Had he lived, Duane Allman would’ve turned 79 on November 20, 2025.1
His was a truly remarkable, meteoric career.
Here is the message I’ve sent out the last few years on Duane’s birthday.2
Duane Allman
“Music is like a newspaper for people that can’t read. Rock & roll will tell you right where everything’s at. It’s just something to move your feet, man, and move your heart and make you feel good inside—forget about all the bullshit that’s going on for a while and fill up some of the dead space.”
Duane had a tremendous impact on those he encountered.
He inspired his bandmates and those around him.
Gregg Allman
“My brother, he had more faith in us than I ever did. He would push me and push me. He would say, ‘No, man! We’re better than all of them!’ and I would say, ‘Fuck you, man! How can you sit here and say that? Every corner you turn, man, someone’s gonna wipe your ass playing music.’ He didn’t seem to think that way.”
Butch Trucks
“He set fire to whoever he was working with. And that’s what he did to us. I mean, he was very much a messiah type. Duane never finished high school, but he was one of the more educated people I knew. He said, ‘Damn, I’m smarter than these people,’ so he went and got the books.”
Dickey Betts
“We had an immense amount of respect for each other, to the point where it was almost like, Don’t push me too far! I didn’t push him and he didn’t push me. We talked about being jealous of each other and how dangerous it was to think that way, and that we had to fight that feeling when we were onstage. He’d say, ‘When I listen to you play, I have to try hard to keep the jealousy thing at bay and not try to out-do you when I play my solo. But I still want to play my best!’ We’d laugh about what a thin line that was. We learned a lot from each other. When you think about it, I was only 25 and Duane was 23, and the things we were talking about were pretty mature for guys our age. Duane was one tough, cocksure guy. He had a strong belief in himself, and he was damn good. I was damn good too; I just didn’t believe in myself the way Duane did. It wasn’t until a few years later that I thought, Well, I guess I am pretty good too.”
Derek Trucks
“It was his band and in a very real way it still is his band. With the guys that knew him who are still in the band you can see Duane’s presence and shadow moving at times. They’re very conscious of his original intention. It still guides the band in a way. He was such a powerful musical persona, such a powerful personality. Some of the ground rules he laid down 40 years ago are still driving the ship. That’s a serious presence.”
David Hood (The Swampers)
“He was the first hippie I ever met. The rest of us had short hair and button-down collars. Even though we were in the music business, we looked pretty straight. All of a sudden this guy comes in with bellbottom pants and long hair and the mutton-chop sideburns and flowered shirts and everything. Duane was like a guy from another planet, almost. He was so different from the rest of us.”
Bill Graham
“What you got with Duane was what you get from those few guys who…yeah, they’ve got all that technical stuff down, but he really got the essence of what the Black man, the Black musician, gave us. That’s the soulful aspect of picking, and all the technical prowess in the world doesn’t give you that. I don’t want to disrespect any artist. I can give you some half a dozen guitar players that the world thinks, you know, are the cat’s meow. But there’s no soul; it’s dipped in water, it’s not dipped in soul of any kind. They can make those riffs work—but that’s all they are. And musicians knew that! Otis Redding knew that, Aretha Franklin knows that, and Ray Charles knows that! And Duane was one of those players who had the technical proficiency, but never sold it. He never sold anything on his guitar. There was no, ‘Can you top this?’ He never tried to beat you. He always wanted to play with you. I remember Eric Clapton told me years ago that one of the things he loved about Duane was he just wanted to play with you—he didn’t try to show you anything.”
Red Dog
“He was like the Pied Piper. I didn’t even know how to listen to music back in those days. I danced a lot, but music just took up space in the room. But from the minute I heard Duane Allman play, my ears just opened up. I heard him on “The Weight.” Of course, I didn’t even know that was him. It was just a lick with Duane playing slide, and I just loved the way that sounded. Then I heard him play live and it just opened my ears up even further. His charisma and straightforwardness would just reach out and grab you and suck you right into him.”
Rick Hall (FAME Studios)
“Duane Allman had the ability very pleasantly to get his way with people. He was convinced that Wilson Pickett should record a cover version of the Beatles’ song ‘Hey Jude.’ Wilson said, ‘Are you crazy? The Beatles have released it, it’s in the 20s, it’ll be number 1 in two weeks.’ Duane replied, ‘That’s the whole point. I mean, it shows we’ve got balls. We’ll cover The Beatles, the biggest thing in the world. This is going to get the world’s attention that you, as a black act, have the guts to cut the same record which The Beatles have got out and that you think you can have a hit record with it.’ Which is, of course, exactly what happened. That’s how Duane thought, which was an incredible attitude to have towards our business and our world.”
Paul Hornsby (Hour Glass bandmate)
“Duane was crazy—which helps. He was always nine steps ahead of himself and everybody else. He was just a real hyper guy. He was the kind of guy that you felt had something to say. He was always on the cutting edge of everything—from the clothes he wore to the music he played to the books he read. When he said something, everybody listened. When you heard him say something, some of it might be bullshit, but it was always interesting bullshit. “He was the kind of guy who could walk into a room and he had that charisma about him that caused everybody to notice him. Of course, in those early days, shoulder-length reddish-blond hair itself was quite a striking thing. Coming out of Alabama or Florida at that time, you would tend to notice somebody like that anyway. But he was noticed when we got to L.A., too.”
Jerry Wexler (Atlantic Records)
“There seemed to be no end to his resource, his musical roots. He had originality, taste, sensitivity. I started to use him on a number of different recordings and it’s very interesting to see the scope of his playing. Duane could play great acoustic, he could play bossa nova, he could play jazz, he could give you Wes Montgomery licks. He could play any kind of session. Country. Great slide—he taught a lot of people how to play slide guitar, or at least began them on the road.”
Lagniappes
Long Live the ABB/Youtube Shorts youtube.com/@longlivetheabb/shorts. I’ve been posting daily here. Y’all might dig some of it.
Tedeschi Trucks Band St. Augustine Amphitheatre October 25, 2025. The last show of the tour. I wrote about it here: Life is short, buy the tickets.
Gregg Allman “Oncoming Traffic” Beacon Theatre, 3/19/05. I found this fantastic Herb Kossover photo and set it to one of my ABBsolute favorite Gregg tunes.
Thanks for reading
Until next time…
The very day I’m composing this.
