Duane Allman: Encyclopedia II - Duane Allman - Formation of The Allman Brothers Band

Duane Allman - Formation of The Allman Brothers Band

The limits of full-time session playing frustrated Duane. The few months in Muscle Shoals were by no means a waste, however, because besides meeting the great artists and other industry professionals he was working with, Duane had rented a small, secluded cabin on a lake and spent many solitary hours there refining his playing. Perhaps most significantly, at FAME Duane got together with R&B and jazz drummer Johnny Lee "Jai Johanny Johannson, Jai, Jaimoe" Johnson, who came there to meet Duane at the urging of the late Otis Redding's manager, Phil Walden, who by now was managing Duane and wanted to build a three-piece band around him. Duane and Jaimoe got Chicago-born and -raised bassist Berry Oakley to come up from Florida and jam as a trio, but Berry was committed to his rock band with guitarist Dickey Betts, the Second Coming, and returned south.

Getting fed up with Muscle Shoals, in March Duane took Jaimoe with him back to Jacksonville, Florida, where they moved in with Butch Trucks. Soon a jam session of these three plus Betts, Oakley, and Reese Wynans took place and forged what all present recognized as a natural, or even magical, bond. With the addition of brother Gregg, called back from Los Angeles to sing and replace Wynans on keyboards, at the end of March 1969, the Allman Brothers Band was formed. (Wynans became well known over a decade later as organist with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble.) After a bit of rehearsing and gigging, the sextet moved up to Macon, Georgia, in April to be near Walden and his Capricorn Sound Studios.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Formation of The Allman Brothers Band", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki