By Jas Obrecht
October 1981 & August 1989 |
| During an amazingly fertile five-year career, Duane Allman metamorphosed from a teenager struggling for a psychedelic sound to the foremost slide guitarist of the day. Twenty years later, the importance of his great works the Allman Brothers Band's classics At Fillmore East and Eat a Peach, Derek & The Dominos' Layla, and a handful of studio R&B and rock tracks remains undiminished. Duane mastered bottleneck guitar as no one had before, applying it to blues and taking it to a very melodic, free-form context. He brought the style new freedom and elegance, and for many he is still considered the source for blues/rock slide. |
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| As the founding and spiritual father of the Allman Brothers Band surely one of the best rock acts of the era Duane became the figurehead of a musical style known as "the sound of the South." With the Allman Brothers, he carried a deep-felt love for his native music especially that of black bluesmen to a rock audience, just as British guitarists had a few years earlier. Having learned his blues-based playing firsthand in the South, he had a more authentic feel than many contemporaries who had learned only through records. With co-lead Dickey Betts, Allman also helped popularize the use of melodic twin-guitar harmony and counterpoint lines. |
| Fortunately, Duane's playing is documented on close to 40 albums, many of these studio projects done as lead guitarist for the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. As a sideman, Allman added a compelling, natural feel and distinctiveness to whatever he played on. (A good sampling of his studio work was released by Capricorn as Duane Allman: An Anthology and An Anthology, Vol. II.) According to Jerry Wexler, who as VP for Atlantic Records used Duane on many sessions, "He was a complete guitar player. He could give you whatever you needed. He could do everything play rhythm, lead, blues, slide, bossanova with a jazz feeling, beautiful light acoustic and on slide he got the touch. A lot of slide players sound sour. To get clear intonation with the right overtones that's the mark of genius. Duane is one of the greatest guitar players I ever knew. He was one of the very few who could hold his own with the best of the black blues players, and there are very few you can count them on the fingers of one hand if you've got three fingers missing." |
| Friends describe Duane as an inspiration, a proud, likable man whose presence immediately drew attention and whose artistry profoundly influenced those who worked with him. He was an original, as unafraid to take chances onstage as he was in other sides of his life. By all accounts, he lived for music and the pleasure his playing brought people. |
| Howard Duane Allman was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 20, 1946. His only sibling, Gregg, was born a year later. Their father was killed while they were young, and the boys were raised by their mother, Geraldine. They attended Castle |
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