SOUTHERN MASTER: DUANE ALLMAN

The legend of Duane Allman looks altogether more impressive when one considers what followed in his wake, both for the Allman Brothers Band and so-called Southern rock in general. Duane’s achievement was to create a new mixture of American musical styles within a propulsive rock format, melding blues, jazz, country influences and rock together in a signature sound that has yet to be equalled. Duane’s paramount performances with the A.B.B. on Live At The Fillmore East and Eat A Peach outshine anything that followed. Although the Brothers still recaptured some moments of glory, the loss of their lynch-pin guitarist left a void in the band’s sound and sensibility that can never be filled. Other bands of the Southern genre may have played with pieces of the Allman sound—Sea Level and the Dixie Dregs exploring the interlock of boogie and jazz, Lynyrd Skynyrd staking out the blues-rock vein, Molly Hatchet all but obliterating the fragile beauty of Allman’s fusion in a thundering roar of asskicking redneck rock—but none came even close to the majestic mastery that was the Allman Brothers Band at their peak.

Of course Duane Allman’s work and influence ranged far beyond the Allman Brothers Band, but as his group (he founded them, and sure proof of his leadership or the fact that they never fully recovered from his loss), the Allmans hit a groove that had been bubbling in Allman’s consciousness for some time. While snatches of that brilliance can' be found on his work with Derek and the Dominoes (Layla) and a tossed salad of artists like Boz Scaggs, Wilson Pickett, Herbie Mann, Delaney & Bonnie and Aretha Franklin, with the Allmans, Duane put together a band and a style that proved him not just a great guitarist, but a great musical visionary and stylist.

The best of Allman’s studio work is highlighted in the two Duane Allman Anthology albums on Capricorn, a feast for the guitar fan. Playing with every conceivable kind of artist, Duane displays a biting ferocity in a wide variety of styles that he played.

At Muscle Shoals, Duane joined forces with manager Phil Walden, who was looking for another act to work with following the death of his first client, the legendary Otis Redding. Sensing Duane’s special talents, Walden gave Allman the green light to form a band. On Duane’s occasional visits to Florida, he could jam with musicians Dickie Betts, Berry Oakley, Jai Johnny Johanson and Butch Trucks. When Gregg was summoned back from the West Coast to join, the Allman Brothers Band was born.

Their first album, The Allman Brothers Band, as well as Idlewild South are impressive statements in both style and delivery, but it was the Live At Fillmore East album that really brought the band to the forefront. One can hear a bit of the stifling atmosphere of the studio when comparing the first two albums with the expensive reach of the latter, and it was Duane’s strong instinct to cut live on the third album that brought about the album.

From that auspicious moment, the band could have expanded their music to an audience of unheard-of limits. But as the album climbed the charts, Duane Allman returned home to Macon during the Eat A Peach sessions for a vacation. On October 29, 1971, Duane visited Berry Oakley and his wife in the afternoon to wish her a happy birthday. Reportedly going to buy more beer for the party, Duane climbed on his motorcycle and left Oakley’s home at about 5:45 p.m. Soon after-, he swerved to avoid a truck that cut him off, and his cycle turned to pin him underneath, inflicting fatal injuries. Duane Allman died in the emergency room at Macon Medical Center.

It was Duane’s wish that the band carry on, and they did. Eat A Peach made a moving tribute, from “Mountain Jam’”s free-form jazz inflections to the beauty of “Little Martha,” a melody Duane wrote after hearing it from, he claimed, Jimi Hendrix, while in a dream. But the death took its toll on the band, bassist Berry Oakley dying himself in a motorcycle accident, a year after Duane and less than a half mile from the spot of Duane’s accident.

Although the Allman Brothers Band carries on today, they admit that the music they play isn’t the conception invented and developed by Duane Allman. Thankfully, there are stellar moments on record that keep Duane Allman alive, a man who lived as his epitaph reads:

“I love being alive and will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love whereever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it, seek knowledge from those wiser, and teach those who wish to learn from me...”