Turn Down the Music and Read: One Way Out

Face It #WhereILivedWednesday: Haidhauser Straße

Turn Down the Music and Read: One Way Out

Here’s the problem when you self-designate as someone who has a professional interest in the field of Music: you spend most of your time realizing that what you possess is only a tiny pinpoint of knowledge, a single note in a never-ending orchestra of sound. There are expanses so vast and deep of Stuff To Know About Music that you don’t even know what you don’t know.

Case in point: The Allman Brothers Band.

When a publicist offered me a review copy of “One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band” (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) by Alan Paul, a senior writer for Guitar World magazine, I knew only three things about the band.

1. One of the brothers dated Cher.

2. They are not the Almond Brothers. (Only had to learn that once, circa 1978.)

3. They sing “Ramblin’ Man.”

So when I sat down with Paul’s book, I had plenty to learn. And what an awesome textbook.

Paul interviewed and wrote about the Allman Brothers Band and their Southern Rock roots hundreds of times, so we’re in good hands from Page 1. His knowledge of everything ABB shows in the masterful way he stitches together the interviews with bandmates, roadies, managers, and significant others and then steps out of the way, letting the principals tell the story. First person recollections of how the six bandmates came together and created their distinctive Southern-tinged psychedelic and bluesy sound reminded me a little of a Rube Goldberg machine. All the disparate personalities came together to form an elegant, if improbable single unit. (There’s a helpful guide at the front of the book to the characters contributing their memories, to which I referred repeatedly.)

The stories live up to the “Wild music, wild women, wild times” reputation that followed the band wherever it went. And sadly for the band and its fans, those wild times led to one tragedy after the next, from the untimely deaths of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley to multiple drug overdoses to alcoholism and even murder. It’s hard to conceive of a band in the 21st century getting up to these kinds of hijinks without their manager, Dr. Phil, or the long arm of Twitter shutting the party down.

The “oral history” approach has its faults, though Paul can’t be held accountable; when three different people remember the same incident in different ways, I tend to think it’s more the residual effects of the drugs or age. Either Duane Allman either repeatedly pestered his younger brother to join his new band as a vocalist, or Gregg got a single phone call and went. Similarly, Gregg either hitchhiked down to Macon, GA, where the new band was crammed together on mattresses in a one bedroom apartment, or he flew, or he sold a car and bought a one-way ticket to Jacksonville. As I like to say when my own deteriorating memory is called into question: the details don’t matter! Just the big things! Gregg somehow joined forces with Duane, and the rest is history.

Through the years and the deaths and the in-fighting, the Allman Brothers Band has managed to survive, testament to the strength of the music itself. They’re with three of the original bandmembers, Greg Allman (that was Cher’s guy), Jaimoe, and Butch Trucks. In fact they’ve been around long enough that ABB is now a two-generation band, with guitarist Derek Trucks joining his dad onstage.

I was probably born too late for ABB’s music to have a nostalgic grip on me. But thanks to the masterful writing in “One Way Out,” I was more than happy to take the (Midnight) ride.

St. Martin’s has graciously offered to send a copy of One Way Out to a Midlife Mixtape reader! All you have to do to enter is leave the name of your favorite Allman Brothers song below; it’s all in service to schooling me more on the band, see. I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, March 25 at 5 pm PST.