The Allman Brothers Band entertained millions with their unique mix of blues, Southern rock,
and good old-fashioned rock star drama.
Between numerous deaths, drugs galore, massive infighting, and celebrity marriages, the story
of the Allman Brothers is so much more than their records.
The Allman Brothers certainly weren't the only band to do drugs and live the rock star
life to excess.
But they took their drugs-and-money lifestyle to a level few bands can even dream of, and
if you pitched their real-life issues to a Hollywood studio, they'd probably reject you
for being cartoonishly unrealistic.
As Gregg Allman recounted in his memoir, My Cross to Bear, as the Allman Brothers got
more successful, they increasingly devoted themselves full time to drugs, rock 'n' roll
craziness, and more drugs.
Cocaine in particular was huge among the group, and they spent almost literal truckloads of
money on the white stuff.
As Allman recounted, one time they played a 41-day tour that paid $80,000 per show.
You don't need to be a mathematician to know that equals a whole lot of money — well
over $3 million — and yet by the time the tour was through, the band had managed to
hold on to a meager $100,000.
That's what happens when you live a life so excessive that, as Allman himself said, quote,
"Our roadies had roadies."
And then there was the jet they bought, because of course they did.
The story gets even better: allegedly, when they arrived for their first flight the crew
had spelled out "Welcome Allman Brothers" on the bar using cocaine.
When Rolling Stone asked him just how much he spent on his drug habit, he had this to
say:
"I spent quite a bit.
Dealers that like musicians, they'll come and just lay anything on you.
[...] Just like the little rhyme goes: 'The first one's free and the second one's on me.'
And the third one, you pay for."
Don't expect anyone in the Allman Brothers Band to give a lecture on fiscal responsibility.
Few bands have dealt with more death and tragedy than the Allman Brothers starting on October
29, 1971, when Duane Allman, Gregg's brother and the young group's heart and soul, lost
his life at the age of 24.
Even by rock 'n' roll standards, Duane Allman died way too young.
As reported by Rolling Stone, Allman was riding his motorcycle down a Georgia road when he
attempted to swerve past a truck.
He lost control of the motorcycle and was pinned beneath it, skidding at least 50 feet.
Despite several hours of surgery, Allman died in the hospital.
He left behind a grieving brother and bandmates, along with millions of saddened fans.
There's no telling what he would have contributed to music had he survived, but considering
how, despite his short life, he still gave us "Midnight Rider," it's safe to say he had
a ton of great music — and life — left in him.
Of all the people affected by Duane Allman's all-too-early death, nobody was more devastated
than the band's bassist, Berry Oakley.
Then, on November 11, 1972, just slightly over a year after Allman's death, something
heartbreakingly eerie happened.
Oakley was riding his motorcycle in Macon, Georgia.
Coincidentally or intentionally, he was only a few blocks away from where Allman had his
fatal accident.
Like Allman, Oakley lost control of his motorcycle and collided with another vehicle.
Later that day, after initially refusing medical treatment, he passed away from a fractured
skull and cerebral swelling.
He, like Allman, was just 24 when he died.
As drummer Butch Trucks recalled in his blog,
"I don't think Berry really knew how to exist in a world without Duane.
The sparkle that was Berry was simply gone."
By all accounts, it seems the only thing Berry truly cared about since Duane's death was
being with Duane again.
Berry Oakley was buried next to him in Macon.
As the Allman Brothers grew more successful, certain members became bona-fide celebrities
as well as musicians.
Gregg Allman took that status to its logical extreme, entering into a high-profile celebrity
marriage that was doomed from the start and made nobody happy.
In 1975, pop superstar Cher finalized her incredibly messy divorce from Sonny Bono.
At the same time, she kicked off a fling with Allman, who wrote in his memoir:
"She smelled like I would imagine a mermaid would smell — I've never smelled it since,
and I'll never forget it."
Just a few days after Cher's divorce was finalized, they headed off to Vegas to tie the knot.
But just nine days later, Cher filed papers to end the marriage.
The reason?
According to Cher, she was unable to deal with Gregg Allman's abundant drug and alcohol
use.
They got back together a month later, and even had a child together, but Cher and Allman
simply weren't a good match for each other.
Cher reuniting with Bono for a new TV show didn't help matters, and the two were separated
in 1977 and divorced in 1979.
Allman later admitted:
"There was no future for us because she has that constant paranoia of [my] going back
to alcohol."
Plenty of rock acts deal with the occasional drug bust — it comes with the territory,
after all.
But in 1976, the Allman Brothers dealt with a bust so bad, it stopped the band dead in
its tracks for years and linked them to organized crime.
It started with Scooter Herring, who was Gregg Allman's personal road manager.
Part of his job description was to hook the band up with their drugs, and unfortunately
for them, Herring was said to have gotten his drugs as part of a drug ring run by a
notorious mobster named J.C. Hawkins.
Cocaine is always a bad idea, and getting it through the mob is an even worse one.
The FBI didn't like it very much either, and Herring was targeted as a drug-running middle-man.
Allman initially tried to snuff the investigation by refusing to talk, but the feds told him
he'd go to prison for perjury.
They offered him immunity in exchange for his testimony, and Herring apparently persuaded
Allman to take it.
Allman wasn't keen on doing it, though, telling Rolling Stone,
"It was terrible.
I was up against the wall, I was in the corner, backed in the corner."
The jury convicted Herring and the judge gave him 75 years in prison, although his conviction
was overturned on appeal in 1978.
To some of the Allman Brothers Band, the testimony was unforgivable and akin to snitching.
The band splintered briefly, and as for Allman, he found himself under police protection after
receiving death threats.
It's a sad and often tragic fact of life: everyone with an addiction issue eventually
faces rock bottom.
"Serious drinking.
I would have to drink…
I mean, I would drink about a quart of vodka every day of my life.”
For Gregg Allman, that came in 1995, spread out over an agonizing, embarrassing five days.
As Allman recounted in My Cross To Bear, the week the Allman Brothers were inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a terrible one for him.
He later described the major impact it had on him, writing,
"... it should have been the greatest week of my life, but instead I hit an all-time
low.
… I was out of it - mentally, emotionally and spiritually."
He celebrated the honor by getting stone-cold drunk for the entire week.
The band made two late-night TV appearances, one for Conan O'Brien and the other for David
Letterman.
With the latter, he recalls looking especially bad, and it was a miracle he even made it
through the set.
He knew it, too, later saying of the Letterman gig, quote, "I don't even recognize the guy
singing 'Midnight Rider.'"
He didn't even make it to the rehearsal for their Hall of Fame performance, and come the
actual induction, Allman was there physically, but that was about it.
Still drunk as ever, he completely blanked on his planned speech and spoke for just 14
seconds about his brother before wandering away.
Allman was so embarrassed by his appearances that he vowed to get his life together, and
started rehab not long afterward.
"I kicked heroin, cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes… and that's about enough.”
It takes a lot to get fired from a hard-partying band for partying too hard, but that appears
to be at least one reason founding member Dickey Betts hasn't been in the Allman Brothers
since 2000.
To hear Betts tell it during a 2017 Rolling Stone interview, he was ousted from the band
because he dared to demand an audit of the band's money from their manager, Bert Holman.
But to hear band members like Jaimoe Johanson tell it, they gave Betts an ultimatum because
he had simply become impossible to deal with and continued drinking and partying as much
as he ever had, in spite of his insistence that lifestyle was going to end.
Johanson told Rolling Stone,
"He would say, 'I need to go get myself straight,' and that's what he would do.
This time he didn't do it.
He didn't get fired.
He quit."
That, coupled with what the band perceived as his unbearable, bossy, take-charge attitude,
meant everything finally came to a head and ended when Betts says he "retired".
In the past decade, the Allman Brothers have been dealing more and more with death, for
various reasons.
The years 2011 and 2013 saw the respective passings of drummer David "Frankie" Toler
and his brother, guitarist Dan Toler, at the too-young ages of 59 and 65.
The Tolers weren't founding members, joining the band during their first reunion in 1980.
The band broke up two years later, but the Tolers remained at Gregg Allman's side, touring
with his solo act, the Gregg Allman Band.
Sadly, by 2009 Frankie's health was giving out, and he underwent surgery to receive a
liver transplant.
On June 4, 2011, he passed away from his illness while in hospice care.
That same year, Dan was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
He succumbed to his illness in February 2013.
Even though they officially said farewell three years earlier, 2017 was truly the end
for some tragic reasons.
The first death that year was Claude "Butch" Trucks, a founding member, one of the band's
two original drummers, and one of the few band members to stick around from beginning
to end.
In January of that year, according to the Miami Herald, the 69-year-old Trucks took
his own life.
His wife, Melinda, immediately dialed 911, telling the dispatcher she had just seen her
husband shoot himself.
Paramedics arrived, but Trucks died at the scene shortly after.
Gregg Allman, reacted in a statement with:
"I'm heartbroken.
I've lost another brother and it hurts beyond words.
… He was a great man and a great drummer and I'm going to miss him forever.
Rest In Peace Brother Butch."
It wasn't long before they met again.
In 2017, more than four decades after Duane Allman's untimely death, the 69-year-old Gregg
joined him once again.
Allman had lived a hard-partying life for decades, and starting in 2007 his lifestyle
began to take its toll.
That year he contracted Hepatitis C, something he blamed on a dirty tattoo needle.
He ended up needing a liver transplant, and around the same time he also started experiencing
an irregular heartbeat that forced him to go both vegan and gluten-free.
In 2016, he started postponing, then outright canceling, shows and cited various reasons
for doing so.
"I just, over a period of about three years, I realized it was just a chore to get up and
move.”
Most likely, the unspecified health problems that were taking a toll on him was the liver
cancer that would eventually take his life.
In May of 2017, he succumbed to that cancer, dying in his Savannah, Georgia home.
Even though his life was crazed, turbulent, and often tragic, Allman repeatedly insisted
that he had no regrets.
Like he said in My Cross To Bear,
"When it's all said and done, I'll go to my grave and my brother will greet me saying,
'Nice work, little brother - you did all right.'
I must have said this a million times, but if I died today, I've had me a blast.
I wouldn't trade [my life] for nobody's, but I don't know if I'd do it again.
If somebody offered me a second round, I think I'd have to pass on it."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).