Born on this day in 1946: Guitar legend Duane Allman, co-founder and leader of The Allman Brothers Band who released the classic album Eat a Peach in 1972 and had the 1973 US No.12 single ‘Ramblin Man’.
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1969, and achieved its greatest success in the early 1970s. Allman is best remembered for his brief but influential tenure in the band and in particular for his expressive slide guitar playing and inventive improvisational skills. In 2003, he was ranked number 2 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. In 2011, he was ranked number 9. His guitar tone (achieved with a Gibson Les Paul and two 50-watt bass Marshall amplifiers) was named one of the greatest of all time by Guitar Player.
A sought-after session musician both before and during his tenure with the band, Duane Allman performed with such established stars as King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Mann, Wilson Pickett, and Boz Scaggs. He also contributed greatly to the 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, by Derek and the Dominos.
Allman’s first major recording session occurred in Nashville’s RCA Studio “B”. Producer Tony Moon was recording The Vogues first album after his successful “5”O’Clock World” went Top 5, and had been recorded in that same studio. He hired Allman to play on several sides, as he wanted a more rock sound. This was in early 1966, 2 years before Duane’s Alabama success as a sideman. The Allman Joys were the house band at The Briar Patch in Nashville at the time. Allman’s playing on the two Hour Glass albums and an Hour Glass session in early 1968 at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, caught the ear of Rick Hall, owner of FAME. In November 1968 Hall bought Allman’s contract for $10,000. Allman, tired of the studio limitation, was able to play on his first album as a sessions ace with Wilson Pickett. Allman’s work on that album, Hey Jude (1968), got him hired as a full-time session musician at Muscle Shoals and brought him to the attention of other musicians, notably Eric Clapton, who later said, “I remember hearing Wilson Pickett’s ‘Hey Jude’ and just being astounded by the lead break at the end. I had to know who that was immediately – right now.”
Allman’s performance on “Hey Jude” impressed Atlantic Records producer and executive Jerry Wexler when Hall played it over the phone for him. Wexler immediately bought Allman’s recording contract from Hall and wanted to use him on sessions with Atlantic R&B artists. While at Muscle Shoals, Allman played on recordings by numerous artists, including Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Wilson Pickett, Otis Rush, Percy Sledge, Johnny Jenkins, Boz Scaggs, Delaney & Bonnie, Doris Duke and jazz flautist Herbie Mann. For his first sessions with Franklin, Allman traveled to New York where, in January 1969, he went as an audience member to the Fillmore East to see Johnny Winter and told Muscle Shoals guitarist Jimmy Johnson that in a year he’d be on that stage. That December, the Allman Brothers Band indeed played the Fillmore.
Duane Allman’s skills as a guitarist were complemented by personal qualities such as his intensity, drive and ability to draw the best out of others in making music. He is still referred to by his nickname “Skydog”.
Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident on 29th October 1971 in Macon, Georgia, when he collided with the rear of a flatbed truck that had turned in front of him.
Here he is with the Allman Brothers in a classic 1970 live performance of “Whipping Post”:
