No. 395: Losing A Brother

Gregg Allman by Tom Wills, pencil/graphite, December 2017

Gregg Allman was this white boy’s introduction to the blues. Such a soulful voice.  Such a graceful touch on the piano.  Such a heavy lean into that Hammond organ.
Off the top of my head, my Top Five are “Ain’t Wasting Time No More.” “Win, Lose or Draw.”  “Whipping Post.” “Queen of Hearts” and “Oncoming Traffic.”

I discovered Gregg Allman long after his brother Duane had died in 1971 in a motorcycle crash. Duane, the more well-known Allman in the early years because of his session work on the guitar, brought his little brother into the band because he needed his words and his soulfulness.
"My brother, Duane, could not sing," Gregg told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2013. "He said, 'You have to learn to do something.' So I started to sing.”

But I never thought that the sum was greater than its parts. In fact I think Gregg’s solo work holds up better than a lot of the Brothers’ stuff. It just scratches the itch deeper, for me.
I was sitting on the front porch sipping a beer this summer when word came that Gregg had died. He was 69 and had been the only living brother for 46 years.
A lot of the idiot broadcasters chose the Allman Brothers’ hit “Ramblin’ Man” to eulogize him — a song written by the guitarist Dickey Betts, whom the band had fired in 2000.

Of course all of the stories mentioned his demons after applauding his music: alcohol, drugs, Hepatitis C, liver transplant. It was cancer in that new liver that got him.
A life lived hard, for sure, lending authenticity to those lyrics.

Still, I did not rush into the house to play Allman music. I never do, when my heroes die.  It’s too soon, and it just makes me feel old.
But I knew that eventually I would draw him, as I had done many other stellar performers in music and stage who have gone to their next venue.

I played a little music as this drawing emerged, but mostly I watched online and replayed an instructive Big Interview with Dan Rather from 2015. Gregg uncorks a gorgeous reading of “Oncoming Traffic” on his home piano and seems at peace with himself, having beaten his many demons, especially the cigarettes.

"Tell me when, when is my ship gonna come in
I ain't cold, I ain't hungry, gotta little money to spend
But a man cannot live oh no, on riches alone
He needs love, friendship and a home
Without these he stands alone, oh" *

He was a boy who grew up in Daytona Beach without a father, who was killed by a hitchhiker when Allman was 2. He taught his famous older brother how to play guitar. Their mother died  in 2015 at 98, after that Rather interview.

I could have drawn Gregg Allman in his prime, with that gorgeous straight blond hair that every interviewer sought to touch, with that flashy smile and rail thin body. But instead I drew him from a video still culled from that Rather interview, when he seemed to know time was tight yet chose not to wallow in the sadnesses of his living.
It was a difficult drawing -- there's still a lot of hair, and the face shows its years.
I chose an antique frame with just enough flourish and dignity to befit a Southern musician.

"There's a great comfort in the music itself … It helps get you through the darkest times. I hope on my death bed that I'm learning a new chord or writing a new song,” Allman told The Los Angeles Times — 30 years ago.

* Janice B. Allman, Gregg L. Allman / Unichappell Music Inc., Elijah Blue Music  (Janice was the second of his six wives - she married him in 1973 and they divorced in 1975.)

This illustration is available for purchase. Contact willstom01@gmail.com