The Allman Brothers Story

"Why? Because I still have my wits about me? Because I can still play? Well that's the key right there. We'd all have turned into fucking vegetables if we hadn't been able to get out there and play. That's when the success was, Jack. Success was being able to keep your brain inside your head."

Duane and Gregory Allman were born in 1946 and 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee, just as the city was experiencing its first studio-building boom. In 1949, the boys' father, an Army first lieutenant, returned home from the Korean War for the holidays. The day after Christmas, he picked up a hitch-hiker. . .who murdered him.

"You've got to consider why anybody wants to become a musician anyway," Gregg says. "I played for peace of mind."

The boys' mother, Geraldine "Mama" Allman, went to school and became a CPA. "Somebody suggested that she put us in an orphanage. She politely told them to fuck off and we went to Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee. I couldn't get it on in school worth a shit."

In 1958, the family moved to Daytona Beach, Florida. In the summer of 1960, 13-year-old Gregg took a summer job as a paperboy. "Worked all summer and cleared 21 bucks. It was getting toward the end of summer, the mornings were getting colder and I was in Sears and Roebuck to get some gloves with the money when I strolled by the guitar department and fell in love with those beauties. Found one that was $21.95 and the bastard behind the counter wouldn't let me have it. I came back the next day, got it, and proceeded to wear that son of a bitch out. I wouldn't eat or sleep or drink or anything. Just play that damn guitar."

The same summer, Duane Allman bought his first motorcycle, a small Harley. Gregg remembers the bike with a bittersweet smile and a small shake of the head. "Duane was sure a bastard when he was a kid," Gregg says with real admiration. "He quit school, I don't know how many times. Got thrown out a few times too. But he had that motorcycle and drove it until it finally just fell apart. When it did, he quit school. While i was gone, he'd grab my axe and start picking. Pretty soon we had fights over the damn thing, so when it came around to our birthdays — mine was in December and his was in November — we both got one. I got mine a little earlier than my birthday, actually. Matter of fact, I put hands on my first electric guitar November 10th, 1960, at three o'clock that Saturday afternoon, Duane's guitar got into the picture shortly after that."

Gregg gave the Sears guitar to a family friend and it is probably still somewhere in Daytona Beach the way Gregg last saw it; painted flat black with gold strings on it and containing two potted plants.

The Allmans took their electric guitars to led Connors, "a really intense cat who knew how to teach. He's probably still down there. He didn't teach any of that bullshit minute waltz business. I said, 'Man, I want to learn some goddamn Chuck Berry music!". . .and he taught me."

While Gregg muttered and cursed his way through Sea Breeze Senior High School. "Duane stayed at home in the woodshed and got very good. Very fast. The local R&B station was always on and he had some old Kenny Burrell, Robert Johnson and Chuck Berry albums that he'd listen to over and over again to get the structure down. Duane Allman was the best guitar player. I ever heard who didn't read a note."