By Jeb Wright

Gregg Allman has flown into the Top 5 on the Billboard Album Charts with his first solo release in fourteen years titled Low Country Blues. The album was recorded with famed producer T Bone Burnett, who Allman had never met and never even heard of before his manager talked him into meeting the man in Memphis. The two hit it off with a connection based on what else, music; the blues more specifically. Gregg ended up recording blues tunes originally written by such legends as Sleepy John Estes, Skip James and BB King.

Gregg’s soft spoken manner and charming southern drawl make him a joy to talk with. He is a true icon of rock and has led the band that shares his name through the creation of two genres of music, Southern Rock and Jam Band. His status as a musical hero is well documented and deserved.

Low Country Blues is a testament to Allman’s unwavering creativity. He took a batch of old songs and made them his own while still keeping the blues vibe alive in each track. They still sound old school but they now have a fresh spark of energy fused into them.

In the interview that follows we discuss the new album as well how Gregg survived a liver transplant and how he never got over the untimely death of his brother Duane. We also delve into the past and talk about drinking scotch with President Jimmy Carter, watching Duane and Eric Clapton record “Layla” and how a retarded neighbor hooked a ten year old Gregory on music.

Gregg: I am flabbergasted; it hasn’t all sunk in yet. All we did was go into the studio to cut some tunes.

Gregg: It was one of those old musical reviews. Jackie Wilson was the headliner. Before him was Otis Redding and before him was BB King. Patti LaBellel and the Bluebelles were on the show too; there was a bunch of them. As I remember the audience was roped off between white and black. That concert pretty well changed my life that afternoon.

Gregg: It certainly did. He died and after I got through mourning I thought, “What are we going to do when it comes time to record?” A producer is like a member of the band who got there late.

Gregg: I had never heard his name before. I was out with The Brothers and we had a long tour and I was real tired. We were playing our last gig; this was the latter part of ’09. My manager calls me and says, “Listen, I need you to stop in Memphis on the way to Savannah. There is somebody I want you to meet.” I knew what it was about. I just about said, “Let’s don’t and say we did.” I went and I am so glad that I did.

I went to Memphis and we met at the Peabody Hotel. You can’t miss him; he is about seven-foot two. He is taller than most basketball players; he looks down on us all. He gave me this modem with thousands of old, old blues songs. He said, “I’m going to peel this down to about twenty-five songs and send them over to you. Take the best fifteen of your liking and rearrange them, totally. When you are satisfied with them then let’s hit the studio and cut them.” I said, “Sho ‘nuff.”

I couldn’t even understand some of them. Some of them were public domain and they literally belonged to anybody. Most of them were like 78’s and you could hear all the scratches. We started talking and I asked him, “What are you in Memphis for?” He said, “I am here with two builders and we are measuring out, board by board, the Sun Recording Studio. I am going to build me a Sun Records right next to my house in California.” That is the craziest thing I had ever heard so I thought that this guy has got to be alright. We got closer and closer and we built a good friendship that afternoon.

Gregg: Exactly.

Gregg: You’ve just got to be really into it. You want it to sound a certain way and you try this and you try that and you just pick and pick and pick at it. It is not quite as tedious as it sounds, though. One thing that helped was having an acoustic bass. Some of the wavelengths of the electric bass cut into the vocal and rub it out. We had acoustic bass on this and that is why you can hear me breath between verses.

Gregg: That is nothing whatsoever about “Midnight Rider.” They have nothing to do with each other. Me and Warren [Haynes] had been working on that song for most of 2010. We would do it piecemeal. The last time I saw him, before we went into the studio, we finished it up. I was doing a charity thing for Michael J. Fox with Elvis Costello and a bunch of other folks. Warren came up to the hotel when I had a day off so we brought a piano up to the suite and we knocked it out right there.

Gregg: Oh yeah, he would’ve shown up and dug it.

Gregg: That was the most fun I’ve ever had on stage. I had never played with him before but I was down there watching my brother when they cut “Layla.” It wasn’t like I was a stranger to him.

Gregg: I remember when they cut that song. They did that in Miami and The Brothers were playing in Miami for this thing that the city held for the people. It was set up on the median of Collins Avenue, which is a huge median right by the beach. We were playing along and I looked down and I thought, “That looks like Tommy Dowd.” I looked to his left and I saw this guy in this kickass set of dark reddish boots. I looked up the leg and up the shoulder and I thought, “Yahoo, look who’s here.” I was just hoping that my brother was playing a Les Paul and not a Fender. Duane didn’t even see him. Afterwards they came up to us and said, “We’re cutting a record down here y’all. You want to come down?” We said, “Yeah.” All of us stayed for a little while and then the band left and Duane was going to stay down there for a while. I asked if they minded if I sat there and hung around and they said, “No.”

Gregg: Remembering them is what keeps them alive.

Gregg: Yeah, I’m still in a little bit of pain. I asked them, “When do I feel like nothing’s happened?” They said that it would be a year and a half. I am closing in on eight months.

Gregg: I didn’t get it from drinking; I got it from a tattoo, but the drinking didn’t help.

Gregg: I have written a few things since then and I think in the interim that it is going to be better than it was before, I sure hope so. It is a really slow process. Every day you feel a teeny bit better, and I mean a little tiny bit. If it was any less than you wouldn’t notice it. You don’t really feel anything until about ten days have past.

Gregg: I certainly did. Bob Dylan was in town and he loved Bob Dylan so he threw a big party. I was in the studio cutting Laid Back. I was down in Macon and he was in the Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta. We were recording and kept hearing, “Let’s do one more take of this guitar solo” and “One more take here and one more take there.” I finally said, “Dig it, it’s ten o’clock, we are shutting this thing down. We better hope our asses get there before the last people have left.” Of all people, and don’t ask me to explain this, but Johnny Winter and Buddy Miles were there. They asked if they could out and jam and I said, “Sure.” I thought, “What have I got myself into?” We all piled in the limousine and the driver broke all kinds of records. We made ninety two miles in forty minutes; that is boogying.”

We showed up and there was this big horseshoe drive and at the end of the horseshoe there is a little stand with a Smokey the Bear standing there. I got out and said, “Allman for the party.” He said, “I’m sorry but that is the last of the guests driving down the other end of the driveway.” I said, “Can you please tell Governor Carter that I did show and that I did come to see him? I told him on the phone that I was in the studio and that I might be a little late but I didn’t think I would be this late.” He said, “Thank you” and I said goodbye. I turned around and I had my hand on the door of the car and I heard him go, “Hey you.” I thought, “Oh no.” He said, “The Governor wants to see you in the Mansion right now.” I was afraid that I was going to get a Federal ass chewing. We drove up to the porch. Of course we all loaded and we were laughing.

As we were driving up to the house I see this silhouette of this old bum. He didn’t have any shirt or shoes on and he had on a pair of these old 1940 Levis that were held together by holes. He was just standing there and I thought, “Why don’t they run this trash off?” It was him! I went up to him and he smiled and said, “How you doing, Gregory? I need some money.” So that is what that was about. He told me to call him “Jimmy.” I said, “Jimmy, none of us are really into politics.” He said, “I noticed. You and your other musical friends just sit around and smoke that stuff and listen to music.” I said, “Oh no…..” We helped him out by raising money for his campaign. I will say that he loves a good Scotch.

Gregg: And if we had then we would have fallen by the wayside. Thank God it didn’t happen. I didn’t go under the auspice of becoming the leader of the band. We all took off and went to our perspective vacationing places. I went to Jamaica and caught me a big marlin. We came back and we had a lot of meetings and everybody was basically saying, “What the hell do we do now?” To make a long story short I said, “We either play or we go under, that’s it.” Everybody agreed and we hit it. Within two weeks of that we were on the road.

Gregg: Yes, they were some of the hardest gigs ever.

Gregg: I went to visit my Grandmother every summer. Duane and I were both born in Nashville and we moved to Daytona, Florida in 1959. You know how it is; you have to change schools and all this. I think I was in the fifth grade and I hated this new place. So every summer I went back to visit my Grandmother who lived in a housing project. One day I went outside and there was this really retarded dude named Jimmy Bain. He had a 1940 something Packard and he was painting it with a house brush. He was painting everything black but the windshield. He painted the chrome and the tires… I looked up on the porch and I saw a guitar sitting there. I went over there and I said, “Jimmy, what’s that?” He said, “That’s my gee-tar.” I said, “Can you play it?” He said, “Why, hell yes, I can play it. It’s there ain’t it?” I said, “Well listen, when you take a break from painting why don’t you come over here and play me something.” He sat the brush down and wiped his hands off, they were still full of black paint. He picks up his guitar and plays “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain.” Boy, I just got the fever for that damn piece of wood. I just was in entranced to that thing. I was knocked out.

Gregg: I got one November 10, 1960 and that is really how it happened.

Gregg: That was taken at the Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah. The family still owns it and I know the man. At that end of the tunnel is where the big house is. They have a house on the land that is marked on it in cast iron “The Whisky Room” where they made their own whisky. This is pre-Civil War, man.

Gregg: You have seen it before. You saw it in the springtime in the movies. You saw this little girl running after this guy with leg braces on yelling “Run Forest Run!” That was shot right on the same spot.

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