If you are too young to remember what Duane Allman could do to a guitar, forgive me for saying that you are not a complete human being. Rolling Stone ranks Duane as the number two best guitarist ever, behind Jimi Hendrix. However, I bet even Jimi would argue that. Duane could turn a guitar into a different kind of instrument from what everyone else was playing.
Remember Eric Clapton’s gut-wrenching “Layla”? That’s not Clapton up front, that’s Duane Allman pouring out what may be the most classic opening riff in rock history. His talent was in heavy demand long before Greg and The Allman Brothers Band came along. You can hear Duane’s bleeding guitar on hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Delaney and Bonnie, Johnny Jenkins, Boz Skaggs, John Hammond and King Curtis. Pickett gave Duane the name “Skyman” because he :played in the stratosphere”; his friends called him “Dog” because of his shaggy hair. He ended up as “Skydog.”
Things certainly took off when Duane, Gregg, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Berry Oakley and Johnny Lee (known as Jaimoe) got together and cranked out The Allman Brothers Band, Live At Fillmore East and Eat a Peach before Duane was killed in a motorcycle crash. For a Southern boy who wanted to play guitar, that was really the day the music died.
Amazing guitarists have a history of untimely deaths. Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Kurt Cobain all come to mind. I have friends in Texas who can tell you what they were doing the moment they heard that Stevie Ray Vaughn was killed in a plane crash. The Allman Brothers lost two members a year apart: Duane and Berry Oakley, both almost at the exact spot on the same road in Macon, Georgia.
Seeing Duane play was like watching Jesus being crucified. Hearing him play was like being crucified yourself. He slayed the audience with that electric machine he held so passionately. Closing his eyes like he was praying, his face would wince through those famous muttonchops and he’d writhe his rail-thin form back and forth, mouth agape, sometimes gazing down at his Les Paul or Gibson like he was in awe of the sound coming out of his fingers. The music would turn those big Marshall amps into the heavenly gates and the faithful came to worship.
There was a time back in the day when people called Eric Clapton “God” because of his immense talent and skill with a guitar. And yet Clapton’s most famous riff is played by Duane Allman. So if Clapton is God, what position does Duane hold?
Duane did a lot of things unlike other guitarists. He was left-handed but played guitar right-handed (it gave his frets that powerful bending and vibrato). If he had played his natural left, Rolling Stone would have needed two lists – one for Duane alone, and one for everyone else.
He worked the strings in a unique circular fashion where only his two fingers holding the pick moved, leaving his hand still. A lot of guitarists would give up three fingers to have those two of Duane’s.
When he’d play slide, he used a glass Coricidin medicine bottle (like he’d seen Taj Mahal do years earlier) but never his pick, preferring his naked fingers to curl the strings like Aunt Lela’s hair after a good rain. Bonnie Raitt and Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd picked up this sliding from Duane.
At a time when radio was playing short little sprints, Duane was playing marathons, and so The Allman Brothers Band didn’t get as much air time as some artists. If you saw him on stage, you’d forget what they played on the radio anyway. Some of this is evident in the albums. These guys played as long as the spirit moved them and the spirit could move Duane for a good, long time.
Listen to Midnight Rider, Little Martha, One Way Out, Trouble No More, You Don’t Love Me or Hot ‘Lanta and you’ll love Duane Allman. Listen to Whipping Post, Statesboro Blues and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and you will understand. Put all of them in on a long drive through the Deep South and you will find your car pointing toward Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia.
