Allman’s death ends band’s saga

There was never any “glam” to the Allman Brothers Band. These guys were the quintessential faded jeans and scuffed boots blues-rockers, so unpretentious that Jimmy Buffett’s classic line “I guess I never was meant for glitter rock and roll” might have been written for them, or by them. The strut of a Mick Jagger, the gymnastics of a young Pete Townshend or the pyrotechnics of a “Ziggy Stardust”-era David Bowie weren’t the Allmans’ style.

As long as Gregg Allman was around, some version of the Allman Brothers was possible, for better or worse, and over the band’s long and storied history we’ve heard both.

What will endure is not just the better, but some of rock’s all-time best.

The Allman Brothers’ body of work is now a wrap. Co-founder, songwriter, lead singer and keyboard player Gregg Allman, for years plagued by health problems brought on in large part by hard living, died Saturday in Savannah at 69, from what his manager Michael Lehman said was liver cancer.

In many ways Gregg Allman’s life, like the checkered history of the Hall of Fame band that bears his and his late brother Duane’s name, was star-crossed. But the lines separating bad luck, bad choices and bad behavior aren’t always that clear, especially in the hedonistic realm of rock.

As Gregg wrote in his 2012 autobiography “My Cross to Bear,” the brothers got involved in guitar rock in their teens, with Duane ultimately proving the better guitarist and Gregg subsequently taking up the keyboard. After years of musical anonymity, a self-titled debut album in 1969 put the Allman Brothers on the radar, and their blockbuster 1971 recording of live performances from the Fillmore East in New York remains a rock landmark.

The euphoria was short-lived. Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident only months later, a tragedy from which Gregg said he never really recovered. (The next year, bassist Berry Oakley met the same fate.)

Allman’s bizarre marriage to singer Cher in 1975 seemed, and apparently was, an ill-fated pairing of opposites — the flamboyant diva known for outrageous outfits and the low-key Southern musician whose outrageousness came mostly in the form of destructive self-indulgence. Allman conceded in a 1977 magazine interview that his substance abuse had probably doomed the marriage to collapse.

The band itself collapsed in 1980, but would periodically reassemble through the years — most triumphantly for the 2003 studio album “Hittin’ the Note” featuring guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, nephew of original Allmans drummer Butch Trucks. The band, in variations of that configuration, continued to perform successfully and to critical acclaim in the years to follow.

Allman attributed the sobriety he achieved in the 1990s to a newfound faith in God, but decades of abuse necessitated a liver transplant in 2010.

The cancer that ultimately claimed Gregg Allman’s life, manager and friend Lehman said, was something he kept “very private, because he wanted to continue to play music until he couldn’t.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2017 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Allman’s death ends band’s saga."