Born: December 8, 1947;
Died: May 27, 2017
GREGG ALLMAN, who has died aged 69, was a singer, songwriter and keyboard player whose lengthy career exemplified the Southern rock style, a combination of pure country and more commercial rock sounds that brought critical acclaim and huge crossover success, whether recording under his own name, with his Gregg Allman Band, or with the Allman Brothers Band (founded with his older brother, guitarist Duane, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1971).
In total, Allman produced more than 30 records throughout his career, and he was one of the most famous rock names of the 1970s. His voice was distinctive, a jagged drawl that managed to sound both focused and comforting all at once.
The 1971 Allman Brothers live record At Fillmore East was their first hit, and one of the defining live recordings of the era; their key albums Eat A Peach (1972), Brothers & Sisters (1973), Win, Lose Or Draw (1975) and the reunion record Enlightened Rogues (1979) were all significant successes, with the second of those records spawning the huge US hit single Ramblin’ Man; and he enjoyed later success with an album and single entitled I’m No Angel in 1987. In contrast, Two The Hard Way – a 1977 collaboration with Cher, Allman’s third wife of six, to whom he was married between 1975 and 1979 – was a flop.
Gregg LeNoir Allman was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1947, the son of Willis, an Army captain, and Geraldine. His father was murdered by a hitchhiker two years later and Geraldine, determined to educate herself to support her children, sent Gregg and Duane to nearby Castle Heights Military Academy, before the family moved to Florida in Gregg’s early teens. The boys played music together first as the Escorts, then the Allman Joys, and finally as Hour Glass.
The latter group were based in Los Angeles, and brushed with fame when they released the albums Hour Glass (1967) and Power Of Love (1968) on Liberty, before their lack of success caused a split.
While Gregg remained in LA, Duane became the lead session guitarist at Alabama’s famed Muscle Shoals studio, recording with artists like Aretha
Franklin and Wilson Pickett; it was here that Duane began to piece together a new band, which added Gregg as its final member in 1969, prompting the use of the Allman Brothers’ name.
Recovering from the pain of his brother’s death and the death of the band’s Berry Oakley in very similar circumstances the following year, Allman led the Allman Brothers to huge live success on a par with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin through the 1970s, before internal strife, drug problems and Allman’s testimony during the drug trial of band fixer Scooter Herring caused a split in 1976. The reunion in 1978 was of a new version of the band.
Although a combination of changing tastes and Allman’s alcohol abuse led to another band split in 1982 and a fallow decade, there were spikes with I’m No Angel in 1987 and a more enduring return to live and recorded action with the Allmans in 1990, which was well received by critics and fans. His drunken appearance during the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 was enough to shame Allman into finally quitting alcohol, although he bore ensuing health problems.
The last 10 years of his life pitted him against hepatitis C, liver cancer and serious respiratory problems, but in 2011 he released the top five US album Low Country Blues, as well as the auto-biography My Cross to Bear.
Finally succumbing to liver cancer, Gregg Allman is survived by five
children and a posthumous album, Southern Blood. “When it’s all said and done, I’ll go to my grave and my brother will greet me, saying ‘Nice work, little brother, you did all right’,” he wrote in My Cross To Bear. “If I died today, I have had me a blast.”
DAVID POLLOCK
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