Gregg Allman, pioneering Southern rock musician, dies

(RNN) - Gregg Allman, the founding member of the Allman Brothers Band and the Southern blues rock group's longtime keyboardist and vocalist, has died. He was 69.

A statement on Allman's official website said he died at his home in Savannah, GA.

The statement read, in part, "Gregg struggled with many health issues over the past several years. During that time, Gregg considered being on the road playing music with his brothers and solo band for his beloved fans essential medicine for his soul. Playing music lifted him up and kept him going during the toughest of times."

In April 2017, Allman denied rumors that he had entered a hospice and said he was at home resting on doctor's orders. In March 2017, after cancelling concerts scheduled for June, he announced he would not be touring in 2017.

In early August 2016, Allman announced that he had canceled live shows until late October 2016 due to serious health issues and was under a doctor's care at the Mayo Clinic. 

In 2014, after the band performed what it billed as its final show, Allman focused on a solo career. 

In 1995, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for advancing rock as a medium for improvisation. 

"Their kind of jamming required a level of technical virtuosity and musical literacy that was relatively new to rock and roll, which had theretofore largely been a song-oriented medium," the HOF said.

At the induction, alcohol left Allman physically present but "otherwise I was out of it - mentally, emotionally and spiritually," he wrote in his memoir, My Cross to Bear (2012). 

He said a video he saw of himself at the induction prompted him to get sober and remain clean. 

Other health problems plagued Allman, including Hepatitis C, which he said he contacted decades earlier through a tattoo needle, bulging discs in his back, and an upper respiratory condition stemming from a liver transplant. 

In 1999, Allman told rollingstone.com he had abandoned all his vices, including drinking a quart and a half of vodka a day that resulted in him writing songs he put aside because they all sounded the same. 

"... Cocaine'll make you play too slow, heroin'll make you play too fast. Figure that out," he said. "I am so lucky to be here. I thought I was bulletproof. Now, just being alive, it's like Christmas every day." 

The band was awarded 11 gold and five platinum albums. It received two Grammys: a 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award and a 1996 Grammy for a live version of Jessica (1973).

Drug use and infighting caused the band to take a two-year break in the mid-1970s. Over the years, the band broke up and reformed several more times and swapped out musicians.  

Years before that first hiatus, separate motorcycle crashes had claimed the lives of the band's other namesake co-founder, guitarist Duane Allman (1946 - 1971), Gregg's older brother, and bassist Berry Oakley (1948 - 1972).  

"You don't have to be sad to write a blues song," Allman told nodepression.com. "But there have been occasions where some of my rough times have inspired me to write songs like Whipping Post, Dreams, Just Ain't Easy and Demons. But for every one of them, you have a Multicolored Lady or a Queen of Hearts. So it works both ways." 

In 1971, the group had its first artistic and commercial breakthrough, a live release, At Fillmore East, which sold more than one million copies.

The Library of Congress selected At Fillmore East for preservation in the 2004 National Recording Registry, saying the performance included "a powerful emotional rendition of Tied to the Whipping Post sung by Gregg Allman." 

The group's Ramblin' Man (1973), a country song, was its only top 10 single, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The top spot was held by Half-Breed (1973), sung by Cher, the third of Allman's six wives.

Cher married Allman in 1975, filed for divorce within the first week of their marriage after she found his drug stash, and did not complete the legal process. They had a son, Elijah Blue, in 1976 and divorced in 1979.

In 1969, the Allman Brothers Band was formed in Jacksonville, FL, by brothers Duane (lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (keyboards, songwriting, vocals), Dickey Betts (lead guitar, songwriting, vocals), Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson (drums), Berry Oakley (bass guitar) and Butch Trucks (drums). The band moved to Macon, GA, to be near their manager. 

Gregg Allman was born Dec. 8, 1947, in Nashville, TN. About two years later, Willis, his father, a U.S. Army officer, was killed by a hitchhiker. In 1959, Geraldine, his mother, moved the family to Daytona Beach, FL. 

Returning to Nashville on summer breaks, Gregg developed a deeper interest in music after he and Duane attended a concert by soul singer Jackie Wilson. Gregg used his earnings from a paper route to buy a guitar that he and Duane played, and those early steps eventually led to the duo forming the Allman Brothers Band. 

Reflecting on his life, Allman told an interviewer he was pleased with it. 

“I am totally satisfied doing what I’m doing, and I pray I can do it as long as possible," he said."If I can play and die on the same day, that’d be quite all right with me."

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