanates from the intensity of having two great lead players like Dickey and Duane throwing sparks off of each other. 

“Obviously, jazz and blues musicians have been doing this for decades, but I think they really brought that sense that anyone onstage can inspire anyone else at any given time to rock music.”

Allman: “Duane was all about two lead guitars. He loved players like Curtis Mayfield and wanted the bass, keyboards and second guitar to form patterns behind the solo rather than just comping. Duane also loved jazz guitarists like Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow and Kenny Burrell.

“But the main initial jazz influence came from Jaimoe, and Jaimoe really got all of us into Coltrane, which became a big influence. I brought the blues to the band, and what country music you hear in our sound came from Dickey. We all dug this different stuff, and we all started listening to the other guys’ music. What came out was a mixture of all of it.”

Betts: “Duane and Gregg had a real 'purist' blues approach, but Oakley and I, in our band, would take a standard blues and push the envelope. We loved the blues, but we wanted to play in a rock style, like what Cream and Hendrix were doing.

“Duane was smart enough to see what ingredients were missing from both bands. We knew that we didn’t have enough of the purist blues, and he didn’t have enough of the avant-garde/psychedelic approach to the blues. So he tried to put the two sounds together, and that was the first step in finding the sound of the Allman Brothers Band.”

A new voice on the American music scene

The band moved to Macon, Georgia, and spent countless hours living and playing together, in the process forming a real brotherhood. Their self-titled debut, featuring five Gregg Allman originals and covers of Muddy Waters and Spencer Davis songs, was released in November 1969. It heralded the arrival of a new voice on the American music scene, but few were listening...

Walden: “The first album sold less than 35,000 copies when it was released.”

Betts: “We were just so naïve. All we knew is that we had the best band that any of us had ever played in and were making the best music that we had ever made. That’s what we went with. Everyone in the industry was saying that we’d never make it, we’d never do anything, that Phil Walden should move us to New York or L.A. and acclimate us to the industry, that we had to get the idea of how a rock and roll band was supposed to present themselves.

“Of course, none of us would do that, and thankfully, Walden was smart enough to see that would just ruin what we had. We just stayed on the road, playing gigs and getting tighter and better.”

Allman: “We sure didn’t set out to be a 'jam band', but those long jams just kinda emanated from within the band, because we didn’t want to just play three minutes and be over. And we definitely didn’t want to play nobody else’s songs like we had to do in California. We were going to do our own tunes, which at first meant mine, or else we were going to take old blues songs like Trouble No More and totally refurbish them to our tastes.”

The band’s second album Idlewild South, was released less than a year later. Producer Tom Dowd, who would become an honorary member of the band, helped them expand their palette. Still, the album did only marginally better than its predecessor despite two singles, Midnight Rider and Revival and the debut of Betts’ masterful instrumental In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.

Allman: “When the first record came out at Number 200 with an anchor, and dropped off the face of the earth, my brother and I did not get discouraged. But I thought Idlewild South was a much better record, and when that died on the vine, I thought, 'Damn, maybe we were wrong about this group.'”

Walden: “I doubted myself. It seemed like I had just been wrong and that they were never going to catch on. People just didn’t grasp what the Allmans were all about, musically or any other way. But they kept touring, going across the country, establishing themselves city by city as the best live band around, and building a base.”

Betts: “Duane was bursting with energy; he was a force to be reckoned with. His drive and focus were incredible, as was his intense belief in himself and our band. He knew we were going to make it. We all knew we were a good band, but no one else had that supreme confidence. And his confidence and enthusiasm were infectious. He helped us all believe in ourselves, and that was an essential key to the success of the Allman Brothers Band.”

Allman: “We played 306 nights in 1970, traveling most of the off days. We were in a Ford Econoline van and then a Winnebago. That kind of schedule puts a lot of wear and tear on your ass, but we were sure getting better. We simply realized that we were a better live band than studio outfit because we were always ready to experiment – offstage as well as on, I may add. And the audience was a big part of what we did, which couldn’t be duplicated in a studio. A light bulb finally went off: we needed to do a live album.”

At Fillmore East

The Allman Brothers’ marathon live shows were certainly drawing raves. Onstage, the group combined the Grateful Dead’s go-anywhere jam ethos with a far-superior musical precision. Under the circumstances, a live album was an obvious choice. The result was the double-album At Fillmore East. To cut the album, the band played New York’s Fillmore East for three nights on March 11, 12 and 13 of 1971. 

A mobile 16-track recording studio was parked on the street outside the theater, with Dowd and a small crew set up inside. Things went smoothly on the first night until the band unexpectedly brought out sax player “Juicy” Carter and harmonica player Thom Doucette.

At Fillmore East’s sales numbers were strong from the start, and the band kept on the road. Duane’s constant faith seemed to be paying off. But things were far from calm...

Tom Dowd: “One of the guys asked me how to mic the horn, and I thought he was joking. They started playing and the horn was leaking all over everything, rendering the songs unusable. I ran down at the break and grabbed Duane and said, 'The horn has to go!' and he went, 'But he’s right on, man.' And I said, 'Duane, trust me, this isn’t the time to try this out.' He asked if the harp could stick around, and I said sure, because I knew it could be contained [on the recording] and wiped out if necessary.

“Every night after the show we would just grab some beers and sandwiches and head up to the Atlantic studios to go through the show. That way, the next night, they knew exactly what they had and which songs they didn’t have to play again.”

Betts: “We just felt like we could play all night and sometimes we did. We could really hit the note. There’s not a single fix on Fillmore. Everything you hear there is how we played it.”

Dowd: “That album captured the band in all its glory. The Allmans have always had a perpetual swing sensation that is unique in rock. They swing like they’re playing jazz when they play things that are tangential to the blues, and even when they play heavy rock. They’re never vertical but always going forward, and it’s always a groove. 

“Fusion is a term that came later, but if you wanted to look at a fusion album, it would be Fillmore East. Here was a rock and roll band playing blues in the jazz vernacular. And they tore the place up.”

Betts: “There’s nothing too complicated about what makes Fillmore a great album. We were a hell of a band, and we just got a good recording that captured what we sounded like. I think it’s one of the greatest musical projects that’s ever been done in any genre. It’s an absolutely honest representation of our band and of the times.”

Jaimoe: “Fillmore was a particularly great performance and represents what a typical night was like for us. That’s what we did!”

Walden: “Atlantic/Atco rejected the idea of releasing a double-live album. [Atlantic executive] Jerry Wexler thought it was ridiculous to preserve all these jams. But we explained to them that the Allman Brothers were the people’s band, that playing – not recording – was what they were all about, and that a standard-length phonograph record was confining to a group like this.”

Allman: “All of a sudden, here comes fame and fortune. In a three- or four-week period, we went from rags to riches, from living on a three-dollar-a-day per diem to 'Get anything you want, boys!'”

Butch Trucks: “Duane was strong, confident and honest. He wanted to experience everything, good or bad, and when he realized that what he was doing was negative, he would stop. I saw him experiment with every drug there was, but once he realized it was affecting his music, he stopped and never did it again. And that included heroin. He never stuck a needle in his arm, but he would snort it. 

“One night in the summer of ’71, in San Francisco, he came to my hotel room and jumped in my face. He said, 'When Dickey gets up to play, the rhythm section is pumping away, and when I get up there you’re laying back and not pushing at all.' I looked him dead in the eye and said, 'Duane, you’re so fucked up, you’re not giving us anything.' He looked me in the eye, walked out the door and never touched the stuff again. 

“I think he knew I was telling the truth, and that’s what he wanted to hear. He needed someone to tell him what he already knew, and it was one of the few times I had the balls to get in his face.”

Dr. John [keyboardist and peer of the Allmans]: “Duane was so special, man, a real sweetheart. He was out there, past left field, but he was as sweet as they come. In some way, Duane knew he lived on the edge. I don’t think he had a death wish, but he knew that he was pushing it, that his lifestyle wasn’t necessarily compatible with life. I remember being in Miami with him, and he got an Opel because that was supposed to be the car you couldn’t turn over, and he just wanted to prove that he could flip it.

“We were there doing a session with Ronnie Hawkins, and the three of us was havin’ a drink with a hurricane comin’ up, and he said something like, 'If I’m not here, could you look after my brother?' It wouldn’t have been his style to be that direct, ’cause he wasn’t that clear about anything. But he knew he might not be around for real long, and we both understood that’s what he was saying. It was eerie, man.”

Tragedy strikes

At Fillmore East was certified Gold on October 14, 1971. 20 days later Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle crash in Macon, while on a break from recording the band’s followup album, Eat a Peach, in Miami. He was one month shy of his 25th birthday and had been playing slide guitar for less than four years.

Allman: “We didn’t enjoy our [breakthrough with] Fillmore for long. A lot of the initial impact of the joy was absent because of the heavy tragedy that happened to my brother. We worked so hard, so long, to get there, then, bam, he was gone.”

Betts: “We thought about breaking up and all forming our own bands. But the thought of just ending it and being alone was too depressing.”

Scott Boyer [musician close to the Allmans]: “Gregg was extremely tore up, which is only natural. Actually, every musician in Macon was pretty down. We couldn’t believe Duane was gone. It was inconceivable how someone that alive could be dead. He was a central figure for all of us, and, of course, he was the central figure for Gregg. They were extremely close.”

Trucks: “It was just unacceptable that he was gone. Unfathomable. We thought about quitting because how could we go on without Duane? But then we thought, How could we stop? We decided to take six months off, but we had to get back together after a few weeks because it was too lonely and depressing. A musician gets his emotions out by playing music. We were all just devastated, and the only way to deal with it was to play.”

The band had already recorded several tracks for Eat a Peach. These included Little Martha, a gorgeous acoustic duet between Betts and Allman, which was the only music Duane ever officially wrote, and Blue Sky, Betts’ country rock song, which features a stunning dual-guitar break. Just weeks after Duane’s death, the band recorded four more outstanding tracks, including Melissa, Betts’ instrumental Les Brers in A Minor and Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Gregg’s defiant response to his brother’s passing. 

The double-album release was rounded out by more great tracks from the Fillmore shows, including the 34-minute Mountain Jam, One Way Out and Trouble No More. Eat a Peach was an instant classic, but as the band returned to the road, they felt the absence of their guiding light profoundly.

Allman and Betts worked constantly, recording solo albums even as the ABB began cutting Brothers and Sisters, their follow-up to Eat a Peach, featuring the hits Ramblin’ Man and Jessica. Pianist Chuck Leavell, who had played on Gregg’s Laid Back solo effort, became a crucial new member of the ABB.

Trucks: “We played gigs as a five-piece, but there was a big hole there. How could you not miss such a personality? But we were up there playing the music that he started. We were playing for him, and that was the way to be closest to him. Duane had put this thing inside all of us and we couldn’t walk away.”

Chuck Leavell: “I was asked to work on Laid Back. The Brothers were recording Brothers and Sisters at the same time, the sessions often overlapped, and we all hung around the studio an awful lot. Before I knew what was going on, I was working on that, too. Things were pretty loose.”

Betts: “We did what we had to do. We were forced to bring new people into the band, and replacing Duane with another guitar player was out of the question. We added Chuck Leavell, and it changed the whole direction of the band – a little too much in the end. It wasn’t by any means all bad change; Jessica wouldn’t be the same tune without Chuck, who is just a great, great player. But the band headed off the path of what the original players had envisioned from the first day.

Trucks: “Dickey took over. While Duane was around we were a blues-based band and we added John Coltrane and Miles Davis to the mix. After Duane died, we started heading in a country direction, because that was Dickey’s background.

“We all thought Ramblin’ Man was too country to even record. We knew it was a good song, but it didn’t sound like us. 

“We went to the studio to do a demo to send to Merle Haggard or someone, and then we got into that big long guitar jam, which kind of fit us, so we put it on the album, and it became a hit. Then it more and more and more became Dickey’s band.”

Shortly into sessions for the new album, tragedy struck the band again. On November 11, 1972, Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash, just two weeks past the one-year anniversary – and only three blocks from the location – of Duane’s death.

The band added Lamar Williams and finished Brothers and Sisters, which was released in August 1973. It became the Allman Brothers Band’s first Number One album, thanks in part to the hit single Ramblin’ Man, as well as Jessica and Southbound, which both remain band staples. 

The Allman Brothers were just about to find their greatest success, but the band was reeling from the impact of so many changes.

Betts: “After Duane died, it was still very dynamic at first, but it just slowly slipped away. And then we lost Berry, and it was very hard to continue. I’m not weighing Duane’s loss against Berry’s loss, but losing two members was just so tough. Berry was also a huge personality. 

“He was the social dynamics guy: he wanted our band to relate to the people honestly. He was always making sure that the merchandise was worth what they were charging, and he was always going in and arguing about not letting the ticket prices get too high, so that our people could still afford to come see us.”

Trucks: “Brothers and Sisters took off and we became big rock stars and were the number-one band in the country, but the music became secondary to everything else. Of course, having all these gorgeous women falling over us and all this stuff was fun. It was a big party. But the music became secondary. 

“Eventually, we all realized that the drugs and everything else had become so destructive that we were killing ourselves, and it got to where we didn’t like each other. We just couldn’t keep it going.”

Betts: “The whole thing probably wouldn’t have even lasted as long as it did if it weren’t for Chuck Leavell. He was just such a strong player.”

Breakups and reunions

By the time the group’s live effort Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas was released in 1976, the Allmans had disbanded. They reunited in 1978 with guitarist “Dangerous” Dan Toler, who had played with Betts in his band Great Southern, and released Enlightened Rogues in early 1979. But some indefinable spark was missing, and the band’s music grew weaker over the course of two uncompelling albums recorded for Arista: 1980’s Reach for the Sky and 1981’s Brothers of the Road.

Dowd: “We tried very hard to reach the classic sound on Enlightened Rogues. We worked our fingers to the bone.”

Trucks: “That band just didn’t work. The chemistry wasn’t there. The only reason the first album [Reach for the Sky] was half successful was that Tom Dowd worked so hard.”

Betts: “We just could not measure up to the original band. Even when we had some great players, there was a pull, a tension. The unity was lacking. And we didn’t have another slide guitarist, so I played slide, which I never really liked, and which also took away from the sound of my guitar.”

Trucks: “At Arista, [label founder] Clive Davis tried to turn us into Led Zeppelin and brought in outside producers, and it just kept getting worse.”

Betts: “When the music trend started turning away from blues-oriented rock toward synthesizer-based dance music arrangements, the record company started to dictate what type of record we could make, and we got caught up in that whole thing. 

“A guy like Eric Clapton has a way of being a chameleon, of finding songs that keep him in the forefront and surviving through times when the kind of music he loves to play isn’t popular. 

“The Allman Brothers Band was never able to do that. We either sounded like our band or we didn’t. The band never really had anything special when we’re not able to do the instrumental jams and improvisation – which were kind of taken away from us for a while. We were even asked not to mention southern rock in an interview or wear hats onstage.”

Allman: “Arista tried to throw us into doing something that we weren’t. The whole music scene of the Eighties just wasn’t conducive to our music at all. We cut two albums and…it was very frustrating. Embarrassing, really.”

Betts: “We broke up in ’81 because we decided we better just back out or we would ruin what was left of the band’s image.”

Throughout the '80s, the members of the Allman Brothers Band toured with different groups. By the end of the decade, the new classic rock radio format had given the Allman Brothers’ great songs renewed prominence, while the 1989 four-album Dreams box set shone a light on their legacy. 

Epic Records, which had both Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts under contract, suggested an ABB reunion. The band took to the road with two new players: guitarist Warren Haynes, who had played with Betts for several years, and bassist Allen Woody, who was hired after open auditions.

The Allman Brothers band returned to the studio with Dowd and produced 1990’s Seven Turns, a surprisingly strong comeback. They followed it up with Shades of Two Worlds the following year, then showed their mettle on two live releases and 1994’s Where It All Begins.

Betts: “Classic rock stations really brought the Allman Brothers back, and Stevie Ray Vaughan opened the whole thing up. He just would not be denied and kept making those traditional urban blues records. He just shoved blues down people’s throats, and they got to likin’ it. He just kicked the door open.

“I remember how beautiful it made me feel to hear him on the radio. And I think that a lot of other people felt the same way and were more ready for us to reappear. The Who were touring, and the Stones were getting ready to hit the road. CBS wanted us to get back together because everyone else was doing it. But it wasn’t nearly that simple. We knew we had to go slow, to see if the music was up to snuff and whether we really wanted to do it.

“Seven Turns was a tough album, because we knew that the critics would use it to determine whether we should be back playing together or should have remained broken up. We were under pressure to show that we belonged back together. We never doubted it, but the album simply had to prove that.”

Allman: “To me, there wasn’t a lot of pressure on Seven Turns. It was more of an adventure: let’s see what a few years away from each other did for us. And it was good. We needed a break from each other and came out swinging.”

Betts: “There were a variety of reasons that group worked better than some of the others. For one thing, Warren and Allen knew what we were after. They had studied us for years and understood where they fit into the band. And Warren was the first guitarist who came along since Duane who could really stand on his own and play off of me, which is the basis of our whole style. 

“He’s a great player and has his own style, so he was not pulled into constantly trying to sound like Duane, though he was plagued with that comparison from day one.”

Haynes: “I had listened to the Allman Brothers since I was nine years old, and I studied that music hard. But once I joined the band, some of the things that they were doing became obvious to me in a way that I could never have figured out as a listener.

“At the beginning I was constantly drawing the line about how much of Duane’s influence to show. It was always left up to me how much of it to insert. They’ve always said, 'Play like you. That’s what we hired you to do.' They definitely allowed me the creative freedom to interject my own personality into the music. Not a lot of bands would do that. 

“The Allman Brothers were very open minded about that from the very beginning, because that music was built on the foundation of two guitar players working equally together. If you don’t have that, the music suffers.”

Allman: “From the start, Woody and Warren were full-on Allman Brothers, much more so than some people in earlier incarnations. And that made a big difference.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Allman Brothers Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1995. Gregg Allman remembers the event primarily for what he didn’t do – speak coherently – and how it prompted him to sober up.

Allman: “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame night is what made me finally clean up. I could barely stand up. I meant to say something about my mother and something about Bill Graham. I meant to say a lot of stuff, and I was too gone to say any of it. All day I tried to be really cool about it, but you just cannot. Later, I watched it on TV, and I was mortified. 

“That’s what it took for me to get serious about cleaning up. I didn’t go into a rehab. I hired a private nurse to come in to my house in Novato, California. It was a real rough year, but I sure needed it.”

Departure of Dickey Betts

In 1997, Haynes and Woody left the Allman Brothers Band to pursue their power trio, Gov’t Mule, full time. The band replaced them with bassist Oteil Burbridge and guitarist Jack Pearson and soldiered on with a somewhat quieter, more groove-based sound. 

In ’99, Pearson departed and was replaced by Derek Trucks, Butch’s then-19-year-old nephew. One year later, Trucks had already begun to establish himself as a dynamic soloist when, after a brief and shaky spring tour, the band members told Dickey Betts that they would no longer perform with him.

Trucks: “We did not fire Dickey. We wrote him a letter and said we would not tour with him that summer, but dates were already booked and we were going to honor them with someone else. He responded by hiring a lawyer and suing us, and then we sat there in arbitration for weeks. After all the stuff that was said, there’s no way we can work together again.”

Betts: “I knew that there was tension that had to snap, but I had no idea that it was all on me. I thought something would snap that I would have to take care of, like I had so many times before. I called Gregg, and he said, ‘I don’t owe you an explanation. Listen to the fucking tapes [of the spring tour],’ and hung up.”

Allman: “We made this decision for a simple reason: the music was suffering. It had ceased to be a band – everything had to be based around what Dickey was playing. I was actually getting ready to walk because I could not stand the situation anymore. I even wrote a letter of resignation. Then I spoke with Butchie [Trucks], and he was thinking the same thing, and we just realized that was crazy. 

“After so many years of drinking and abusing drugs, I finally cleaned up, and I didn’t want to waste one minute of time for the rest of my life. God, I had wasted enough time! I was finally sober. That monkey was off my back. I even quit cigarettes and I quit it all at once. 

“I realized I was on death’s doorstep, and I was thankful to God that I had woke up before all the innings of the game were over. I wasn’t gonna put up with nothing – not another minute of bullying or negativity mixed with music. I’d quit music first, and I don’t think I’m ever gonna quit music.

“It’s definitely hard to maintain a band for so many years for many, many reasons. It’s a give-and-take thing, so similar to a marriage or relationship. You have to maintain a balance or everyone suffers.”

Betts: “It was a real family for so long, and we took care of each other. We took care of brother Gregg, and we took care of brother Butch. It’s amazing that we kept going for 30 years with our two big brothers gone. Then it finally flew apart, and it’s kind of okay. I just happened to be the one that it came down on.”

Guitarist Jimmy Herring joined the ABB for their 2000 summer tour. That August, Woody passed away. Allman called Haynes and extended an offer to perform with the group. Unsure of the Gov’t Mule’s future, Haynes accepted and returned to the Allmans the following March for their annual residency at New York City’s Beacon Theater. 

He was billed as a special guest, with no guarantees of what would come next. Haynes and Derek Trucks immediately struck an explosive chemistry, which has continued to deepen over the years. Subsequent to Haynes rejoining the band, the ABB released Hittin’ the Note, their last album of new material, in 2003.

Haynes: “No one knew what I was going to do, including me. I had some concerns about coming back to the Allmans, but Gregg’s phone call was really a saving grace, because I needed to stop wallowing in my misery over Woody’s death and plunge into something. I agreed to play some shows and see if the vibe and the music were good.”

Trucks: “Warren was the guy we needed. I’m not sure we would have continued at all if Warren hadn’t taken the job. I simply can’t imagine who else could have done this gig.”

Haynes: “The band has certainly undergone a strange transformation, but in a very positive way. This particular unit plays great together and probably listens more intently than any band I’ve ever been in, which makes it easy to go some place different every night. And that is the goal: to take this venerable institution someplace new without ever losing touch with the four-decade tradition that makes the Allman Brothers Band something really special.”

Derek Trucks: “It’s just an underlying respect for the band’s history and legacy, which Warren and I both share. You want to make music that can stand on its own, and you want to be able to listen to it in 20 years and be proud. It’s a big obligation to make music as the Allman Brothers, and both of us want to make sure that the name is back in a very positive way. You don’t want to be the guy who let it slip!”

Allman: “Where does Derek come from? I don’t know, but if you believe in reincarnation...”

Trucks: “I can’t explain Derek and don’t even try. I’ve been playing with him nine or 10 years now and I still have no idea what he is going to do. Every time he plays something it’s a surprise, and it’s astounding what that says about his musical depth. I think he is what Duane may have become if he had more time. Remember, Duane was 24 when he died and had only been playing slide for a few years.”

Allman: “Probably not a day goes by that we don’t talk about Duane. It’s almost like he’s with us. Sometimes when I’m onstage I can feel his presence so strong, I can almost smell him. It’s like he’s right there next to me. For years I thought that my brother really got shortchanged because he never quite got to see what he had accomplished, but I’ve slowly come to realize that he left a hell of a legacy for dying at the age of 24.

“When we perform, the drummers are back there, behind me, and I’m on the frontline of the stage. One night at the Beacon, I looked down and realized I was the only one left on the frontline. I guess it makes me appreciate the whole thing even more, really. 

“It’s hard to stick together, and that’s probably why a lot of other good bands don’t last this long. My brother, Woody, Oakley – they can’t be replaced because they were all unique individuals. But it doesn’t mean the whole shebang has got to fold. We still have music left to play.”

A 1970 Gibson Les Paul Custom that was gifted by Eric Clapton to Gregg Allman is up for auction.

Put up for sale by Heritage Auctions, the guitar was custom-ordered by Clapton from Gibson between late 1969 and early 1970. Clapton subsequently gifted the electric guitar to Gregg Allman in December 1971, shortly after the death of his brother, Duane.

A decade or so later, the Allman Brothers frontman would gift the guitar – via her mother – to Kendra Presswood, who held onto it for 40 years.

Presswood and her mother were Allman's neighbors on Anna Maria Island, Florida in the late '70s and early '80s. Allman, Dan Toler and David “Frankie” Toler – the latter two of whom were also members of the Allman Brothers Band for a time – were frequent guests of the Presswood household.

“They hung around a lot, so we knew them pretty well,” Presswood says. “And one time, Gregg came over and played this guitar – then left it. Mom thought it was an accident. He told her, ‘I left it there for you as a gift.’ Of course, she had no use for it, because she played no instruments.”

Kendra, however, was attempting to learn guitar at the time, and was soon gifted the Les Paul by her mother. “Unfortunately,” Kendra says, “I realized when I was fairly young I had no natural talent, so there was no point in continuing to play the guitar.”

Presswood, who had learned of the guitar's origins via her mother, kept the Les Paul for decades for sentimental reasons, but recently sent it to Tyler Roe – the owner of Idlewild Guitars & Teaching Studios in Savannah, Georgia – for further examination and research. Using its serial number, Roe confirmed that the Les Paul had indeed been custom-ordered by Clapton. 

Photos show that Allman used the guitar extensively onstage – both with his solo band and the Allman Brothers Band – from 1971-1976.

Said to be in "good" working condition, with moderately worn frets, the Les Paul Custom features a three-piece maple top and three-piece neck. According to Roe, the only mod Clapton made after it was delivered was to remove its factory pickup covers, but Allman went on to replace the nut and the original 500K pots with 300K pots. 

Presswood says that the Les Paul "has been sitting in a case in my house, and someone might as well enjoy it. I still have the sentimental value, sure; believe me, it was hard to ship it off. But it just sits here, and it wants to be played.”

The guitar is accompanied by a signed, notarized letter and a hard case.

Bidding for the 1970 Gibson Les Paul Custom is set to run until April 2. The opening bid currently sits at $20,000.

For more info on the guitar, visit Heritage Auctions.

The Allman Family Revival – a star-studded celebration of the life and work of Gregg Allman anchored by The Allman Betts Band – has become a semi-annual tradition since the first of the shows took place at The Fillmore in San Francisco in 2017.

In 2019, there were three Allman Family Revival shows, and now, a whole Allman Family Revival tour has been announced, featuring a who's who of blues guitar greats as special guests.  

Running from late-November through mid-December across the United States, the tour will feature The Allman Betts Band (led by Gregg's son, Devon Allman; Duane Betts, the son of Allman Brothers electric guitar legend Dickey Betts; and Berry Duane Oakley, the son of Allman Brothers bass guitar man Berry Oakley) as a sort of house band, in the vein of The Band in their similarly star-studded concert film, The Last Waltz.

The touring lineup for this year's jaunt includes Robert Randolph, Donavon Frankenreiter, Lilly Hiatt, Cody and Luther Dickinson, Eric Gales, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Jimmy Hall, and Lamar Williams Jr., with more said to be announced soon.

Select dates will also feature special guests, including the likes of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, G. Love, Samantha Fish, Alex Orbison and Kenny Aronoff.

“Hard to believe we are in the fifth year of The Allman Family Revival shows," Devon Allman said in a press release. “This year is going to be bonkers – 18 cities, coast to coast in historic theaters with our beautiful, talented friends jamming all night long. Can’t wait!”

You can check out the full Allman Family Revival itinerary below. Public on-sale for tickets to the shows begins this Friday, September 17.

For more info, stop by Allman Family Revival.

Allman Family Revival 2021 tour dates: 

11/27: The Factory – St. Louis, MO
11/29: Majestic Theater – Dallas, TX
11/30: ACL Live at The Moody Theater – Austin, TX
12/1: Saenger Theater – New Orleans, LA
12/2: Coca-Cola Roxy – Atlanta, GA
12/3: Van Wezel PAC – Sarasota, FL
12/5: The Paramount – Huntington, NY
12/7: Orpheum Theater – Boston, MA
12/8: Beacon Theater – New York, NY
12/9: The Met – Philadelphia, PA 
12/10: Fillmore – Silver Springs, MD
12/11: Michigan Theater – Ann Arbor, MI 
12/12: Chicago Theater – Chicago, IL 
12/14: Brady Theater – Tulsa, OK
12/16: Arizona Federal Theatre – Phoenix, AZ
12/17: Theater at Virgin Hotels – Las Vegas, NV
12/18: The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
12/19: The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA

Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section guitarist Pete Carr, who played with everyone from Duane and Gregg Allman and Paul Simon to Rod Stewart and Bob Seger, died on June 20 in Florence, Alabama. He was 70 years old.

As the lead guitarist for the famed studio band, Carr contributed to hits including Simon’s Kodachrome, Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night and Seger’s Mainstreet – that’s him playing the song’s iconic electric guitar lead.

Carr also played with Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, Donovan, Luther Ingram, Joe Cocker, Boz Scaggs, the Staple Singers, Barbra Streisand, Wilson Pickett, José Feliciano and Hank Williams, Jr., among many others.

Born in Daytona Beach on April 22, 1950, Jesse Willard “Pete” Carr began playing guitar at 13, inspired by bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Ventures, as well as players like James Burton and Chet Atkins.

Two years later, he caught a performance by the Houserockers, an early version of the Allman Joys, in Daytona and introduced himself to Gregg and Duane Allman.

"I was about 15, and I went to see the Allman Joys play at the Club Martinique in Daytona Beach," Carr recalled to Swampland.com. "I had my guitar case with me, and introduced myself when the band took a break and asked Gregg Allman to show me some guitar lines.

“Gregg replied, ‘That's my brother, Duane's, department.’ At that point I introduced myself to Duane Allman. That meeting began a friendship, which lasted until Duane's death in a motorcycle crash on October 29,1971.”

In 1968, Carr and the Allmans began playing together in the group Hour Glass. They produced one album, Power of Love, with Carr primarily on bass guitar, as well as undertook some recordings at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals.

After Hour Glass dissolved, Carr opted to focus full-time on studio work, moving to Muscle Shoals and eventually becoming the lead guitarist of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section in the early 1970s.

Over the next decade he performed on countless classic rock and pop recordings, including  Simon’s There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years, and seven Seger albums, including Stranger in Town, Against the Wind and Like a Rock.

Carr also recorded four solo albums and led the duo LeBlanc & Carr with singer and songwriter Lenny LeBlanc. The pair notched a Top 20 single with the 1977 song Falling.

In 1981, Carr appeared onstage with Simon & Garfunkel at the duo’s massive reunion concert in New York City’s Central Park, playing acoustic and electric guitar.

Asked about the biggest thrill of his music career, Carr told Swampland that it’s “really hard to answer,” before going on to praise Simon.

“I always thought Paul Simon was fantastic, in the same league as the Beatles, so when he walked in the studio the first time it was a very awe-inspiring moment for me," he said.

“I remember vividly as he walked through the front door and I saw his face. I had taught myself an acoustic guitar instrumental he did on a Simon and Garfunkel album called Angie when I was a kid. I always thought that he was one of the best, if not the best songwriter ever.”

Scott Sharrard, the longtime guitarist and bandleader in Gregg Allman’s solo band, co-wrote the rock legend’s final two songs. “My Only True Friend” was the emotional core of Southern Blood, Allman’s moving 2017 swan song of an album, released posthumously a few months after his passing. They cut an instrumental track for the other tune, “Everything a Good Man Needs,” during those sessions — but Allman never recorded a vocal.

“We rehearsed it and recorded it in a few forms — acoustic demos and with the full band prior to the sessions,” Sharrard says. “He definitely told me he thought it was finished and good to go, but it’s too funky and too much fun to be on Southern Blood, which had a very distinct vibe and mission.”

“Everything a Good Man Needs” now sits at the center of Saving Grace, Sharrard’s fifth solo album, with a guest vocal by Taj Mahal and propulsive drumming by another icon, Bernard Purdie. Allman’s best friend, Chank Middleton, gave a demo of the song to Taj, who called Sharrard out of the blue and said, “I love the song you and Gregg co-wrote and I want to record it.”

Sharrard had already recorded most of Saving Grace, with two of the all-time great blues and soul bands — the Muscle Shoals Swampers and the Hi Rhythm Section in Memphis. He, Taj and Purdie convened in a New York studio to cut the swaggering, simmering “Everything a Good Man Needs,” with Sharrard’s slide guitar snaking over and around Purdie’s pulsing groove and Taj Mahal’s gravelly vocal. “That’s three generations of guys who love the blues right there,” Sharrard says.

The rest of the album puts a strong emphasis on Sharrard’s deep soul singing, but his guitar remains biting. For the five songs recorded at Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios, he played Duane Allman’s 1957 Goldtop Les Paul. And so the road goes on.

Scott Sharrard, longtime musical director, co-writer and guitarist for Gregg Allman, has shared an animated clip for the title track of his latest album, Saving Grace. You can check out the video, directed by Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr. and animated by Ronlee Nemeth, above. 

“Saving Grace” was recorded at FAME studios, with Sharrard backed by members of the Swampers of Muscle Shoals. For the recording, Sharrard played Duane Allman’s storied 1957 Les Paul Gold Top, on loan to him from the estate. This is the first time the guitar has been heard since Duane’s death.

“I think it’s her best moment on the record,” Sharrard said.  

Sharrard told Billboard about the song: "Like others, I've struggled with anxiety and depression my whole life, and I've struggled to do that while trying to be a fully functional husband and father. In the end, this song is about losing the plot and diving into despair full stop. I think it’s a song about suicide really, about feeling so hopeless that you're ready to slip and let go."

As previously reported, Sharrard recorded Saving Grace during his time with Gregg Allman. The album was produced by Sharrard with Scott Bomar and Charles Martinez; half the record features the Hi Rhythm Section (Howard Grimes, Reverend Charles Hodges and Leroy Hodges), and the other half renowned Muscle Shoals musicians David Hood, Spooner Oldham (‘The Swampers’) and Chad Gamble. 

The album also features “Everything a Good Man Needs,” Gregg’s last known original song, co-written with Sharrard.  Originally planned for Gregg’s Grammy-nominated effort, Southern Blood, Allman’s steep health decline prevented him from recording the song.

“Gregg had a pure passion and heart,” Sharrard said. “That authenticity and dedication is a daily inspiration, and I will always carry that with me onstage and in the studio. Gregg always said ‘the way you could do me most proud is to use our experience and let it inspire you to write your own beautiful music.’ ”

For more information on Scott Sharrard, check out his official website.

Devon Allman and Duane Betts, the sons, respectively, of Allman Brothers Band legends Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts, have joined together in a group, the Allman Betts Band. The outfit’s debut album is slated for release in March, 2019.

Additionally, the Allman Betts Band have announced the first dates of their 2019 world tour. The set lists for the upcoming shows will feature new music, songs from their respective solo projects and classic Allman Brothers and Gregg Allman tunes in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Allman Brothers Band.

In addition to Devon and Duane, the live Allman Betts Band will include Berry Oakley Jr. (son of original Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley), slide guitarist Johnny Stachela and percussionists R. Scott Bryan (Sheryl Crow) and John Lum, both of whom also play with Devon in the Devon Allman Project.

Peter Levin (Gregg Allman's Hammond B3 player) and Chuck Leavell (former Allman Brothers Band keyboardist and current Rolling Stones keyboardist) will also appear on the record.

Tour dates for the Allman Betts Band are below. For more information and to purchase tickets, head over to AllmanBettsBand.com.

Additionally, the Devon Allman Project, with Duane Betts appearing as a special guest, are currently on the road. Information about those dates can be found here.

The Allman Betts Band 2019 tour dates:

Mar 28 - Torrington, CT @ Warner Theatre

Mar 29 - Plymouth, NH @ Flying Monkey PAC

Mar 30 - Plattsburgh, NY @ The Strand Theater

Apr 4 - Huntington, NY @ The Paramount

Apr 5 - Stowe, VT @ Spruce Peak PAC

Apr 6 - Staten Island, NY @ St. George Theatre

Apr 11 - Homer, NY @ Center for the Arts

Apr 12 - Newton, NJ @ Newton Theater

Apr 13 - Beverly, MA @ Cabot Theater

Jun 29 - New Martinsville, WV @ Back Home Festival

Sep 1 - Lakeville, PA @ Cove Haven Southern Rock Festival

Guitarist and songwriter Scott Sharrard’s upcoming album, Saving Grace, features Gregg Allman’s last known original song, "Everything a Good Man Needs."

Allman and Sharrard co-wrote “Everything a Good Man Needs.” Originally planned for Allman’s Grammy-nominated album Southern Blood, his steep health decline prevented him from recording the song. 

Taj Mahal, one of Allman’s favorite living singers, is on lead vocals, backed by legendary drummer Bernard Purdie and Gregg’s bandmates, Peter Levin on organ and Sharrard on guitar, with Memphis horn player, Marc Franklin.

Says Sharrard, “Whenever we would pull into a town or a hotel on the road, Gregg would usually say, ‘This place has everything a good man needs.’ ”

Sharrard continues: “While writing the tune, we were constantly referencing our mutual hero, Johnny “Guitar” Watson. This is definitely a true story with references to Gregg’s life on the road as a single man. We just wanted to do a fun, funky blues about finding love out on the road. I know that Gregg would be thrilled to have Taj and Bernard playing our song.” 

Sharrard recorded Saving Grace during his time with Allman. The album was produced by Sharrard with Scott Bomar and Charles Martinez; half the record features the Hi Rhythm Section (Howard Grimes, Reverend Charles Hodges and Leroy Hodges), and the other half renowned Muscle Shoals musicians David Hood, Spooner Oldham (‘The Swampers’) and Chad Gamble. 

Saving Grace track listing:

High Cost of Loving You

Faith to Arise

Saving Grace

Everything a Good Man Needs

Angeline 

Words Can’t Say 

She Can’t Wait 

Sweet Compromise 

Tell the Truth 

Keep Me in Your Heart 

Sentimental Fool 

Saving Grace tour dates:

Aug 31  New York, NY Nublu  Green Is Beautiful

Sept 8  Round Lake, NY  Round Lake Auditorium 

Sept 13  Galway, NY The Cock ‘n Bull 

Sept 14  Marlboro, NY The Falcon 

Sept 15  Blairstown, NJ  Roy’s Hall 

Sept 21  Plymouth, MA Spire Center for the Performing Arts

Sep 22  Shirley, MA Bull Run 

Oct  4 Rochester, NY  Lovin’ Cup 

Oct 5  Syracuse, NY King of Clubs 

Oct 6  Apalachin, NY Ranson Steele Tavern 

Oct 13  Sea Cliff, NY Still Partners 

Oct 24  Richmond, VA Capital Ale House Downtown 

Oct 26  Macon, GA The Big House 

Oct 28  Atlanta, GA Venkman’s 

Oct 31  Florence, LA Swampers 

Nov 2  Memphis, TN Railgarten 

Nov 3  Nashville, TN The Basement 

Nov 23  Galway, NY The Cock ‘n Bull 

Nov 30  Asbury Park, NJ  Wonder Bar 

Dec 14  Marlboro, NY The Falcon 

Dec 22  Woodstock, NY Bearsville Theater 

For more information on Scott Sharrard, check out his official website. 

Today, the music video for "Song for Adam"—the closing track on the late Gregg Allman's final solo album, Southern Blood—was released. You can watch it above, via Rolling Stone.

The song was written by Jackson Browne, who also contributes vocals to Allman's recording of the song.

"Don’s [Don Was, who produced Southern Blood] master stroke was bringing in Jackson [Browne] to sing backing vocals on 'Song for Adam,'" Scott Sharrard—Allman's former musical director—told Guitar World about "Song for Adam" in September.

"We were about to lose the track because Gregg never sang the last two lines. Don did a wonderful job editing the take together and bringing in Jackson’s distinct voice gives the song a deeper meaning."

"Jackson and Gregg were such good friends and admirers of each other’s work since they were teenagers, I couldn’t think of a better way for the record to come to a conclusion than with a lyric that Gregg always related to through the tragic loss of his brother at a young age. Personally, it reminds me that my greatest hope is that they are together somewhere in the cosmos admiring the grand picture and pulling for all of us that got left behind."

You can pick up a copy of Southern Blood here.

Scott Sharrard joined Gregg Allman’s band as guitarist in 2008 and became its Musical Director in 2014. His first run as MD was at the Macon Opera House, shows captured on the Back To Macon, GA live album and DVD.

“We had been spending a lot of time writing together, developing this relationship as collaborators and he determined that the best way going forward was for me to be his MD,” Sharrard said.

Over the last few years of Allman’s life, he and Sharrard became increasingly close. Sharrard was behind the only two original songs on Allman’s final album, Southern Blood, which is being released Friday, September 8: he wrote “Love Like Kerosene” and the two co-wrote ”My Only True Friend,” the lead single, a profoundly moving farewell.

In a recent conversation, Sharrard went deep on the origins of that song, his relationship with Allman and how Southern Blood came to be. The album was recorded at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where Duane Allman first made his mark as session musician working with Wilson Pickett and others. Don Was produced the album.

Gregg was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2013, but almost no one knew about it. When did you find out?

He was doing his second–to-last Allman Brothers run at the Beacon [in March 2014] and I went over to his hotel for a writing session. We had been working on “My Only True Friend” and we were trying to come up with a pre-chorus. He sat me down and told me this news about his terminal illness and I said, “Look Gregg if you want to work, we can work. But we can take the day off, too.”

And he said, “No, this is the time to work.” And that’s when he changed the line to “I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul when I’m gone.”

Wow. What a heavy moment. Can you describe the process of the songwriting before and after that?

The song started about six months before that when I was at his house for a songwriting session and I had a dream where Duane was talking to Gregg. I woke up, ran downstairs grabbed my guitar and pen and paper and basically got the intro and verse exactly as you hear it on the record. I had the first two lines and the chorus line: “You and I both know the road is my only true friend.”

When Gregg woke up I showed it to him right away and he loved it. We worked on it back and forth over the next few months. And when he shared that diagnosis and he added the pre-chorus line, I realized that what we started writing from a dream I had about Duane giving Gregg advice from the beyond became Gregg saying good bye to everyone as he was going into this battle.

Although I never told Gregg the story of Duane, he could feel I was tapped into his energy. Honestly, that was the magic of our collaboration: as music director, guitarist, songwriting partner and friend, I was basically ferrying him across the end of his career and life. That was kind of my job and it’s all in that song, which we basically wrote together over the last few years.

Did the song fall into place when Gregg added that line that changed the focus to a farewell?

Honestly, we were writing that song right up to the final take. We put it off all week in Muscle Shoals because Gregg kept saying, “The song needs something else.” And [percussionist] Marc Quinones suggested that I write a third verse. I always listen when Marc speaks, because he’s never wrong, so I went back to my hotel and worked on the lyrics and wrote that third verse.

The next day I came into the studio and handed it to him. He read it right there standing in front of the Neumann mic getting ready to cut the song. He sat down, read it again and said, “This is it. Let’s go.” I told the band, “Guys, we added another verse, this is how it’s going to go.” We got the horn arrangement adjusted.

Don made sure everyone was on the same page and then we cut the song you hear on the record. It was literally down to the last minute.

That’s amazing, and it doesn’t sound like that at all. You would never know he hadn’t been singing those words for a very long time.

Honestly, man, it’s one of those recording moments that you can’t explain because they are just magical. We played it a few times live and rehearsed it many, many times and Gregg was never really getting all the way in and I swear to God he inhabited the song as we cut it.

What you hear was a first or second take, cut live on the floor with the band, and he just was inside the song, or it was inside him. He found his home in the song just in time and I’d like to think the third verse helped him. I think the stumbling block was he didn’t see the end of the story and I’m really thankful to Marc for his suggestion, which put me to work.

I was up all night working on different ideas for a third verse and I ended up with: “On and on I roam/it feels like home is just around the bend. I’ve got so much left to give but I’m running out of time, my friend.” It’s the goodbye letter.

Amazing. And it’s an illustration of when desperation and inspiration meet. You think about all the times you can struggle to come up with a line or a verse for months but you nailed that verse perfectly in one night – because you had to.

Thanks. I’ve written hundreds of songs, but over the course of working with Gregg for almost a decade I learned what he wanted to sing: the words he would fall on, the rhythms he liked. It wasn’t always conscious that he was showing me this, but as we were writing that song, he was hipping me to all these turns of phrases he preferred for vocal phrasing.

We were working on two other songs and we actually finished one, which I am going to put on my solo record coming out next spring. We ran out of time and to cut it for this record and honestly the tune didn’t really fit what we were doing. It’s a funky upbeat, twisted blues tune. We actually wrote it before his terminal diagnosis and it really didn’t fit the vibe of Southern Blood, as much as he wanted to do it.

I had really grasped what he wanted to sing and say because I had spent so much time writing with him and he had a very, very specific approach. He knew exactly what he wanted as a vocalist, a songwriter and a lyricist: understanding how to match all those things up and make them fit who he was is the mark of a great interpreter of songs. We’re talking Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra territory.

Right. And it’s fascinating because early in his career he was such a terrific songwriter as well as interpreter and as his songwriting slowed down his interpretive skills grew to the point where everything he sang became a Gregg Allman song. I think that’s partly because he always retained a composer’s sense of song.

Yes. His songwriting would still stand out though obviously with less frequency. He was very gun shy about writing anything. He was a master editor, both as a writer and singer. One of the great things about Gregg was his economy of phrasing when he sings and he brought that into his aesthetic choices. He was extremely critical when it came to “Is this song ready?” Gregg was a guy who saved his bullets.

The other song that strikes me as profoundly emotional is Tim Buckley’s “Once I Was.”

Oh, absolutely! You hit the nail on the head, brother. That’s my favorite track. I think it’s the emotional center.

Gregg told me over 20 years ago about his love of Tim Buckley and I’ve written about it but I didn’t see or hear him discuss it much elsewhere. And I’m just wondering how this came to be, and if Gregg spoke to you or others much about his passion for Buckley.

First of all, thanks for asking about it. It’s easily my favorite song on the record and not a single person has asked about it in an interview! Gregg never talked much about his love of Buckley for whatever reason; you are honestly one of the first people inside or outside the family who knows about it. The story behind how this song happened is very dear to me.

To understand, you have to go back again to the day in the hotel when he told me the news. We’re working through what he shared with me emotionally, we’re writing and playing and we take a break. He picks up the guitar and sings and plays “Once I Was” all the way through and I’m literally crying in front of him. I said, “Gregg, please tell me you wrote that song” and he said, “Oh man, I wish I did. That’s by Tim Buckley.”

And I said, “You’re a Tim Buckley fan?” and he says “Oh yeah” and I just went, “That’s great.” Because my dad is a musician and he used to play Tim Buckley stuff all the time, so we started talking about Tim and his songs and I asked if he had ever played “Once I Was” for anyone and he said, “No, I haven’t.” I asked if he had ever played it live, in a studio, a demo, and it was all, “Nope, nothing.”

And I asked him, “Why don’t you record that song?” and he just sort of went, “Oh, I don’t know” and then we moved on. He didn’t want to talk about it more, but he started warming up with it regularly when we would write and I said “Dude, we’re getting that on one of your records.”

That was a few years before these sessions. When we started talking about songs for the records, I told Don that he had to hear Gregg sing this Tim Buckley song. I said that Gregg might be a little hesitant but we had to make it happen and Don was way into it.

When we got to the studio I saw it had fallen off the docket and I kind of got in Gregg’s face about it and said we had to cut a version. We had rehearsed it with the band at soundcheck. I was determined to cut this song, so we had it ready. Lo and behold, at the last minute he said, “Yeah, let’s do it today.”

And, again, this was the second or third take through, fully live on the floor. Art Edmaiston’s sax solo is gorgeous and it’s just such a beautiful track. He changed the words of the third verse. It’s again a great example of his mastery of interpretation to tell his own story. He makes it rhyme and makes it more Gregg and also changed the whole focus of the song in those last two lines to make it more aligned with where his mind and soul were at that moment and it’s brilliant.

That song was something that he and I shared and I was determined to have him share it with the world. I can’t listen to it yet because I know that song cut really deep for him. It’s still too much.

When you guys were in the studio did everyone know about Gregg’s health?

No. There was a general understanding of his health frailty, but only a few people knew, starting with [Gregg’s manager] Michael Lehman, Chank [Middleton, his best friend] and Shannon [Allman's wife]. He certainly didn’t need to share the terminal diagnosis with me but honestly, I think he thought it was important that I knew so that musically we got the last album dialed in.

He didn’t want to share it widely and that was his decision. There’s a line there where this man’s dying wish was to go on stage and after all he did for rock and roll to help create it and refine it, the least we could do for the guy was to honor his dying wish, right?

Absolutely. And it says so much about Gregg’s devotion to the music and his muse that that was his dying wish! I said to Don and I’ll say to you: what you guys did to help Gregg fulfill this final vision is an amazing thing.

We tried our best. I’m a perfectionist so I still see some of the cracks. I can step back enough to say, “Ok, this was the best we could do under the circumstances we had.” But they were not ideal circumstances. We had a great band, we had Don Was, we had Fame studio and those were great advantages, but everything else about the recording sessions was very challenging, especially having the time to do what needed to be done.

Don’s master stroke was bringing in Jackson [Browne] to sing backing vocals on “Song for Adam.” We were about to lose the track because Gregg never sang the last two lines. Don did a wonderful job editing the take together and bringing in Jackson’s distinct voice gives the song a deeper meaning.

Jackson and Gregg were such good friends and admirers of each other’s work since they were teenagers, I couldn’t think of a better way for the record to come to a conclusion than with a lyric that Gregg always related to through the tragic loss of his brother at a young age. Personally, it reminds me that my greatest hope is that they are together somewhere in the cosmos admiring the grand picture and pulling for all of us that got left behind.

Did it ever feel like a burden to have this knowledge of Gregg’s illness, which would obviously impact you a lot, and not be able to discuss it with anyone?

No. The only thing that was frustrating during that time was the work aspect of it. The implosion of the record industry in the last 20 years really fucked up the bottom line for everybody. What should we have been doing? Writing and recording songs for six months to a year. But the way the economy of being a musician works now and has fucked up everybody, trickling all the way up to Gregg is he had to be on the road to support his operation.

Because of these time constraints, we didn’t get as much original material as I would have liked. Gregg was working on a song with [keyboardist] Pete Levin that was really good and he never quite finished. [Note: Levin recently cut this song in the same Fame studios in Muscle Shoals for an upcoming solo album.] We had several more in various stages and I think there could have been a lot more.

I had spoken to Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell and was trying to get them together with Gregg, which he was really interested in. I was also trying to get Bonnie [Raitt] and Gregg together.

There was a lot of really exciting stuff on the docket and time just ran out of us. Losing those opportunities mostly had to do with his health struggles combined with his touring schedule. It was a lot to juggle. I really don’t have any regrets but if there was anything I could have done differently it would have been that.

But Gregg also really loved to perform and I’m not sure anything would have kept him off the road.

Absolutely!

You mentioned Michael, Chank and Shannon and they really were his core support group, right?

Yes, very much so. Michael Lehman always looked out for Gregg, and Chank is Gregg’s spirit animal. There’s very little we could have accomplished without him. He’s a rock. He was Gregg’s comfort for many years, along with Shannon for the last couple of years.

Shannon is special and she was Gregg’s saving grace, particularly in the last year of his life. She gave him the spiritual and emotional comfort he needed to carry on. It was above and beyond. Gregg was very, very lucky to have Shannon and Chank to ease his suffering.

Every day is step by step when you lose someone you’re close to. With Gregg, I lost a multi-layered human being. He was an icon that I looked up to as a kid. I saw the Allman Brothers when I was 12 and that’s what set me on my path. Then to meet him, play with him, collaborate with him and have him impact my own music… I mean, he used to learn my songs and sing them back to me and listen to my records and bring me into his dressing room and say, “Man, I love this song...” It was like, “What the fuck is going on here?”

It got deeper and deeper and deeper and it was quite a journey. There are very few people who had the privilege to go through what I went through with him, and it all came to a head with Southern Blood. For it to be his final recording and to be a handful of people entrusted to execute the project is… it’s an honor is what it is.

I interviewed Scott Sharrard, who played guitar with Gregg Allman since 2008 and became his musical director in 2015, for my recent Guitar World tribute to Gregg.

I could use only a couple of quotes in that piece. An edited version of the rest of the story is presented below. Sharrard played on and was intimately involved with the writing and recording of Allman’s final album, Southern Blood, which will be released September 8.

Gregg’s health was up and down in the last few years, which led to cancelled shows. People always talk about playing each performance like it could be your last, but I wonder if you had a sense of him really thinking about that.
It definitely got more intense. He always had a certain ethos to playing. Certainly, no one could ever question his dedication. That guy fought to the last to go on stage, is what I think. He was fighting against all odds and very few people knew that, because that’s how he wanted it.

The second-to-last show I played with him was at Red Rocks and he was having tremendous breathing problems, struggling with the altitude there. The guy would insist on making the gig! He would not take no for an answer. That night he was backstage and could not move. We had to carry him to the stage and then he picked up the guitar and the songs were slow but they were magical.

And then a month later, he played his final show, October 29, 2016, in Atlanta.
Yes, and the first with the full band in a while, so we were all very happy. The first four songs he came out like a lion and the whole band was basically high-fiving. As the show went on, his power and pitch started to diminish. I had a feeling that was it.

They tried to bring him to New York for the 20 shows at City Winery, but he was unable to stand up and perform. He literally was torturing himself so he could be on stage and give a show for his fans. I can tell you 100 percent that he did not want to ever stop performing. If he could sing a note, he did it. He performed until he literally could not sing a note. That was last November, and from there he went into an inevitable health decline.

Gregg once told me the difference between the Allman Brothers Band and the Gregg Allman Band was “the big amp thing” and “the small amp thing.” Did you guys explicitly discuss what he wanted in that regard?
Yes, but not exactly like that. He would say all rock and roll is Southern rock, so the whole designation of Southern rock was BS to him. He basically saw it as he was playing rhythm and blues, blues and soul music, but coming out of him it was rock and roll. He would always say that’s the way it started with Duane, but somewhere along the way Duane got into Cream and psychedelic rock and it took the music to another place. So Gregg always considered his solo band to being a return to where he and Duane started, before his brother got into psychedelic rock. That’s how he talked about it. He saw the band as his ultimate dream realized.

Once he retired the Allman Brothers and put that to bed, he just poured it all into his band. It was interesting to watch. A lot of people thought I would be happy about all that, but at the last show, I was honestly very sad to see it go. I always hoped he’d keep it going and do both bands because I love the Allman Brothers Band very much. But it was also cool to see him devote everything to one band. He said many times he thought this band we had at the end was the best he ever had. He told us that every day, and he was so happy about it.

That’s quite a statement.
I think once Duane died it really shattered him on many levels, and he shut down a lot. Certainly we saw Dickey jump into the fray and grab the baton in the Seventies, and it led the band to its greatest success. Though very different, Dickey is also very song-oriented—think “Rambling Man” and “Blue Sky”—but it moved away from Gregg’s music, I guess. The band went through a lot of things and I think Gregg kind of shut down and withdrew, at least until the Nineties.

I was just listening to “Ain’t Wasting Time No More” from the Back to Macon, GA album, and it’s a really good example of how you guys rearranged an Allman Brothers song, replacing guitar solos with sax solos.
I put that arrangement together because Gregg really loved having Art [Edmaiston] and Jay [Collins] play sax solos. They are very different players. Art is a Memphis guy with a big tone. Jay is more of a New York guy. What I tried to do with the horns is approach the tenor saxophone as the other guitar so if you’re playing any Allmans tune, I would use Art or Jay as my foil a la Dickey and Duane. And that’s easy for me because easily my biggest influences in improvising are Miles Davis, King Curtis, Maceo Parker and Junior Walker.

I’ve learned more saxophone and trumpet solos note for note than guitar solos. Gregg liked that, and he was very supportive of my style. The bond we had really in common was the blues. When I was still pretty young, I was in clubs in Milwaukee playing with Pinetop Perkins and Hubert Sumlin. I came from school of learning real blues from the real dudes, and that’s something he would comment on. The blues was his grounding, whether it was “Melissa,” “Whipping Post” or “Ain’t Wasting Time.” They all have different grooves and feel and structures, but the blues was the ground floor of anything he did. It was always the base.

How direct was Gregg in his directions to you as a guitarist and musical director?
When he wanted something, he was very direct about what he was looking for. He would also take the time to assess what was happening. He was patient, and one of the hallmarks of Gregg is he was very careful with his words. He was very sensitive to how other people felt to criticisms or suggestions and extremely sensitive to very subtle creative things, like the dynamics of a band. And when we were doing songwriting together especially, he was very sensitive about honoring the intent. What he would do to my lyrics would change the perspective and mood to fit his style and, of course, working with him in that way was a thrill and an honor.

You and Gregg seemed to become very close. Are there any memories you’d like to share?
I spent a couple days with him a few weeks before he passed away. We had a really intense hang at his house—and I’m going to keep those memories to myself for now—but it was really, really special, and I am very happy we had that time. I brought him a gift that was very special to me and we had a very special bonding and hang and I was granted a very rare opportunity to see someone who started out as a hero of mine and became an employer, a mentor and a friend, and I was able to express to him all that. We were able to heave a lot of laughs and I could ease his pain, so I feel very good about all that.

That’s wonderful. And it must have been very emotional to return south for his funeral just a few weeks later.
Yes, of course. Going to his house and funeral and burial was also a very intense experience and realizing I’ve actually become part of the family was just… to feel like you belong to a band like that, it’s overwhelming and very empowering.

Gregg played a lot of guitar in his band. How would you describe his playing?
His acoustic guitar playing has been well established and really cool, particularly when he was playing with fingerpick, as on “Midnight Rider” and “Come and Go Blues.” On those tunes, his voice and acoustic guitar became the vocal point of the arrangement. On electric, he was more in support . We would bear the weight of doing the arrangements and he would put his guitar on top of that. He was a really complementary player. The way he played reminded me a lot of Jimmy Reed. That was our template, actually. The first thing I learned was a Jimmy Reed 12-bar pattern and same with Gregg: “Baby What You Want Me to Do” is how it started for him.

So what’s next for you and the Brickyard Band, Scott?
I will be honoring Gregg by creating new music in the ethos and in the mold that he and his brother set down. You’ve got to acknowledge there will not be another one of those. Gregg and Duane and the Allman Brothers Band just stand alone. This is a moral imperative for a musician; we have to give people the songs they need and work much harder to find originality that’s rooted in tradition. That’s what Duane and Gregg did, and that’s how you honor them.

Alan Paul is the author ofOne Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band.

When Gregg Allman died at his home near Savannah, Georgia, on May 27 due to complications from liver cancer, the music world lost one of its greatest and most consistent performers.

Allman was a fixture on theater, arena and festival stages for almost 50 years as a member of the Allman Brothers Band and a solo artist. “He lived to perform,” says Warren Haynes, who played in the Allman Brothers Band for almost 25 years. “There was no separation between Gregg and his music.”

Allman hadn’t performed in over six months. A string of canceled shows going back to November 2016 were a sure sign to fans that Allman was gravely ill. His final show was in Atlanta on October 29, 2016. The date is significant because Duane Allman died on October 29, 1971, and the Allman Brothers Band intentionally finished their final show on that date in 2014, after which Allman continued to perform with his solo band.

“That guy fought to the last to go onstage,” says Scott Sharrard, guitarist and musical director of the Gregg Allman Band. “He did not ever want to stop performing until he literally could not sing a note. His second-to-last show was at Red Rocks [Colorado] and he was struggling with the elevation to the point that he could not move and we had to carry him to the stage, but he came out and performed slowly but magically.”

That Red Rocks acoustic show was on September 25, 2016, and just over a month later he returned for his first band performance in over two months, at his Laid Back Festival in Atlanta. It would be his final show.

“The first four songs were so strong that the band was practically high-fiving,” says Sharrard. “Then his pitch and power diminished as the night went on and when we finished I had a feeling that was it. He went to New York intending to play 10 shows at City Winery, but he was unable to stand up and perform.”

Gregg and his brother Duane were, of course, the namesake members of the Allman Brothers Band. The group, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 and survived deaths, discord and two breakups to play a triumphant final run of shows at New York’s Beacon Theater in October 2014. Gregg was the final member to join the band put together by Duane with a distinct, unerring vision: guitarist Dickey Betts, bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe.

Oakley died in 1972 and the group parted ways with Betts in an acrimonious 2000 split. Trucks committed suicide in January, making 2017 a particularly harrowing year for the Allman Brothers Band and its large fan base. Less than three years after their final show, with rumors of a reunion swirling, the loss of two original members put an exclamation point on the conclusion of one of the greatest bands and stories in the history of rock.

Often hailed as “the greatest white blues singer,” Allman was simply one of the best, most distinct, capable and original singers in postwar blues and rock. His voice provided the Allman Brothers Band with the same kind of credibility and durability as his brother and Dickey Betts’ guitar playing did. Allman was capable of singing a deep blues like “Stormy Monday” or “One Way Out” in a manner that would make the songs’ originators, T-Bone Walker and Sonny Boy Williamson, respectively, proud.

But he also had deep roots in folk, rock and R&B and was an excellent songwriter steeped in both Delta blues and the introspective folk rock of Jackson Browne and others; he wrote some of rock’s most enduring songs, including “Midnight Rider” and “Melissa.” “There were at least two Greggs,” says Haynes. “There was the great blues and R&B singer sitting behind the organ playing incredibly tasty licks that perfectly complemented two lead guitars. And there was a folky Gregg who could pick up an open-tuned acoustic guitar and fingerpick beautifully. And so much of his best songwriting combined both of those elements.”

Adds Jaimoe, Allman’s partner for 45 years, “Gregory’s music and singing were based on rhythm and blues and blues, but his songwriting was so influenced by people like Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne and other people who wrote poem songs. What made him so unique is the way he combined those things.”

Gregory Lenoir Allman was born December 8, 1947, in Nashville. His brother Howard Duane was 11 months older. In 1950, their father, Army first lieutenant Willis Turner Allman, was murdered. Their mother, Geraldine, who died in 2015 at age 98, sent the boys to Castle Heights Military Academy when they were eight and nine years old so she could get her CPA license and more ably support the family. After about two years there, which traumatized young Gregg, the boys returned home to Nashville.

The next year, they moved to Daytona, Florida. Gregg first brought music into the Allman household when he purchased a Sears Silvertone guitar at age 13 with money saved from a paper route and aided by his mother. Before long, Duane was stealing the instrument and trying to steal his little brothers’ licks as well.

“We fought over it so much that my mother bought him one as well,” Allman said in 1996. “Then there was not only peace in the family but we started playing together. I taught him the basics, but within a few weeks, he could play it really good. It was pretty amazing.”

The music bug bit Duane hard enough that he dropped out of school after tenth grade and started playing “day and night.” The brothers formed a band and even before Gregg graduated Sea Breeze High—which he insisted on doing—they were playing clubs up and down the Daytona Beach strip under a variety of names, including the Escorts and, finally, the Allman Joys. By the time he graduated in 1965, they were already established as the best, most adventurous band on a burgeoning and competitive circuit and began touring the Southeast.

In 1967, the manager of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band discovered them in St. Louis and moved the group to Los Angeles, where they were distressed to watch their record label choose a new name (the Hourglass), their material and even their clothes. Duane left after one failed album, making his way to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he became a sought-after session player, recording with Wilson Pickett and other soul stars, while Gregg remained in Los Angeles, trying to make a go out of it, still under the name Hourglass, and getting deeper and deeper into songwriting.

He was inspired in the latter by L.A.’s burgeoning folk scene, which included his sometime roommate, a teenaged Jackson Browne. By March 1969, Duane had assembled a new band featuring a second lead guitarist with a knack for great melodies and love of Western swing (Dickey Betts); a bassist who fancied psychedelic rock (Berry Oakley); and two drummers experienced in R&B (J. Johnny “Jaimoe” Johnson) and folk rock (Butch Trucks). Gregg was the final member, adding both soulful singing and great original songs, including “Dreams,” “Not My Cross to Bear” and “Whipping Post.”

Gregg’s singing and songwriting were infused with a weary fatalism that belied his age of 21 and were central to the Allman Brothers Band’s singular style. “Everyone is motivated by what everyone around them is playing and we were no different,” says Jaimoe. “And everyone was playing such great stuff that you couldn’t help but play better and better. And Gregg’s voice and his words were both like instruments in themselves. And his organ playing was damn good—but it was overwhelmed by his incredible voice, so people didn’t pay as much attention to it.”

While Allman’s Hammond B3 organ became a bedrock of the Allman Brothers’ sound, underpinning the ferocious guitar playing and hard-charging rhythm section, he had never really played the instrument before the band’s formation.

“I’d messed around on the electric piano, and I had a little Vox organ in the Allman Joys because the English guys had ’em, but rhythm guitar was my instrument,” Allman said. “But in the Allman Brothers we had too many guitars, [so] they blindfolded me, took me in this room, sat me down, took the blindfold off and there sat a brand-new, 1969 B-3 Hammond and a 122-RV Leslie, and they said, ‘Okay, we’ll see you in a few days! Good luck! Learn how to play this thing.’ That’s not too much of an exaggeration. The truth is, my brother knew I really, deep down, always wanted a Hammond. But then I stayed up day and night, hour after hour, learning how to really play it.”

The new band moved to Macon, Georgia, together. Their first two albums, a self-titled debut and its follow-up, Idlewild South, are now considered classics, but both failed commercially. The Allman Brothers Band continued to tour relentlessly, establishing itself as a peerless live entity and breaking through with 1971’s At Fillmore East. The landmark live recording captured the Allmans in all their sonic fury, with just seven songs spread over four vinyl sides.

The Allman Brothers Band’s distinct style combined the Grateful Dead’s love of improvisation with a far more disciplined approach that encompassed rock, blues, country, R&B and jazz and Gregg’s terrific songs and vocals. Just as Duane’s vision of commercial success with an uncompromised approach was coming true, he was killed in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971.

He was 24 and At Fillmore East was certified Gold four days earlier. Many presumed the band would peter out without their de facto leader, but they went back to work remarkably quickly, performing their first show exactly three weeks after Duane’s funeral. They also returned to the studio to finish Eat a Peach, featuring Duane’s final recordings, more Fillmore tracks, and three songs recorded after the guitarist’s death.

Two of the final tracks were Gregg songs: “Melissa,” which he had written in 1967 and Duane always encouraged him to record, and the newly written “Ain’t Wasting Time No More,” a powerful statement about the need to continue on in the face of adversity. The 1972 album was a hit and the band moved on, first as a five-piece and then brilliantly adding pianist Chuck Leavell to supplement the group without “replacing” Duane. While in the studio recording Brothers and Sisters, Berry Oakley was killed, also in a motorcycle crash. The heartbroken band added Lamar Williams and continued on with nary a pause.

Brothers and Sisters, released in 1973, became their best seller, fueled by Betts’ “Ramblin’ Man,” an atypical song that became a runaway hit. The next year they were the top-grossing live band in the country. Around this time, they found themselves hailed as the creators of Southern Rock, a genre and title the band scorned even as it spawned hit groups like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band. “Southern rock? You might as well call it ‘rock rock’ because the music was born in the South,” Allman scoffed, pointing out that most of the music’s originators, including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis were Southerners.

Gregg Allman married Cher in 1975 and their on-again, off-again relationship made them tabloid celebrities. It also brought him to Los Angeles and the physical distance from his bandmates was also metaphorical of a growing divide within the group. A year later, the Allman Brothers Band broke up, cracking under the strain of stardom, threatened lawsuits over alleged financial mismanagement by their label and manager and Allman’s plea-bargained testimony in a crew member’s drug trial.

The group reunited from 1978–82 and released three albums with diminishing artistic and commercial returns before regrouping again in 1989 for a twentieth anniversary tour. Infused with energy courtesy of guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody (and pianist Johnny Neel, who left after two years), the group toured heavily and recorded three strong studio and two excellent live albums from 1990–95, even as Allman continued to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. During some of these years, Allman was an almost ghostly presence in the Allman Brothers Band, slumped over his organ singing.

He entered rehab the morning after the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1995 and while his sobriety may not have been a straight line, he was a completely different person before and after that day. He became an ever-more forceful presence onstage and in interviews and also re-established his parallel solo career. He referred to the Allman Brothers as “the big amp thing” and his own band as “the small amp thing.” “To get total musical fulfillment, I need both,” he said in 1996.

After a period of turmoil climaxing with the bitter 2000 split with Betts, the Allman Brothers Band maintained the same lineup, featuring guitarists Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes, bassist Oteil Burbridge and percussionist Marc Quinones, along with the three original members Allman, Trucks and Jaimoe, from 2001 until their final shows. They only recorded one studio album with this band, 2003’s excellent Hittin’ the Note, but firmly reestablished themselves as a preeminent live act.

They ended on a high note in October 2014 with six nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre where they played 239 sold-out shows starting in 1989. The last night was a three-set affair that started on October 28, 2014, and ended early the next morning, the anniversary of Duane’s death. Their final song together was the first one they played when Gregg arrived in Jacksonville in March 1969: a reinterpretation of Muddy Waters’ “Trouble No More.”

Allman’s solo career began with 1973’s Laid Back album, and he continued to perform with his own band after the Allman Brothers’ final show. Allman’s last studio album was 2011’s Low Country Blues. He recorded an album, tentatively titled Southern Blood, featuring his road band with producer Don Was in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in 2016. It is scheduled to be released in the fall. In April, Haynes and Derek Trucks drove together to Allman’s Savannah home for a visit.

“We just sat around and talked and told road stories and laughed,” says Haynes. “He was weak, but he was happy to see us and to just have a nice time, like countless days and nights on the tour bus. “There was a piano sitting in his living room and I asked if he had been playing it and he said yes and that it had brought him peace and comfort.”

In his final month, Allman also talked to Dickey Betts on the phone a couple of times. It was the old partners’ first contact in 17 years. Last March, Allman was married for the seventh time, to Shannon Williams. He is survived by her, five children and his niece, Duane’s daughter Galadrielle Allman.

Allman was buried in Macon, Georgia, in Rose Hill Cemetery next to his brother and Berry Oakley, following a funeral service at Snow’s Memorial Chapel, the same place where Duane’s service was held. At both events mourners sang “Wil the Circle Be Unbroken.”

Guitarist Scott Sharrard's fingerprints are all over the recent excellent live CD/DVD Gregg Allman Live: Back to Macon, GA.

The recording highlights not only Sharrard's tasty, blues-inflected playing but also his excellent work as musical director.

"I just love this band I've got now," Allman says. "It took me years to put it together just so, and I just love playing with them. Scott's done a great job getting this to a very good place."

Allman went on to single out every single band member for praise and told me several times how disappointed he was that current keyboardist Pete Levin wasn't yet in the band when they recorded the live album.

To get a little deeper into all this, I got in touch with Sharrard, who called in from a Brooklyn studio.

GUITAR WORLD: How long have you played with Gregg?

I joined the band in the fall of 2008, so about seven years.

How have you seen him change in his approach?

Gregg’s health was in jeopardy the first few years I was in the band. Even once he got his liver transplant there were unforeseen complications afterwards. Through all of it, Gregg gave some incredible performances and we had some amazing tours.

As far as changing his approach to music, I think Gregg has had a process that works for a long time. Like all the great band leaders, he knows how to surround himself with talented people who help him to sound his best and push him at the same time. His health now is really good and his energy is very positive so the sky’s the limit once that happens.

Does he seem more confident?

Definitely.

Have you noticed any changes in his approach since the ABB are gone and GAB is his full-time gig?

Gregg loves the Brothers and his band. As far as why those guys retired now, you’d have to ask them, but it would seem self-evident that now would be the time to focus their creative energies on solo pursuits. Gregg has gone headlong into his band. He’s writing and we are adding songs to our repertoire all the time, especially some gems from his back catalog for our live show.

As MD, you hire the band. How involved is he in the decision making?

I make suggestions and so do guys from within the band. Gregg then checks out the player and gives his blessing or asks me to keep looking for another guy. The band we have right now seems to be the perfect fit.

What is something musical about Gregg that people would be surprised to learn?

I don’t know if people would be surprised but Gregg is always checking out the masters and listening constantly. The other day I went to his room and he was blasting Pharaoh Sanders! He also always goes to the deep blues well and finds constant inspiration. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bobby "Blue" Bland—those guys are constant. Gregg is part of that generation of rock and roll innovators that always build off the blues. That’s why we love them!

How are you feeling about the chances of recording with this band in Muscle Shoals?

Well, there are a lot of variables; we are talking about the music business here! But Gregg and I have written a couple of tunes and he has a couple in the chamber as well as some great cover ideas. I’ve heard that Don Was might be involved, which would be fantastic. Whatever happens I sure hope someone records this band because it is very special and, given the chance, I think we could help Gregg make a great record—maybe the best of this period if we are lucky!

Anyway, for now we are just happy to play and grow as a band under Gregg’s direction. Its always a ball traveling and playing with these guys, it's become like a family out here.

How did you first hook up with Gregg?

I was playing guitar in Jay Collins’ band around New York City for a few years and he was trying to convince Gregg to hire me for a while. At the time Gregg had no idea who I was but eventually I got my shot to play with him when I sat in with the Allman Brothers at a shed in Camden, New Jersey. It was very last minute. Jay called me up the day before and told me to meet him and we would head out.

I met Gregg before we jammed, of course, and we really hit it off from jump street. I think he really liked the fact that I knew who Wayne Bennett was, to be honest! Wayne was the guitarist for Bobby "Blue" Bland for many years. The interplay between Bobby’s voice and Wayne’s guitar on some of those early recordings was a big inspiration for that call-and-response style of guitar and voice you can hear Duane and Gregg doing on the early Allmans records. I was very familiar with Wayne’s licks, and that was a bonus. Then I sat in and we just took it from there. That was in the fall of 2008 and it's been full steam ahead ever since…

What's the latest with your own band?

We are based in New York City, and we have residency at a great little spot in Brooklyn called Bar Chord, where we play every Thursday night when I’m not on the road. Man, we have had some great cats come play with us as guests, Ian Hendrickson Smith [Sharon Jones, the Roots, Amy Winehouse, Jimmy Fallon Band saxophonist and horn arranger] comes down and plays with our buddy Marcus Parsley (trumpet for JJ Grey, Sharon Jones) and they are a killer section. We also have Scott Metzger (Phil Lesh, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead) join us on guitar sometimes, Teddy Kumpel and Clark Gayton have come down. It’s a great place to hang and play.

I also have plans to bring my band to Memphis to make a new album of original material and my buddies from the Bo Keys will be involved with that alongside some of the original Hi Records rhythm section. We hope to record that this winter. I also have a great new management team with a new company called Busters Main Stem, and those guys are kicking ass getting us set up for some more touring in between Gregg Allman runs. It's gonna be a busy year for sure!

Alan Paul is the author of Reckoning: Conversations with the Grateful Dead and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band.

The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East has been considered rock’s best live album since its 1971 release.

Recorded March 12 and 13, 1971, at the New York club, the album captured the original Allman Brothers Band at the peak of their powers, playing with verve, grace, intensity and seemingly telepathic communication.

Guitarists Dickey Betts and Duane Allman finished one another’s phrases, spun beautiful leads off each other’s riffs and prodded themselves to guitar heights that have rarely, if ever, been equaled.

Over the years, different versions have been issued, including the expanded The Fillmore Concerts, but the holy grail for Allmans fans has been hearing the many unreleased tracks from the shows, mostly stemming from Friday, March 12, as most of the album was culled from the final night.

A new deluxe set, The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, delivers almost all of the music played by the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East during these shows in great, remastered sound. The set consists of six CDs or three Blu-ray discs, which are mixed for Surround Sound and bring the band’s performance to a shimmering new life.

Duane Allman famously invited several guests, including soprano saxophonist Juicy Carter, harmonica player Thom Doucette and percussionist Bobby Caldwell (the drummer from the headlining Johnny Winter And), to sit in, much to the consternation of producer Tom Dowd. Dowd convinced the band to banish the horns for the second night and chose different versions of songs or edited out most of the guests’ contributions, which can now be heard — and mostly prove Dowd’s point.

The final performance captured on the collection came a few months later, on June 27, 1971, the closing show of the Fillmore East. It includes promoter Bill Graham’s entire, ecstatic introduction, which concluded with “We’re going to round it out with the best of them all, the Allman Brothers Band.”

We spoke with compilation producer Bill Levenson about the release.

GUITAR WORLD: This set has been talked about for so long. Do you think it came out the same way it would have if you had done it any time in the last 20 years?

The main difference in the last year or two was the Blu-ray and Surround Sound. I don’t think we would have done that in the Nineties when we were first talking about it. I think that’s what doing it in 2014 brought us — a Blu-ray set.

And I’m very excited about the Surround Sound. The goal was really to put the listener in the 10th row of the Fillmore, with everything in front of you and the reflections and the audience behind you. I grew up in New York and went into the Fillmore. It had a distinct sound, a fabulous sound, and you can feel the auditorium in any album recorded there. I was trying to recreate being in the Fillmore, and I do think we were able to capture the magic of what was in that hall.

”

Among other things, you finally brought us the sax stylings of Juicy Carter, which we’ve only been able to hear dabs of before. It’s really interesting but not hard to hear why Tom Dowd was upset about his sudden appearance during a recording.

Yes. What really made it work was just to find the place in the mix where it was forward but not too forward, dissonant but not too edgy. To be honest, there are moments where we buried him because he was went off in really dissonant tangents. It’s still there; you hear if you listen, but he’s been pulled back. During these times, he was playing two saxes at once — baritone and saxophone — and some of the playing gets really out there.

It was really the magic of the fader.

This set scratched a lot of our itches, but a big one that remains is the first show, Thursday, March 11, which Tom Dowd said he recorded and which apparently featured a full horn section.

Thursday night is the blind spot for all of us. I’ve picked through the vaults hundreds of times, and there’s not even a hint of it existing, not even a reference somewhere. The only time it’s even mentioned is in a Tom Dowd interview, and he’s no longer with us to ask. But I am certain that there’s no tape, not even a tape that’s taped over … I just used everything we had.

Alan Paul is the author of the best-selling book One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. You can read an excerpt about the recording of At Fillmore Easthere.

Democracies very rarely work in rock bands.

Most successful groups usually have one dominant member (maybe two) who provides the artistic vision the rest can respect and rally around.

Without strong leadership, you can usually kiss any band goodbye. This appears to be the underlying lesson in Guitar World writer Alan Paul’s excellent new book, One Way Out: The Inside History of The Allman Brothers Band (St. Martin’s Press).

[[ Video: Get an Exclusive Look at the Allman Brothers Band Performing "Midnight Rider" in 1992 from the 'Live At Great Woods' DVD ]]

Written with the Allman Brothers Band’s participation, One Way Out is perhaps the most in-depth look at one of America’s most beloved, but thoroughly dysfunctional ensembles.

With slide guitar genius Duane Allman at the helm, the Brothers started out strong and sure. They went from strength-to-strength in the late Sixties and early Seventies, becoming one of the world’s truly inspired improvising bands as evidenced by their landmark 1971 double album At Fillmore East.

The Allman Brothers Band was largely Duane’s conception, and it was his unflagging energy and incredible guitar playing that drove them to mesmerizing heights as they blended rock, jazz, blues and country in new and exciting ways. Unfortunately, the guitarist was killed in a motorcycle accident in October of ’71 just as the band was achieving large-scale commercial recognition.

In the aftermath, co-guitarist Dickey Betts picked up the baton, and for a while it looked like he would lead them to new-found glory. Their next two albums, Eat a Peach (1972) and Brothers and Sisters (1973) were artistic and commercial triumphs. However, Betts’ temperamental behavior made him a less than ideal captain, and over the next several decades the band split into warring factions that became the stuff of legend. Astonishingly, they continued to play solid, often inspired, music and somehow survived—but just barely.

The band’s incredible rise and their trials and tribulations naturally make for a great story and engrossing reading. Alan Paul has written about the Allmans in Guitar World for the last 25 years, and his depth of knowledge shows.

[[ Guitar World’s Blues Greats Subscription Offer: Get one year of Guitar World plus a new digital EP, 'Legacy Recordings Presents: Blues Greats! Past & Present,' featuring “Get On With Your Life" (Live) by the Allman Brothers Band! ]]

He manages to get every surviving member of the band—past and present—to be shockingly honest in their assessment of their music and relationships with each other. Even the group’s famously easygoing guitarist Warren Haynes gets into the act as he expresses his exasperation at the sometimes strange and unpredictable behavior of his gifted, but flawed, band mates.

The book is written in an oral history format, so the stories are salty, unfiltered and straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s a good thing, too, because the Allmans’ story is often so bizarre and harrowing it’s hard to believe it’s true. The word “definitive” gets tossed around so often it has lost some of its meaning, but this 400-page journey into the heart of rock and roll darkness deserves the accolade.

The book also makes you wonder just what would’ve happened if Duane had been around to kick some butt …

One Way Out: The Inside Story of the Allman Brothers (St. Martin’s, February 18) is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. For more about Alan Paul, visit alanpaul.net.

Brad Tolinksi is the editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine.

The March 2014 issue of Guitar World magazine is available now: Eric Clapton's 50 Greatest Guitar Songs, How the Layla Sessions Almost Destroyed the Allman Brothers Band, Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Winter and More! It's available at newsstands and at the Guitar World Online Store.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the premiere of an exclusive video of the Allman Brothers Band's live performance of "Midnight Rider" from their storied 1992 tour.

The clip is from an upcoming archival DVD release from the band, Live at Great Woods, which will be available February 18.

That same date, fans of the band also will be treated to a new two-CD set, Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992, and a new Allmans biography by Alan Paul — The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. You can check out Guitar World Editor-in-Chief Brad Tolinski's review of One Way Outright here.

Recorded before a crowd of nearly 20,000 fans at the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and featuring a set of favorites, Live at Great Woods features, for the first time on DVD, the original long-form video version of this show with no interviews edited into the main feature.

Meanwhile, Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992 showcases the band’s first time playing an extended run at New York City's Beacon Theatre.

Both releases feature founding members Gregg Allman (vocals/keyboards), Dickey Betts (guitar), Butch Trucks and Jaimoe (drums) plus a trio of talented up-and-comers: Allen Woody on bass, Marc Quinones on percussion and Warren Haynes on guitar. The hiring of Haynes, a little-known guitarist who’d toured with Betts, was genius; his approach evoked the spirit of the late Duane Allman, drawing a clear line from the band’s past to its future.

Play All Night features new liner notes by John Lynskey, editor of Hittin’ The Note, the official ABB magazine, plus onstage photos by Kirk West (See the photo gallery below). You can see the track lists from both releases below.

For more about the Allman Brothers Band, visit allmanbrothersband.com.

The pre-order the new releases, check out the links below:

Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992
• iTunes
• Amazon
• Hittin' The Note

Live at Great Woods DVD
• Amazon
• Hittin' The Note

[[ Guitar World’s Blues Greats Subscription Offer: Get one year of Guitar World plus a new digital EP, 'Legacy Recordings Presents: Blues Greats! Past & Present,' featuring “Get On With Your Life" (Live) by the Allman Brothers Band! ]]

Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992 2CD

• DISC 1
• 01.Statesboro Blues
• 02.You Don’t Love Me
• 03.End Of The Line
• 04.Blue Sky
• 05.Nobody Knows
• 06.Low Down Dirty Mean
• 07.Seven Turns
• 08.Midnight Rider
• 09.Come On In My Kitchen

DISC 2
01.Guitar Intro / Hoochie Coochie Man
02.Jessica
03.Get On With Your Life
04.In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
05.Revival
06.Dreams
07.Whipping Post

Live at Great Woods DVD

01. Statesboro Blues
02. End Of The Line
03. Blue Sky
04. Midnight Rider (Presented here exclusively)
05. Going Down The Road
06. Hoochie Coochie Man
07. Get On With Your Life
08. In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
09. Revival
10. Jessica
11. Whipping Post

All photos: Kirk West

The March 2014 issue of Guitar World magazine is available now: Eric Clapton's 50 Greatest Guitar Songs, How the Layla Sessions Almost Destroyed the Allman Brothers Band, Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Winter and More! It's available at newsstands and at the Guitar World Online Store.

Eric Clapton's fourth Crossroads Guitar Festival took place this past Friday and Saturday night at New York City's Madison Square Garden.

Besides Clapton, this year's lineup included Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Jimmie Vaughan, the Allman Brothers Band, Gary Clark Jr., Robert Cray and Vince Gill.

Below, check out some fan-filmed footage of Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks and Gregg Allman performing the classic Allman Brothers Band track "Midnight Rider" as an acoustic trio.

The two-night festival was the culmination of Clapton's US tour, which kicked off March 14 in support of his new album, Old Sock. All profits from the festival will benefit The Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and education facility founded by Clapton for chemically dependent people.

Former Allman Brothers Band guitarst Dan Toler died Monday in Manatee County, Florida. He was 65.

Toler had been battling Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS) and couldn't play guitar or speak during his final months.

Toler, who was known as "Dangerous Dan," was born in Indiana on September 23, 1948. His Allmans association began in the 1970s, when he joined Dickey Betts & Great Southern as second guitarist, appearing on 1977's Dickey Betts & Great Southern and 1978's Atlanta's Burning Down.

Toler's Betts connection led to full membership in the Allman Brothers Band in the late '70s. Toler played guitar on the band's successful 1979 reunion/comeback album, Enlightened Rogues (featuring the single "Crazy Love"), joining bassist David Goldflies as a new member. He also appeared on the band's less-popular early '80s albums Reach for the Sky and Brothers of the Road, the latter of which featured Toler's brother, David "Frankie" Toler, on drums.

The Tolers' Allmans connection led them to the Gregg Allman Band, which scored a major hit in 1987 with the album No Angel and the single "I'm No Angel," which features one of Toler's best (and best-known) guitar solos (Check out the video below). Toler also appeared on 1988's Just Before The Bullets Fly.

Toler rejoined Great Southern in 2002 and then formed the Townsend/Toler Band with John Townsend. That band's self-titled album was released in 2009. He joined the Renegades of Southern Rock (also with Townsend) and ended his career with the Toler Tucci Band.

David Toler died in June 2011; Dan Toler announced he had ALS two months later.

The Allman Brothers Band have disclosed the lineup and details for their Peach Music Festival, which takes place August 10 to 12 at Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain and Sno Mountain Ski Area & Water Park in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The festival, which has an Allman Brothers Band flavor (and perhaps some Peach flavor), will fill multiple stages over the course of the three days.

The full lineup is below:

August 10: Zac Brown Band, The Allman Brothers Band, Warren Haynes Band, Dark Star Orchestra, Blackberry Smoke, Trigger Hippy, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Cabinet and 61 North.

August 11: The Allman Brothers Band, Tedeschi Trucks Band, O.A.R., The Wailers, Rebelution, Jaimoe's Jasssz Band, Railroad Earth, Toubab Krewe, Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, JD & The Straight Shot, Grimace Federation, Tauk and Miz.

August 12: “Wake Up With Warren” (Warren Haynes acoustic solo), Robert Randolph and The Family Band and Blind Boys of Alabama.

Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Gregg Allman has put his upcoming book tour on hold in order to undergo cardiac testing.

Allman recently underwent a hernia operation and is in Jacksonsville, Florida, to receive further heart tests to determine if he'll need further treatment.

"As soon as doctors give me the thumbs up to go back on the road, I will be heading out onto my book tour and I can’t wait to meet all of my fans," said Allman in a statement.

The book in question — a memoir titled My Cross to Bear — is due out later this year.

This isn't the first time Allman's health has been a concern in recent years. You may remember Allman received a liver transplant in 2010.

Gregg Allman will join the fray of rock stars turned authors when his autobiography -- My Cross to Bear, is published on May 1.

It will be available in bookstores and via digital retailers.

Allman, who wrote the book with Alan Light, made the announcement his Facebook page.

The book will feature the singer's "unflinching tale of his life on stage and off," including his rock and roll lifestyle, his relationship with Cher and his struggles with drugs and alcohol.

The book also deals with his many tribulations, including the tragic death of his brother, Duane.

Two thousand eleven was a banner year for solo releases by members of the Allman Brothers Band. Gregg Allman’s Low Country Blues, Warren Haynes’ Man in Motion and Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Revelator were all nominated for the Best Blues Album Grammy Award. But the fourth and final release is the sleeper pick: Renaissance Man by founding Allman Brothers drummer Jaimoe and his Jasssz Band. Released December 17, 2011, by lil'Johnieboy Records to less attention than any of his bandmates’ efforts received, Renaissance Man is a diverse, eclectic and thoroughly listenable album. Jaimoe is the band’s founder and heart, and the group features a septet of swinging, in-the-pocket players, including a great three-man horn section. But what makes it all work is Junior Mack’s revelatory singing and guitar work. A New Jersey native and longtime staple of the New York blues world, Mack reveals wide ranging talent on Renaissance Man, with several memorable originals that span the blues, rock and jazz worlds. Mack also helps the band make the blues classic “Leaving Trunk” their own, turns in a moving version of the soul classic “Rainy Night in Georgia” and re-imagines the Allmans’ “Melissa” as a bossa nova. Mack and Jaimoe bring their Jasssz Band to New York’s Gramercy Theater tonight, January 27. Jaimoe and the Allman Brothers will be back in Manhattan for their annual residency at the Beacon Theater, playing 10 shows starting March 9. We caught up with Mack -- and Jaimoe couldn’t resist jumping on the phone to sing the praises of the man he calls his “secret weapon.” Who came up with the bossa nova arrangement of the Allman Brothers classic “Melissa”? Who arranged that? JUNIOR: That was me, and it was the kind of discovery that’s a happy accident. I was playing a private gig for the CEO of Alcoa with my solo band and I found out he was from Brazil and at the last minute they told me the band should play as much Brazilian music as possible – except I really didn’t know any. I started thinking of songs that could adapt to a bossa nova beat and I thought of “Melissa.” We tried it and I thought it worked beautifully. When I played it for Jaimoe, he loved it and we immediately added it to the set. How big of an influence were the Allman Brothers on you? JUNIOR: Very big. I have always loved their music and so meeting and playing with Jaimoe was a thrill and continues to be so. And, of course, it also helped provide a group of hardcore fans who were ready to listen to us and have been very supportive. The Allman Bros connection has helped tremendously. It’s been a great experience all the way. I grew up listening to Jaimoe and the Allman Bros as a kid, so there’s not too much more I can ask for. All that being the case, was it intimidating for you to start playing with Jaimoe? JUNIOR: It was a little intimidating but it came mostly from the seasoned cats that were also on the bandstand. I’m a self-taught guy. I didn’t go to school for music.. I don’t really know how to write or read music, so the intimidation came from playing with guys who are really stellar musicians like [saxophonists] Kris Jensen and Paul Lieberman and [trumpeter] Reggie Pittman and trying to relay my songs and ideas to them. These guys could communicate a little better than I could on a musical level. JAIMOE: Junior is on everyone else’s level; he just didn’t realize it right away. Junior played a lot of blues for a lot of years and that's how people think of him, but it’s not all they can do. He not only plays all diff styles, but he writes all different ways. I would say he is more of a composer because of the way he writes and the way he plays; it’s never random. JUNIOR: I’m rooted in the blues, so that’s in any music I play, sing or write, but I don’t really break it down. I just play and try to play what’s right for the song.

The Allman Brothers Band are honoring the 40th anniversary of the Eat a Peach album by hailing 2012 as “The Year of the Peach.”

They'll kick off the year when they receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award February 11 during Grammy Week in Los Angeles; the group will be mentioned on February 12 national TV broadcast.

“It’s shaping up to be a great year,” says Butch Trucks, who co-founded the band in 1969 with Gregg Allman, drummer Jaimoe, guitarist Duane Allman, bassist Berry Oakley and guitarist Dickey Betts. “We just wanted to make music that was honest and play it for friends, which is pretty much what we’ve done. It’s an honor to be able to be recognized like this.”

Up next, the band will launch their annual residency at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, where they will perform 10 shows beginning March 9 (See full itinerary below). Tickets for those shows go on sale January 6. The Allman Brothers Band have performed more than 200 sold-out Beacon Shows since they began the March tradition in 1989.

Confirmed New York City Beacon Theatre dates:

• Fri3/9
• Sat3/10
• Tues3/13
• Weds3/14
• Fri3/16
• Sat3/17
• Tues3/20
• Weds3/21
• Sat3/24
• Sun3/25

"Look at this." Gregg Allman pulls up his long-sleeved Harley-Davidson T-shirt and reveals two long, pink scars running diagonally up his midsection just below the rib cage.

He’s sitting in a New York hotel room, less than five months after receiving a liver transplant, without which he would have died. The 63-year-old Allman is looking hale and hearty, his thick blond hair pulled back in a ponytail as he sips a cup of coffee.

“I’m happy to be here, that’s for sure,” he says. “And I have a sense of urgency to get stuff done, get out there and make some great music.”

Allman is gearing up not only for a year of touring with the Allman Brothers Band but also for solo dates in support of Low Country Blues, his first solo album in 14 years. Produced by T Bone Burnett, the collection features original takes on blues chestnuts and a haunting new original co-written with Warren Haynes.

“When Bone said he wanted me to come to Los Angeles and leave my band behind, I said, ‘Hell triple no,’ ” Allman recalls, with a laugh. “Then I realized maybe it was time to try something new, and I’m glad I did.”

Allman grooved on Burnett’s old-school recording approach, cutting live with everyone in the room, using upright bass and analog effects, like tape echo. And he was thrilled when he learned the house band would be anchored by old friends Dr. John (piano) and Doyle Bramhall II (guitar). “Me and Bone got along from here to the horizon,” Allman says.

The hardest part of his recovery, he says, was taking four months off the road. “That was the longest I went without performing since I was 16,” Allman relates. “I am fiercely devoted to my music, and I’ve got a lot of gypsy in my blood, so I’ve never minded the road. I just love to play, man.”

We just got word that legendary guitarist Gregg Allman will be hitting the road to tour behind his latest solo album, Low Country Blues. The first leg of tour dates is listed below. April 19th - 27th are all co-headlining shows with the Steve Miller Band, followed by a summer European tour and back doing shows in the States in the late summer into the fall.

• April 19 - North Charleston, SC - North Charleston performing Arts Center
• April 20 - Cary, NC - Koka Booth Amphitheatre
• April 22 - Columbus, OH - Lifestyle Communities Pavillion
• April 23 - Toledo, OH - Huntington Bank Arena
• April 26 - Philadelphia, PA - Tower Theatre
• April 27 - Indiana, PA - Kovalchick Complex
• April 29 - West Palm Beach, FL - Sunfest
• May 1 - Memphis, TN - Beale Street Music Fest
• May 4 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
• May 6 - New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage fest
• May 7 - Biloxi, MS - Hard Rock Live
• June 2 - Englewood, NJ - Bergen Performing Arts Center
• June 4 - Syracuse, NY - Taste of Syracuse