Backstage before the eighth night of the Allman Brothers Band's recent 15-night run of shows at New York's Beacon Theatre, 61-year-old drummer Butch Trucks can barely contain his excitement about tonight's secret guest. "We've been trying to do this for 40 years!" he says, referring to the first time the Allmans will share a stage with Eric Clapton. "He's been borrowing our guitar players since the Layla record," says Gregg Allman with a chuckle. "So he kinda owed us."

For two nights,...

The accent comes up out of Nashville, by way of Georgia, makes a dash across the States and ends up vaguely California. He sounds a bit like Kris Kristofferson; looks uncannily like his late brother, Duane. The hotel television is on; the sound is off. It is late, and the black and white movie — something surely about horror and death at this small hour — glows up on Gregg Allman's tired face like a moonscape in Macon's Rose Hill Cemetery.

Rose Hill is where the band —...

For jam-band devotees, life has been a major buzz kill the past few years: Phish and the Dead broke up in 2004, and Gregg Allman's recent bout with hepatitis C forced the Allman Brothers Band to cancel their annual residency at New York's Beacon Theatre last year. But to the surprise of even the most die-hard fans, all three of the scene's biggest acts will be back on the road this spring.

After reuniting at the wedding of their road manager last fall, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Jon Fishman...