Back in the day – the late 1960s – one rock band stood head and shoulders above the rest in Music City.
The Allman Joys were the band to see at venues like “The Briar Patch” or “Mother’s Music Emporium,” places that outdate the Exit/In by nearly a decade.
The Joys were founded by two brothers named Duane and Gregg Allman and was the precursor to the Allman Brothers Band, which ignited the Southern Rock scene in the early ‘70s.
Personally, I had Allman Brothers on the brain back then ... and still do. They’re on my iPod and on the CD currently playing in my car. So-o-o-o-o-o. That’s where I am coming from.
But life is full of surprises and revelations like the ones I received when I picked up Randy Poe’s revised edition of “Skydog, the Duane Allman Story,” which is due out in early October.
It’s been 40 years since the Allman Brothers first started making music and nearly 37 since founding brother, Duane Allman, died in a 1971 motorcycle crash in Macon, Ga. That seems impossible, but my 17-year-old daughter says all of my favorite musicians have something in common – death.
That’s not exactly true. The Allman Brothers Band is still alive and kickin’. While they might have the intensity of the old days, the band makes up the gap with musical sophistication on the jazzy edge of the blues.
Poe’s book offers fascinating insight into Duane Allman and his drive to recharge a musical genre. The book tells about the Allmans’ roots in Middle Tennessee and Florida and even about the brothers’ years at Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon.
It was a rough path to stardom with Duane spending countless hours mastering the guitar. Once he made the decision to be a guitarist he was seldom separated from his six-string. Often he slipped off to sleep in the wee hours with the instrument still in his hand.
No one is born a guitarist and you can only become a good one with endless practice. It takes a good ear, the proper physical attributes and a God-given talent to become a great one. Duane Allman transcended even that level to become a true guitar genius.
To many of his fans, Duane Allman was best known for his high intensity slide guitar playing, but few of them know how he became interested in the nearly lost art once practiced by blues guitarists. In 1968, while playing in the band the Hour Glass, Allman saw Taj Mahal and his band. They performed the Blind Willie McTell blues song, “Statesboro Blues,” with Jesse Ed Davis playing slide guitar.
Allman was transfixed and set about to learn how to play guitar that way, much to the distress of his band mates who said his attempts at learning to play slide drove them crazy.
But practice eventually made him perfect.
The great thing about Poe’s book is that it shows both the good and bad sides of the music industry and of Duane Allman. The reckless living, the drug abuse is all there, but not in salacious fashion. It’s not a typical star bio and instead reveals much of what made him a musical success and what made his early death such an avoidable tragedy.
Of particular interest are the chapters that trace how the remainder of the band coped with the loss of Allman and bassist Berry Oakley. So there ya go, Southern rock fans....
A correction from a reader....
three months later, a small correction, mike... inre to an old article of yours about duane allman. mothers music emporium did not predate the exit in, nor was it ever host to any allman joys gigs . i did happen to see al kooper introduce a little band called lynyrd skynyrd there. it was on hermitage avenue in an old carpet warehouse. the briar patch reference was correct, though. enjoyed the article all the same, keep up the good work !!!
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