The saga of the Allman Brothers Band is often framed as a tragedy, and not without reason. Just as they were gaining a national profile in 1971 thanks to their explosive live album At Filmore East, guitarist and band co-founder Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident. A year later, bassist Berry Oakley died in his own motorcycle accident. The shellshocked survivors soldiered on, and had great success, but they also dealt with severe addiction issues, scrapes with the law, periodic breakups, and long-simmering tensions with guitarist Dickey Betts that led to his ouster in 2000.
Director James Keach’s new documentary Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul doesn’t downplay any tragic elements of the band’s history, but by telling the story through the lens of Gregg Allman, who fronted the group and wrote much of their most enduring music, it becomes instead a tale of survival and perseverance. (The doc, made in association with Rolling Stone Films, is available to watch digitally starting July 21.)
Utilizing previously unseen archival interviews with Allman, including a fascinating conversation from 2014, along with new interviews with his children, wives, fellow musicians, and Allman Brothers Band drummer Jaimoe, the last living member of the original group, Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul is packed with revelations. Here are 10 of them.
Gregg was sent to military school as a third-grader.
Gregg was only 2 years old when his father was murdered by a hitchhiker. His mother went to college in order to support the family and was required to live on the campus. As a result, Gregg was sent to military school for third and fourth grade, along with his older brother Duane. “That was something that really, deeply hurt Gregg,” says Duane’s daughter Galadrielle. “It stayed with him. He felt abandoned.”
Otis Redding and Jackie Wilson changed Gregg’s life.
The first concert Gregg and Duane ever saw took place at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. The bill included Jackie Wilson and Otis Redding. Prior to that, they mainly listened to acts like the Beach Boys and the Ventures. After seeing Wilson and Redding, they became enthralled by R&B and the blues. “My whole life, and my brother’s whole life, changed inside that building,” said Gregg.
The Allmans’ dual drummer setup came from their R&B heroes.
It was Duane’s idea to hire two drummers for the Allman Brothers Band. “I said, ‘Duane, why do you want to have two drummers?’” recalls Jaimoe. “He said, ‘Because James Brown had two drummers and Otis Redding had two drummers.’ I wasn’t in James’ band, but I was in Otis’ band with two drummers.”
Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, who operated the Fillmore in San Francisco and the Fillmore East in New York City, was a huge champion of the band from early on. “I could tell he genuinely liked our band,” Greg Allman said. “He wasn’t just a club owner. A lot of people were intimidated by Bill Graham. A lot of people were scared of him. A lot of people didn’t like him because he took care of business. You have to if you’re going to put on something like Woodstock.”
Gregg first went solo out of spite.
In 1973, Gregg Allman released Laid Back, his first solo album. It came about because his bandmates didn’t like his song “Queen of Hearts.” “I had been slaving over that song,” he says. “I loved it. I said, ‘Guy, I got a new song for us.’ I sat down at the piano. I tried playing it. You would have thought a train went by. Nobody said nothing. And finally, one of the people in the Allman Brothers stood up and said, ‘Man, it just ain’t saying nothing.’ Man, I went ballistic…I walked toward the door and said, ‘All of you, screw this. I’m out of here.’ And I cut my first solo record, and the sucker shipped gold.”
He was married seven times since he hated being alone.
Gregg was famously married to Cher between 1975 and 1979, but the pop singer was just one of his seven wives. “Gregg hated to be alone,” says Warren Haynes, his longtime bandmate in the latter day Allman Brothers. “I do think that has a lot to do with why he got married so many times.” To Allman, the marriages mostly had the same fatal flaw. “It seems to me they loved me for who I was, and immediately tried to change me,” he said in 2014. “I just didn’t want to do it.”
Alcoholism plagued him for decades.
To cope with his brother’s death, the burdens of fame, and a strong feeling of loneliness that never quite left him, Gregg often turned to alcohol. By the Nineties, it was ruining his life. “I was drinking about a quart of vodka every day,” he said. “If I didn’t, I would get the delirium tremors. You’d have bugs crawling all over you just from withdrawal from alcohol. It’s some diabolical stuff to some people.”
Drinking ruined his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.
When the Allman Brothers Band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Willie Nelson on Jan. 12, 1995, Gregg was so blitzed that he was barely able to deliver a speech beyond just a few words slurry words about Duane. “I wanted to say all these things about Bill Graham,” he said in 2014. “I wanted to say things about my mother… And I just got up there, and I was afraid I was going to fall down. Willie even said to me, ‘Are you alright?’ I said, ‘Willie, I’m not alright.’ As luck would have it, I saw a film of it about two or three days later. I just cried like a baby. I knew I didn’t know how to stop. I went to 14 rehabs. But I didn’t go to 15. I was appalled at myself, and prayed to God to give me the strength to get away from this shit, and live the rest of my life in peace.”
A nurse helped him kick his bad habits.
In the aftermath the Hall of Fame debacle, Allman hired a male nurse to help him finally get clean. “I kicked heroin, cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, and just bit the bullet until the stuff was out of my system,” he said. “I did away with all of them.”
He had visions of Duane all the way to the end.
Gregg was just 23 years old when his brother Duane died. But he remained central to his life all the way until Gregg’s own death at 69 in 2017. “Usually when I’m playing, he comes,” Gregg said. “Sometimes it’s more vivid than others. Usually when he comes to me, just feeling his presence gives me a lot of strength.”
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