My Cross to Bear

by Gregg Allman

  Scooter Herring never sold me huge quantities of cocaine, but on July 19, 1976, he was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison for the coke he had sold me. The conviction was front-page news when it happened, but what was much less sensational was the fact that Scooter only went to prison for eighteen months, not seventy-five years. Of course, no one pays attention to headlines about getting out of jail—that’s why newspapers don’t write them.

  For his part in all this, Joe Fuchs ended up spending ten years in prison. Later on, I did meet Joe, and now his widow and daughters still come to our concerts. His widow told me one time, “Joe wanted you to know that nothing was your fault at all, and that you didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and he doesn’t hold you accountable for anything,” which I thought was a beautiful thing to say.

  I talked to Scooter right after he got out, and he told me, “Gregory, I appreciate everything,” because there was a bunch of money in his bank account. I wanted to get together with him and have some dinner, but he said, “It wouldn’t look good for you and me to be seen together for at least five years.” When he died in 2007, we’d never met up again.

  Scooter was my bud, and we certainly had some good times together. In the time that I knew him and that we hung together, on the road or off, we laughed. We were very good friends; he never did anything wrong to me, and I don’t think I ever did anything wrong to him. There were situations that arose, and I still don’t think anyone knows the full extent of what it was about.

  Months later, after the trial was over, I’d be onstage, counting off a slow number, and right in the middle of “one, two, three,” you’d hear someone yell out, “Narc!” It wouldn’t throw me off; it made me play twice as hard. I’d play right through it, because I knew what the truth was. I knew what I’d done and what I hadn’t done, and I just wanted to get on back with my music.

  I felt guilty about the whole thing for a while, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t figure out what it was I had to feel guilty about. I wanted some drugs, Scooter got them for me. I paid for them, and that was it—done deal. What was there to feel guilty about? Had I gone out on the street and bought them myself, I probably would have ruined my career. Scooter helped me out as far as that went, but everyone who’s buying drugs is getting them from somewhere else. I’m sorry for what happened to Mr. Fuchs, I’m sorry for what happened to Scooter, but they knew what they were doing when they did it. Everybody made their own decisions, man. And that includes me.

  THE WHOLE MESS WITH SCOOTER WAS THE LAST STRAW FOR THE band. As if the financial mess we’d gotten ourselves into wasn’t enough, most of the guys felt I’d sold Scooter out. They were also scared for their own asses, and worried they were going to get swept into it. And none of this was helped by the fact that we’d all been doing so much coke we were in a permanent state of paranoia.

  But when it came down to it, they seemed to feel that my testifying was the worst part of the whole Scooter situation. They felt it was a betrayal of what it meant to be an Allman Brother, even though they didn’t have any idea what I’d been through. Because of that it was easy for the other guys to blame me for the breakup.

  In August 1976, the band officially broke up when Jaimoe wrote a letter to the Macon newspaper which stated that there was no more Allman Brothers Band. Not long after, Butch and Dickey came out individually and said the same thing, with Dickey doing it in Rolling Stone. I remember in that issue, there was a picture of Betts and a quote from him saying, “I’ll never play onstage with Gregg Allman again.” No problem, brother! I just wish we had held him to that.

  Truth is, there ain’t one thing or person alone that broke up the Allman Brothers. It was everything and everyone. Scooter, my recording Laid Back, my living in L.A., the drugs—they were all just easy excuses, ways of talking around the unavoidable truth: that none of us knew when or how to walk away.

  In hindsight, it’s amazing we survived as long as we did after my brother died. God knows we tried, but once the money started rolling in, well, it didn’t take long for it to take over—there was just too much to walk away from. The second the money well had dried up, we all had to take a good, hard look in the mirror, and we didn’t see a whole lot there that we liked.

  The feelings, the closeness, the brotherhood that we’d once shared—man, all those things were fucking gone. The Big House was a perfect example. When my brother and Oakley were alive, that place was ours, it was our space. But after Oakley died, Linda moved out, and we had lost our headquarters. The vision of the band that we’d made there, the image of the band that Duane and Oakley had helped create—all that was finished. When we lost the Big House, the band changed. I don’t think any of us were the same after that.

  It was really strange, but it seemed like we got rich and famous overnight, and when it was over, it was the same way. It was like the whole thing had never happened—like “What the fuck was that?” We had five years at the top, and then, bam, it was over. We had spent so much money, it was unbelievable.

  I don’t know if my brother is face up or facedown in his grave, he’s done so many damn pirouettes over the money we wasted. On the other hand, I’m sure he’s very proud and smiling about what we went on to do.

  Giving it one more try, 1979

  Herb Kossover

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It Just Ain’t Easy

  WHEN THE BAND BROKE UP, CHER GOT BLAMED FOR IT. THE press made her out to be the Yoko Ono of the Allman Brothers. Needless to say, there wasn’t much truth to that. When people hear shit, they take it at face value, and then they tell a friend, so a simple rumor can turn into a colossal lie. There’s a lot of stories out there that have absolutely no basis in fact. In the end, people believe whatever they want, but the only thing that broke up the Allman Brothers was the Allman Brothers.

  Though the breakup really had nothing to do with Cher, its timing did overlap almost exactly with a big moment in my life with her: the birth of our son. Elijah Blue Allman was born on July 10, 1976, and I lived with him until the time he was walking around. I remember this funny little step that he had, and it was so cute. When he would smile, you could see every one of his teeth, and that would make me and Cher just laugh. He could fart like a moose, this tiny little thing in the crib, and it was great. We would crack up, man. I remember when he learned how to swim—he took to the water like a fish, and it took only a day or two for him to learn.

  The three of us lived out in L.A. along with Cher’s daughter, Chastity. I remember when Chastity had to have one of those Stingray bicycles, with the banana seats and those ape-hanger handlebars. I told her, “You don’t want one like everybody got on the street. Go put on some dirty clothes, tie your hair back, and go with me. We’re gonna go to a neat place.”

  I took her to the junkyard, and we found a bike. I had it sandblasted, and then had a kid paint it bronze—real nice paint job. Then I went and bought sprockets and chain and tires, all that stuff, and a leopardskin seat, and together we built that son of a bitch. When we were done, she had the baddest bike in the neighborhood, and I used to be her knight in shining armor. Later on, though, she wouldn’t say two words to me, and I don’t know why. She probably heard so many ghastly stories about me that were so well embellished that she thinks I’m just a terrible person or something, and that’s a shame.

  As far as Chastity’s sex change, as long as he’s happy, he’s free to do whatever he wants to do. It’s not your everyday thing happening, but I just hope he’s happy and I wish him a very long, successful life.

  Living with Cher was all right, but there were things about her that drove me crazy. One night we were sitting at home, and it was about eight o’clock, and she said, “I really don’t feel like staying in tonight. Why don’t we go out and get a bite?”

  I said, “Sure, let’s go to some quiet, dark place.” There was this Cantonese restaurant on the outskirts of Beverly Hills that we liked, so we decided to go there. And wouldn’t you know it, there were at
least thirty-five fucking photographers waiting for us when we got there. Now, who told them? It sure wasn’t me. She loved that, man, but I wasn’t from Hollywood, so I never got used to photographers hanging around our front gate all the time, clicking away.

  Still, I can’t say that being married to Cher was the worst thing in the world, because it wasn’t. We had our good times, we had our bad times. We were just different in a whole bunch of ways.

  One day I was in the shower, and the next thing I knew, someone was washing my back. It was her, of course, so she turned around and I was washing her. She started singing the Smokey Robinson song, “I don’t like you, but I love you,” and all of a sudden I came in with the harmony part: “Seems like I’m always thinking of you … I need you badly, I love you madly,” and it sounded pretty good.

  I was really glad that she never asked me what I thought of her singing, because I’m sorry, but she’s not a very good singer. When she talks, she has the sexiest-sounding voice, and I tried to tell her that that’s the way she ought to let it out when she sings. If she sang like she talked, good God. I guess Sonny must have been on her every move, because he saw the gold mine in her. Without her, he would have been nothing—he certainly never would have become a congressman.

  I tried to talk to her about her singing, but she never wanted to hear it, until one day she said to me, “Well, enough other fucking people like it, so if you don’t like it, fuck you.”

  “I didn’t say that I don’t like it,” I told her. “And I’m not saying now that I don’t like it. I’m just saying that part of it is contrived.”

  I tried to show her some inflections, and she showed some interest. Finally she said, “Why don’t you produce a record for me?” That led us to start talking about making an album together.

  At the time, I’d been putting the finishing touches on my next solo record, Playin’ Up a Storm, which I’d cut out in Los Angeles. Neil Larsen played keyboards, Willie Weeks played bass, Steve Beckmeier, John Hug, and Ricky Hirsch played guitar, Bill Stewart played drums, and Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker produced it.

  I’ll tell you, there were times when Lenny really had to wrangle my ass on that album. Cher and I were having a rough time then, and this one morning I was running late when Lenny came busting into the house. He walked right past Cher, went upstairs, and told me, “Get your ass out in the car. You’re not going to be late for this session.”

  Cher shot me this look and I told her, “Later, baby,” and went out and got in the car.

  I thought it was a pretty good album, and it was certainly well produced. Because I had moved out to the West Coast, though, Phil Walden thought there was no more Allman Brothers, so he decided to fuck me too. When it released in May 1977, he only printed up about fifty thousand copies, which made it hard for people to buy it.

  Cher and I did end up working together on an album, and that album, Two the Hard Way, by Allman and Woman, came out later in ’77. That record sucked, man. That’s the truth, and I know it as well as anyone. It bit the dirt, and it didn’t sell worth a shit. There was one, maybe two decent songs on that record, but it was basically terrible, just awful.

  In November 1977, I went over to Europe with my band, and we took Cher with us. We did a few Allman Brothers tunes, then we did some of my stuff from Laid Back and Playin’ Up a Storm, and then Cher would come out and we’d do about six or eight songs, including a few off of Two the Hard Way. The crowd was pretty interesting, because half the people were in tuxedos—I mean, dressed to the nines. Some of them were even in floor-length tails, because they thought they were going to see Sonny and Cher. The other half of the crowd was all backpacks and Levi’s jackets, and they were there to see the Allman Brothers.

  It was an interesting mix, and the fights out back were something else. There’d be some dude out there, duking it out in his tux with a guy in denim. It was funny, man. Some old bitch came after me, going, “Why didn’t you let your wife sing a little bit more? You would have gotten a lot more claps.” I didn’t know what to say to her, so I just let it go. “Claps”—good God!

  We got to Germany on that tour, and it was snowing like a bitch. We stayed at a hotel that was once a big castle, owned by some squire or somebody. In my room, I had a fireplace that I, at six foot one, could very easily stand up in, and the bed could have slept my whole band very comfortably. The menu was unbelievable; it was truly from the Black Forest. They had quail, venison, elk burgers—all kinds of good, wild stuff that I was just digging the shit out of.

  It was right after that—the tuxedos against the backpacks, because I think the Allman Brothers outnumbered the Sonny and Chers—that Cher came to me, and the poor thing was just crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me, “We’ve got to cancel the rest of the tour, because I can’t stand the fighting.” So we ended it right then, which was about halfway through it. We went home the next day, and that was the last time I ever played with her.

  That tour, along with everything else, laid bare the fact that things had changed between us. I had never done anything to hurt her; I’d hurt myself, I’d degraded myself, and I’d hung with some pretty shady people, but I’d never done anything to harm her.

  One day, she came to me with this big wad of money, $50,000 maybe, with a big red rubber band around it. She said, “I need time to think about this—I don’t know about this anymore.”

  “You don’t know about what?” I asked. She never did quite come out with “what”—she just said she didn’t know about “this.” Maybe it was all too much for her, or she had lost it for me. I don’t know, and I never found out.

  She held the money out to me and said, “I want you to take this and get an apartment and stay there for a couple of months, and let me think this whole thing over, and I’ll get back in touch with you. We’ll see what happens.”

  I told her, “Honey, you keep your money, because I make a pretty damn good living on my own. You got your reasons, and I sure hope you come to grips with them. You’ve got my number.” So I walked, man, and I went down to Daytona to see my mother.

  I STOPPED BY MACON IN EARLY 1978, WHERE I HAD STASHED $12,000 in the bank. I got it out, and I partied my ass off with it. Then I took some of that money and bought myself a new white Trans Am. It made me feel good, plus I needed a way to get around. I got it home, and Mama A loved it.

  When I was in Daytona, I would go down and check out the bar scene, and somebody told me about a band called the Nighthawks. They said this band was nothing but straight-on, hard-core blues, and they had a harp player with so many tattoos, that’s all you could see when he was playing. I said, “They sound like my kind of guys,” so I put on a pair of Levi’s, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket and headed down to the Martinique, which had been renamed the Wreck Bar.

  I had known the woman who ran the club for years. We called her Ringo, which obviously wasn’t her real name, but she looked just like Ringo Starr. She’s such a sweetheart, and I love her. She was so glad that I was back home, because I had been gone since 1965.

  That night, the Nighthawks were blowing. They took a break and I met them, and then I sat in during the next set. They knew a lot of blues songs, and we sounded really good together. Afterwards, they asked me to come out on the road with them, and I figured, why not? So we went out and did a shitload of gigs, mostly around the Midwest and Northeast.

  We had a good turnout from my fans, and I guess I needed that acceptance, because I wanted to know if everybody had turned their backs on us. That really mattered a lot to me, because it took many years to build that fan base. They loved the blues, and they stuck to the blues through it all. I hadn’t played any of those clubs in a long time, and they were just dying to see me. I was drinking pretty heavy then, but we played some smoking shows.

  On the way back into Daytona after we were done, I stopped at the Pontiac place and got myself another Trans Am, since my mom had taken mine. I’d gotten paid for the gigs in cash, and I had two br
iefcases full of it with big wads of cash stuffed into every pocket. Back in Daytona, I bought a new Triumph motorcycle too, and I used to ride uptown every night, just to see who was playing at the Martinique or wherever. There were some good shows, but mainly I went into town just to jam, look at the pussy, and drink.

  One night I went into the Castaways, and they had a band in there, and a guy had a B3. He loved it when I came in, because I’d play a few songs while he took a break. One night the band was just smokin’, and someone asked me if I wanted a drink. Without looking up, I ordered a vodka and tonic. All of a sudden, a bar napkin drops on the table, and the most beautiful hand I’ve ever seen places my drink down.

  I fell in love right there—the hand of fate did it to me. She told me her name was Julie Bindas, and she loved motorcycles, so we rode up and down the beach all the time. Julie was a really nice, together person when I met her, but that changed real fast. It turns out that she was born in the Ukraine, and her father got her out of there just in the nick of time. He was a Soviet diplomat, and when he saw that the whole thing was going to fall over there, he sent her to America.

  A year later, in 1979, we got married, and it went downhill from there. Julie was a knockout in her day, but, man, I thought she was crazy. I knew it was over when I came off the road and there was a note from her telling me that she had a Smith and Wesson .45 and she would be glad to use it on me. Welcome home, right? We ended up getting divorced in 1981.

  The best thing to come out of that marriage was my daughter Delilah Island Allman, who was born on November 5, 1980. Julie came up with Delilah, and I came up with Island, because we were living on Anna Maria Island, Florida, at the time. Island is the love of my life, she really is. I trust her completely, and that’s great, because she was out of my life for a long time.