{"id":2462387,"date":"2026-06-16T17:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2462387"},"modified":"2026-06-16T17:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:05:23","slug":"gregg-allman-the-music-of-my-soul-docs-director-on-making-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/gregg-allman-the-music-of-my-soul-docs-director-on-making-film\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul’: Doc’s Director on Making Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWhen filmmaker James Keach signed on to direct Gregg Allman<\/a>: The Music of My Soul<\/em>, a new documentary about the Allman Brothers Band<\/a>\u2019s co-founder, he admits he knew the group\u2019s music but wasn\u2019t fully versed in the history. Then he had a conversation with his wife.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018You have to do this movie,\u2019\u201d Keach recalls her saying. \u201c\u2018They got me through school.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a good decision by the director, who previously documented the life of Glen Campbell in I\u2019ll Be Me<\/em> (2014), and co-produced 2005\u2019s Walk the Line<\/em>, the Johnny and June Carter Cash biopic, and the 2019 Linda Ronstadt doc, The Sound of My Voice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tGregg Allman: The Music of My Soul<\/em>, produced by Subtext and Rolling Stone<\/em>, opens Wednesday, June 17, in more than 200 theaters nationwide for a special one-night-only event<\/a>. It\u2019s based around a rarely seen 2014 interview that Allman gave just three years before his death. Keach \u2014 whose older brother is the actor Stacy Keach \u2014\u00a0says that Allman\u2019s manager Michael Lehman reached out to him about directing the film. \u201cI was interested because of two things,\u201d Keach says. \u201cOne, his relationship with his brother [Duane Allman, who died in 1971]. The idea of something happening to my brother Stacy really got to me. And then on top of it, we grew up in a little town in Texas called Taft, and it was very segregated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keach, 77, saw parallels to his own life. Born in Nashville, Allman brothers Gregg and Duane were raised in the 1950s before the landmark Civil Rights legislation of the Sixties was passed. The same went for the Keach boys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne side of Taft was the African-Americans and the Mexican folks, and the white people lived on the other side,\u201d Keach says. \u201cIt always bugged the shit out of me. It reinforced my mind that somebody had created an artificial separation. I discovered Gregg and the Allman Brothers were very much against that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Allman Brothers Band\u2019s makeup illustrated the group\u2019s sense of inclusivity. Drummer Jaimoe, the last living original member<\/a> of the Allman Brothers, was Black, as was Chank Middleton, Gregg\u2019s best friend and a regular presence on the road. If Jaimoe and Middleton weren\u2019t allowed into a venue, restaurant, or hotel with the rest of the band, Allman says in one moment of the doc, the entire troupe would leave.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI found that very moving,\u201d Keach says. \u201cIt\u2019s important in these times to have that kind of attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe Allman Brothers were mostly white guys with long hair and hippie clothes who played the blues. Their setlists were filled with covers of songs written and performed by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and other Black blues luminaries. Duane Allman, a legendary guitarist<\/a>, had also crossed over into R&B, playing sessions with Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett at Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a stint as \u201cHour Glass,\u201d Duane and Gregg put together the Allman Brothers Band, a group that soon became known for their legendary Southern-rock jams. Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul<\/em> hails 1971\u2019s At Fillmore East<\/em> double album as the greatest live record of all time. (I can attest: I attended the famous June 23, 1971, Allman Brothers late show at Fillmore East that let out at 7 a.m.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Duane\u2019s life was cut short just four months later when he died<\/a> in a motorcycle accident. He was 24. That same night, according to the film, Gregg overdosed on heroin. That could\u2019ve been it for the Allman Brothers, but Gregg recovered and the bruised band soldiered on through a series of further tragedies, including the death of bassist Berry Oakley, also in a motorcycle crash, in 1972.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThe deaths, however, helped fuel Allman\u2019s growing addictions to heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAddiction is numbing,\u201d Keach says. \u201cThe addiction is a symptom of something else. The addiction to the drugs, or whether it\u2019s sex, rock and whatever it is, you\u2019re trying to numb something and put something on top of a feeling that you are having a problem dealing with. As Lenny Bruce said, \u2018I take a hit and I feel like a new man. And then the new man wants a hit.\u2019 That\u2019s a vicious cycle. I think it worked for a while for Gregg, and then the new man wants a hit, and then the new man gets really fucked up and, well, we know what happens after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary dives into many of Allman\u2019s flaws and failures, with Keach even probing his multiple marriages (seven in total, including a brief union with Cher). Allman\u2019s last wife, Shannon, 37, is interviewed in the film. \u201cI think he loved falling in love,\u201d Keach says. \u201cHe liked that feeling of that emotion and that it was very satisfying to him. And then if they tried to control him and they tried to change him in some way or another, he rebelled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also touches on Allman\u2019s decision to testify<\/a> against the group\u2019s road manager John \u201cScooter\u201d Herring, who provided Alllman and other band members with coke and was arrested in 1976, charged with five federal counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Herring, who died in 2007, received a 75-year sentence and served 30 months in prison. Allman\u2019s testimony caused a rupture in the band and resulted in the first of several band breakups.<\/p>\n

\n\tKeach contends that Herring \u201chad to take the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe band wouldn\u2019t be able to continue,\u201d he says. \u201cThe loyalty among the guys was you don\u2019t squeal on the other guy, and Gregg was forced to do it\u2026 His intentions weren\u2019t to save himself. It was to save the band. At least that\u2019s the way I was told.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Allman\u2019s own addictions, which he failed to rein in despite multiple trips to rehab, he finally went cold turkey in 1995, eliminating drugs, alcohol, and even cigarettes. He became a staunch anti-drug advocate for the rest of his life. Allman died<\/a> from complications of liver cancer in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI learned from Gregg about how to deal with addiction and about how to deal with trauma,\u201d Keach says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the film\u2019s New York premiere earlier this month, Keach zeroed in on the addiction and redemption narrative of the documentary.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cTo see this man after 15 rehabs hit his bottom and then come back, for me it was a 12-step call that I wanted to make for the world. It\u2019s really great when he finally got sober and there\u2019s applause in the audience,\u201d Keach told the crowd. \u201cI thought, \u2018Ah, we connected. And Gregg connected.\u2019 His music is phenomenal, but his story is phenomenal too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSteve Bloom is co-author with Shirley Halperin of <\/em>Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When filmmaker James Keach signed on to direct Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul, a new documentary about the Allman Brothers Band\u2019s co-founder, he admits he knew the group\u2019s music but wasn\u2019t fully versed in the history. Then he had a conversation with his wife. \u201c\u2018You have to do this movie,\u2019\u201d Keach recalls her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2462388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[358605,366410],"class_list":["post-2462387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-allman-brothers-band","tag-gregg-allman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gregg-Allman-The-Music-of-My-Soul-Docs-Director-on.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462389,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462387\/revisions\/2462389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2462388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}