The Freight Train

Butch Trucks as a musical visionary

Welcome to Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture.

Today’s post is brought to you by Frogwings¹, Butch Trucks’s psychedelic side project that included, among others, ABB percussionist Marc Quiñones and future Allman Brothers Oteil Burbridge, Derek Trucks, and Jimmy Herring.²

Here’s “Kickin’ Bach” from the very first Frogwings tour— 5/28/97 at the Covered Dish in Gainesville, Florida.³ You’re welcome.

I was fortunate to see this lineup the very next night in Orlando. It was also the first time I saw the Derek Trucks Band.⁴ I caught Frogwings once more, May 1998 in West Palm Beach. It turned out to be the final show for Edwin McCain—and the only time I saw Kofi in the lineup.

In 1999, John Popper joined, and Frogwings recorded its only album, Croakin’ at Toad’s. For whatever reason, that was the end of this killer Butch Trucks side project.

Honestly I don’t love the cd as much as I loved the 1997 and 1998 live shows. Not only because it’s got too much Popper⁵ (it does), but also how damn good Edwin McCain fits into this ensemble.

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Frogwings gives me a chance to talk about its founder, Butch Trucks.

from Play All Night

A few months shy of his twenty-second birthday, Trucks was the only original Allman Brother with more than cursory formal musical training. He sang in his church choir, took up piano at age twelve, migrated to drums in marching band by eighth grade, and played timpani with the Jacksonville symphony.

“I didn’t listen to rock ’n’ roll that much,” he recalled. “I did listen to rhythm and blues on WLAC, but when I listened to music it was mainly classical.”

Butch brought this influence to the ABB. “As far as people other than drummers influencing my music,” he explained, “I’d have to say that Beethoven, Dvorak, Ravel, Debussy, and Gershwin would come long before guitar players. I grew up listening to this music and my approach to music is derived from them and the music I learned in church.”

In addition to the symphony, Butch joined his high school’s concert and marching bands before making the migration to rock music. He learned from diverse sources: Dave Brubeck’s drummer Joe Morello; the Byrds’ Mike Clarke; “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris for its bass drum syncopation; and Cream’s Ginger Baker.

His parents, scions of the North Jacksonville Baptist Church, did not initially endorse his interest in rock music, but they finally relented and bought him a drum set, he said, “as long as I promised never to play in a place where they served liquor.”⁶

In 1964 Butch joined his first band, the Vikings, and by 1965 he was with the Echoes, a Beatles-inspired cover band. While attending Florida State University in 1966, he teamed with fellow Jacksonville natives David Brown and Scott Boyer to form the Bitter Ind, a folk-rock band they later dubbed the 31st of February.⁷ In 1968 Vanguard Records released their self-titled debut to little acclaim. The band broke up that September when the label rejected its follow-up, a short-lived collaboration with Duane and Gregg Allman.

Following the dissolution of the 31st of February, Trucks returned to Jacksonville and eventually gravitated to Oakley’s jam sessions. His playing added a rock-solid foundation to the music and pushed the band forward.

His classical music influence encouraged the explorations. Butch not only was used to groups of musicians turning complex, individual pieces of music into a larger, more cohesive sound; he preferred it.

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With Butch’s arrival, Duane’s new band truly coalesced.

“Things started happening with Jaimoe and Butch as soon as they played together,” Richard “Hombre” Price⁸ recalled. “They formed this strange symbiotic thing and melded into a terrific unit. Over a series of nights you could see something very substantial developing.”

The drummers fit great together.

Butch: “It's spontaneous.... It's a natural feeling we have for each other. I don't know how to explain it other than our backgrounds. We both started the same place, marching band in high school. Jaimoe went into jazz and I'm more into rock, folk rock, very simple patterns. His patterns are more syncopated than mine.”

“And we both listen, that's the key word. He listens to what's going on in the band and so do I.”

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The Jam that Birthed the Allman Brothers Band

Butch and Jaimoe anchored the March 23, 1969 jam at the Gray House, communal home of the Second Coming—after which Duane famously said,

“‘Anybody in this room not gonna play in my band, you got to fight your way out!”

Here’s Butch’s recollection:

“We started playing a shuffle. Went from that to something else, to something else, to another change.

Three hours later, we quit.

And I’d gone through all the changes, the chill bumps up my back, and crying and laughing and…it’s the first time I’d ever experienced that playing.

When we got finished I was dazed! I looked at Jaimoe and said ‘Man, did you get off on that?’ and he got a grin from ear to ear and said ‘Are you kidding?!’”⁹

Anyone who’s ever played music with someone you feel born to play with has experienced the transcendence Butch is talking about.

“It was like being born again, a revival meeting. We got saved that day.”

Thus, Butch Trucks secured his seat as the band’s second drummer.

“Jaimoe was a real good drummer,” Betts recalled, “but the sound was bigger and he wasn’t really able to handle the power. It just wasn’t his style.” Butch, he said, “had that drive and strength.” “Butch was well known as a strong-in-the-pocket player,” Price said. “Jaimoe was more of an embellisher.”

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There is no musician I grew to appreciate more than Butchie as I wrote Play All Night.

I understood everything in the above about Butch’s role and importance in the Allman Brothers Band’s genesis and longstanding commitment to Duane Allman’s vision.

But it wasn’t until I had to explain for myself¹⁰ how Butch’s influences manifested into the Allman Brothers Band’s sound and approach that I was able to truly appreciate him as an artist. Here are just a few things that stand out:

Butch loved to play in odd time signatures. “Pick a Gripe”—his sole songwriting credit on the 31st of February’s only album and a B-side to the “Sandcastles” single—is in 5/4 time, which I’m assuming is a nod to Dave Brubeck’s “Take 5” featuring Joe Morello on drums. The ABB’s “Black Hearted Woman” switches from 7/8 and 4/4 time; “Whipping Post” alternates between 11/8 and 6/8. These are just two examples in the band’s 45-year history.

Butch had an extensive pre-ABB recording career. His high school band the Vikings self-released a single in 1963; the Tiffany System released one on Nashville’s Minaret label. The Bitter Ind recorded a single at Ardent in Memphis and the 31st of February released one album and two singles on Vanguard. He was as disgusted as Duane was with the traditional music industry and was fine forging a new path.

Butch loved classical music. This is a given, but what does it mean in the context of the Allman Brothers Band? My interpretation from the sources¹¹ centered on three observations. First, dynamics—the ebbs and flows of the music.¹² Second, complexity in the compositions. Finally, the timpani. Butch wasn’t the only person to play the instrument in his era, but he was one of the first.¹³

Butch valued improvisation and spontaneity. This is true of the entire Allman Brothers Band, but it’s particularly true of Butchie. And you only need to look as far as his (too few side) projects to see what I mean. I’m familiar with four of them: Betts, Hall, Leavell, Trucks (BHLT); Frogwings; Les Brers; and Butch Trucks and the Freight Train Band.¹⁴ BHLT were way ahead of their time and Frogwings was groundbreaking shit. Les Brers and the Freight Train Band stayed closer to the ABB’s formula—which was what the world needed after the Allman Brothers retired in 2014.

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Butch was a visionary

Who in their right mind would add a third percussionist to the Allman Brothers Band?

But damn if Butch didn’t discover Marc Quiñones and sign him up to join the roster. This, he said, freed him up even more as a drummer.

And beyond the music, Butch had a keen eye for trends and a desire to help younger musicians avoid some of the pitfalls he and his ABB bandmates endured.

Moogis, the platform he founded and funded to provide an at-home concert experience, was at least a decade ahead of its time. Streaming music is a part of everyday life in 2024. And thanks to Butch, we have video of the ABB’s 40th anniversary Beacon run including with Eric Clapton.

Butch founded Roots Rock Revival with a bevy of younger musicians, most notably Oteil Burbridge and Luther and Cody Dickinson. Roots gives us old farts a place to go and jam, but it’s clearly about nurturing the next generation of musicians who value and carry on the spirit of the Allman Brothers Band.

Wanee and Peach Music Festivals whether he came up with the idea for the Allman Brothers Band to start hosting their own festivals in the mid-2000s, Butch certainly led the charge and embraced the concept. And he played the festivals with the ABB and/or Les Brers every year until his death in 2017.

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Butch Trucks the Rock Star

Beyond this Substack newsletter, I have a pretty active social media presence.¹⁵

This means I’m interacting with all kinds of strangers on a daily basis.

For the most part, people are pretty respectful and the conversation there provides brainfood for my posts here.

I regularly cite Butch on those channels, because he gave great quotes. He was a rock star in every sense of the word.

I guess that’s why I regularly get questions about the why of Butch’s suicide.

I’m super-sensitive to this for a bazillion reasons. One is my own experience with the loss of a loved one from suicide.

But more importantly, fans know Butch as a larger-than-life character—drummer for one of the greatest bands in history. But Butch was a human being, just like us, with an actual family who grieves his loss. It’s out of respect for their privacy I don’t allow any speculation. I s’pose I understand all too well the lifetime of what if’s survivors ask.¹⁶

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My favorite Butch quote

Butch had a way with words and I’m sorry he died before he wrote what was sure to be a kick-ass memoir.

I quoted him extensively in Play All Night and in my social media feeds. This one got some traction awhile back when I mentioned it was one of my favorites:

“Jaimoe introduced us to John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. Once we started listening to them, we said, ‘My God, you can do THAT with music?!’”

Butch’s quote, and his life’s work, is the essence of the Allman Brothers Band: music played at a high level with an adventurous and curious spirit.

(You kind of have to say it in Butch’s voice and with his inflection—so here’s video of Butch telling a couple other stories to get the gist.)

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Here’s a playlist I made in Butch’s honor in 2017.

Music is how I mark time and how I choose to remember Butch and his life’s work. This playlist is heavy on the ABB, but has some of Butch’s other work as well.¹⁷

The ABB tracks include mostly Duane-era stuff heavy on At Fillmore East. I included four Dickey instrumentals: “Liz Reed” “Les Brers in A Minor” “Jessica” and “High Falls.”

Yes, that’s Butch on drums on “Gilded Splinters” and I’ve already written about “Morning Dew.” I’ve included “Pony Boy” because that’s Butch and Dickey playing hambone on their knees and cracking up at the end.

“Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” and “Little Martha” from Eat a Peach bookend the set.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate having you here.

1. The beginning of this clip has Oteil discussing the band’s origins

2. Herring only played in summer 2000, a glorious summer of ABB music. Oteil and Derek both stayed with the band when they retired in 2014.

3. I believe the “Bach” is a nod to the composer. This would track with Butch’s love for classical music.

4. I’d seen Derek at least twice before, once at about 13 at the Junkyard in Casselberry, Florida.

5. I’d already exceeded my lifetime dose of John Popper right about 1999.

6. Y’all know how that turned out. I mean, the ABB’s logo is a psychedelic mushroom after all.

7. Boyer formed Cowboy, a band Duane brought to Capricorn. Brown had an extensive career as a session and sideman, that included a stint in Cowboy and (with Boyer) time backing Gregg on his 1974 Laid Back tour.

8. Richard played in the Load and was in attendance at the jams in Jacksonville that birthed the Allman Brothers Band. He later replaced Berry in the Second Coming.

Derek Trucks with Richard “Hombre” Price at the historical marker dedication for the Gray House in Jacksonville. 📷by yours truly.

9. Source, Butch Trucks interview, Supergroups in Concert, 1979.

10. And, therefore, readers of Play All Night. (I know you have a copy, why not buy one for your public library?)

11. Not just interviews, but also what I hear in the music of the ABB.

12. Jazz, too. #circleunbroken.

13. Listen to “Hot ‘Lanta” and tell me that’s not a classical composition disguised as a rock song, particularly that ending.

14. The other was a band from the late 70s/early 80s called Trucks. I’ve never tracked anything down from them.

15. Follow Long Live the ABB on Social Media

16. If you or anyone you know is in crisis, call 988.

17. Wondering why Pony Boy, which has no drums? Well that’s Butch with Dickey slapping his knees at the end and cracking up.