Gregg Allman has led a tumultuous and often tragic life. Following the murder of his father shortly after his second birthday, Gregg faced the losses of his brother Duane and later his bandmates Berry Oakley, Lamar Williams and Allen Woody. Along the way, he has suffered through addiction issues as well as six broken marriages. Allman doesn’t shy away from any of these topics in his forthright new autobiography written with Alan Light, My Cross to Bear. Of course, he has achieved a great measure of career success and what makes his story so gripping is the juxtaposition between the calamitous aspects and the majestic musical ones.

_Here we present an excerpt from My Cross to Bear, a passage that looks back at a formative era for The Allman Brothers Band. Duane Allman assembled the group in March 1969, completing the lineup by inviting his younger brother to return to Jacksonville, Fla., from an extended Los Angeles sojourn. It was all fast and furious from there, with the band soon moving to Atlanta at the behest of manager Phil Walden, performing free shows in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park and soon making their initial foray into the Northeast where the group swiftly discovered an enthusiastic fanbase that remains supportive to the present. In September 1969, The Allman Brothers Band cut their debut, self-titled album at New York City’s Atlantic Studios, which featured five Gregg Allman original compositions, including “Dreams,” “Whipping Post” and “It’s Not My Cross to Bear.” _

New York City became something of a second home to the group, after the ABB performed its first gigs that same year for legendary promoter Bill Graham at the Fillmore East. The relationship with Graham would not only yield a celebrated live album but also later an invitation from the promoter to deliver the final performance at the venue on June 27, 1971. My Cross to Bear includes an image of a signed letter from Graham that reproduces his brief speech before the ABB took the stage. We follow the excerpt from the book with a transcription of that band introduction from the last evening.

When you get down to it, I was, and probably still am, the least accomplished musician in the band. By accomplished, I mean as far as theory goes, and scoring and reading music – I do none of those. The other guys in the band know more than I do about that stuff, but most of them don’t know shit about singing. They’re better on their instruments than I am on the Hammond, but only if you don’t count my voice as an instrument.

Although I worshipped Jimmy Smith, God rest him, the way I play organ is much closer to Booker T. His style kind of rubbed off on me, because he pretty much puts the gravy on the meat, like I do in the Brothers. I just try to add texture and tone to the song. I try to put flowing notes behind the staccato notes, which is something I learned when we had the Allman Joys.

My brother was rarely critical of my playing, because he knew I was fragile about that sort of thing, and music is not something that I think needs any harsh words. If you want something from another musician, playing-wise, you sure as hell want to ask for it nicely.

Duane greatly respected the fact that I was a songwriter – he knew I was a songwriter before I knew it. When I would write something, and it would still be in its raw form, he could see all the other parts. That would help when we were rehearsing, because he would say, “You all listen to what my little brother has got here,” since he already knew what the song was all about.

My brother always listened closely to me: I’d hit a lick, he’d hit the same one. I’d sing, and he’d back it. I’d hit a good lick, and he’d drive it on home in a very complementary way. Nobody has done that since the day he died. With other people, they believe that there has to be a guitar fill before and after the vocal line. Well, I’m sorry, but if you play a note so fast just to fit it in there, it’s just going to be one of a multitude of notes; it’s not going to create a lot of emotion or feeling. The longer that note or musical passage has to ring or linger, the more impact it has. Less is more, man.

When it comes to soloing, I’ve always felt you should get in, say what you have to say, and get out. One thing I love about Warren Haynes, who plays with us now, is that he’s always trying to get me to solo. Even though them two guitar players can solo from now until the fucking cows come home, he still wants me to take one.

Duane was the bandleader onstage, but he really let the band lead itself. When he held up his hand, the band stopped, because he wanted those door-slamming stops. He really believed in everybody stopping at exactly the same time, just like he wanted to start at the same time. We had some great door-slamming stops in the studio, and they need to be that way, more so than when you’re playing live, because live you can kind of trickle down to a stop and let the song just kinda die.

We’d gotten everything down to the point where we were ready to go into the studio, but our trip to New York City to record the first Allman Brothers album was a bittersweet situation. After doing three nights at a club called Ungano’s to get warmed up, we went into the studio. We were staying at the closest Holiday Inn to 1841 Broadway, which was the Atlantic Records offices. Most of Phil Walden’s acts were signed to Atlantic – everything that he had was either on Atlantic or Stax. Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, and Phil were real tight.

A man named Adrian Barber, a well-dressed gentleman from England, was going to produce the record in one of the most famous studios ever. Ray Charles had recorded on the house Hammond organ, but I set up mine instead, because I couldn’t bring myself to play on the same Hammond he’d used.

They told us, “Make good use of your time, because you have enough money for two weeks.” I remember looking at the board, and it was so antiquated and small. A red light would go on when we were recording, and it made me so nervous that I’d fuck up. Mr. Barber couldn’t understand what bugged me about that red light, but I finally unscrewed the damn thing.

No sooner do we get in there than Dickey set his guitar down and said, “Man, there ain’t no windows in this place – it’s like a padded cell.” He got his 335 unpacked, took it out, and hit a few licks. Of course it sounded dead, because there were all these baffles around. I’m not sure what song we started with, but I know “Dreams” was up toward the front, because Dickey Betts isn’t on the recording of “Dreams.” He finally packed up his guitar, didn’t say a thing, and walked out.

Butch stood up and said, “What in the hell is he doing?”

“Just leave him alone,” Duane said.

I couldn’t see what the turn-off was for him, but maybe Dickey was such a country boy that at first the studio technology was too much for him. Duane played all the guitar that you hear on “Dreams,” and then he left. Duane got Dickey to come back, and then we did the instrumental piece, “Don’t Want You No More.” My brother must have really liked Dickey, because there weren’t too many people that he would take that kind of time with.

Dickey finished the record, because he wasn’t going to be whipped, not in front of the whole group. I mean, it does happen to people – it’s like taking a little kid out of Sri Lanka and throwing him into a Publix.

I was very unhappy with the vocal sound on the first record. I’ve always wanted to recut the vocals. They were recorded with the regular old tape echo “Heartbreak Hotel” setting. That was the one thing where me and Adrian Barber – who was actually an engineer and had never produced a record before – did not see eye to eye, but I didn’t want to rock the boat, so it’s my own fault.

Overall, I felt that we had been rushed through an artistic piece that was only about halfway done. The songs were all written, but we hadn’t road-tested all of them, so I wasn’t sure about all the different phrasings. When you’re that new at it, two weeks is just not long enough – especially if you’ve got a couple of guys in the band who have never been in a studio. It really slows things down, because you’ve got to explain so much and it’s confusing at first. I’ve never seen anybody go into a studio who didn’t think it was a weird way to go about recording music.

I knew that record wasn’t going to make it. We didn’t spend enough time on it, we didn’t refine it enough, and we were better than that. Phil Walden gave us a pocketful of change, enough for hot dogs and recording, pinned it to our shirts, and sent us on our way. When it came out at the end of 1969, it just barely grazed the charts – No. 188 with an anchor.

We went back up to the Tea Party four or five more times later in the year, and after the last time, we stopped off for three shows back in New York at Ungano’s, and then did a gig at Ludlow Garage in Cincinnati. They had rocking chairs in there and a concrete floor. That first time, the fucking place was empty, but eventually we saved that club from going under two or three times.

It was in the last week in December 1969 that we played the Fillmore East for the first time. Man, that venue was something special, and we always had a special connection to it. The acoustics in there were incredible – the kind of perfect sound you almost never get. There was this large, open main floor area where you could just look out at the crowd, and then up above was this killer balcony – all together the place could fit a couple thousand people. Once upon a time it had been a Yiddish theater, but I can’t think of a better place to play music.

Having been to the Village a few times by then, I loved it there, and I loved this guy Bill Graham because he was such a straight shooter with us. There were never any confrontations, and he always came back and shook our hands, telling us that we had put on a hell of a great show. He would ask us if we thought the light show was okay, and if there was anything he could to make the show better.

Iconic promoter Bill Graham invited The Allman Brothers Band to deliver the final performance at the Fillmore East on June 27, 1971. (The group appeared following The Beach Boys, who became disgruntled after discovering that they would not be the closing act. My Cross to Bear includes an image of a signed letter from Graham that reproduces his brief speech before the ABB took the stage.

“The last few days, we have had the privilege of working with this particular group. And in the past year or so, we’ve had them on both coasts a number of times. And in all that time, I’ve never heard the kind of music that this group plays. And last night, we had the good fortune of having them get on stage about two-thirty, three o’clock and they walked out of here [at] seven o’clock in the morning. And it’s not just that they played quantity, and for my amateur ears, in all my life I have never heard the kind of music that this group plays – the finest contemporary music. We’re going to round it off with the best of them all, The Allman Brothers Band.”