My Cross to Bear

by Gregg Allman

  The recording of Bullets went real easy too. We were in the same room at Criteria, same producer, same guys in the band, same guy changing the tape, same guy bringing in the food. Same exact experience as Angel, except it didn’t sell, and that’s a shame, because Bullets has some of my favorite songs on it. It is a really good album, but I don’t think Epic supported it like they did I’m No Angel. I don’t think they promoted Dickey’s record Pattern Disruptive either, probably because they wanted us back in the Allman Brothers.

  And eventually, their plan worked.

  AS I KEPT TOURING AROUND, I CONTINUED TO MEET WOMEN wherever I went, and with my drinking being what it was, I continued to get myself in trouble.

  In late 1988, the Gregg Allman Band was playing what would be its last tour of the West Coast. From San Diego to Vancouver, we riddled the place with gigs. During that time, we ran into two girls from Capistrano who started coming to the gigs. One of them was named Shannon Wilsey. She had this white, white hair, and her friend had this real black hair—the two of them looked like they could have done that black-and-white scotch commercial. This was back in the day of the real short one-piece dress, the five-inch spike heels, and no underwear.

  One day, both of them came over to my room, and they started a pillowfight. One of them sat on my knee, and oh boy, that did it. She told me, “Nope, not now. It wouldn’t look right,” but the next day, oh God! Shannon was incredible, and shit, she was just barely of age.

  We ended up staying together for about a year, but our relationship just kind of faded away. Let me say this: I never, ever gave Shannon any heroin. Later on, her mother accused me of all sorts of things like that, but I never turned Shannon on to heroin. In fact, the last time I saw her, she opened her makeup kit and I saw a bunch of needles in there, and I told her never to do that stuff, because I knew what it felt like to be strung out. I tried to talk her out of it, but she didn’t want to listen to me.

  Shortly after I stopped messing with Shannon, she got into porn, using the name Savannah. Somebody told me that she had gotten into porn, but said, “She’s only with women.” Well, I ain’t messing with nobody who’s in porn flicks. That stuff isn’t like spin the bottle, you know. To each his own, I suppose, but I have never associated with anyone in that business.

  When I asked her if she was making porn movies, she kept avoiding the question. Finally, she said, “Look, that’s really none of your business.”

  I told her, “I’ll take that as a yes, and with that, I’m gone.”

  It was too bad, and it was even worse when I got word in 1994 that she shot herself. That upset me, because despite all the accusations, I knew the truth about what had happened. I was not going to have that on my karma—that I somehow turned her on to that shit.

  I’ve always believed in karma, even though I didn’t know the word until I moved to Los Angeles. All it boils down to is the golden rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If everyone would live by the golden rule, then the world would be at peace.

  All in all, it was a weird time for me when it came to women. My next wife, Danielle, was just from another planet. I don’t know why I married her. That was a midlife crisis, I guess, because I was really doing well. I was out in Los Angeles, singing the opening track for the movie Black Rain. I was staying at the Riot House, and Steve Winwood was in town. He was playing at the Universal Amphitheatre, and a couple of the guys in his band were some of my old players. Randall Bramblett was playing with him, and so was Mike Lawler, so I had to go.

  I went over there and had a good old time. What a gracious gentleman Steve is, and his wife is just a sweetheart. A lot of British guys you meet are real cocky, especially about the blues issue. They try to talk to me about the “British blues,” and I don’t want to hear that shit. My brother hated that too. There was some Brits playing some blues, but there ain’t no such thing as British blues—that sounds like blues that was made in Great Britain. Rock and roll and blues is America at its finest. British blues is like a parrot that lives in Greenland, man.

  Danielle was staying at the Riot House with this redheaded bass player I knew from New York, and I was there by myself. I offered to take them to the Winwood show, but he couldn’t go, so it was just me and her. We had a good time, and she was dressed up real pretty that night. I was in my mid-forties, and I was thinking, “Man, I’m going to get old and ugly one of these days, and them girls aren’t going to look at me no more,” so I figured I needed to find me a babe and settle down.

  She looked real good, so I flat-out told her, “I’ve got to go to Nashville tomorrow”—that’s where I was meeting the band for the rest of the tour—“and if you want to go with me, be ready at nine o’clock.”

  That’s how I left it with her, and sure enough, she was in the lobby the next morning. It surprised me, because she didn’t seem the type. As I found out later, she was a pretty hard woman.

  We got married in Vegas, and right after that I OD’d back at the Riot House, so our marriage started off with a bang.

  At first we had a lot of fun, but we didn’t have much in common. Even just going down to a funky blues bar like Blake’s in Berkeley, where I met John Lee Hooker. I took her there one time, and she said, “Christ, how can you stand the stench of this place?” I knew right then that this thing was on its way out.

  To tell you the truth, I was scared of Danielle, especially after one time when she hit me square in the face—God knows what she thought I did to deserve it. She wasn’t afraid of much. One night I was at the Silver Dollar Saloon in Nashville, and I drank twelve kamikazes. She came in and told me it was time to go. We walked out on the street, and this guy was there, trying to fix his Triumph motorcycle.

  I said, “Shit, man, you ought to get yourself a Harley-Davidson.”

  He told me, “I wouldn’t have one of those pieces of shit.”

  I don’t like anyone talking badly about Harleys, so I said, “Those of us who can afford them love them.” That son of a bitch got up, came over, and the next thing I knew—bam! He cold-cocked me. Danielle jumped up on that boy’s back and started sticking her fingernails in his eyes and ripping his nose. Man, he was bleeding and screaming like a butchered hog. That guy was scared, because he thought he’d lost both his eyes. That was something, man.

  A little later, I was getting ready to leave for Europe for some shows, and Danielle had called all her friends and relatives in Europe, lining up dinners for us to go to. I came in and told her, “I’ve got some news for you. We’re not going to be able to take any of the wives to Europe.” She said, “Well, okay,” and she was really nice about it.

  She helped me get packed just perfectly, and I left. When I got back, that place was cleaned out. There was one bag in the middle of the floor that she had left for me, and it was full of peace of mind. I loved it, man.

  After about my fifth wife, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t be married. Instead, I tried having three or four different girlfriends, but then they’d bump into each other, and there would be a catfight. I’d split and tell them all to get fucked. I’ve never understood why some people think that a relationship is somebody owning somebody else. When you love somebody, that includes trust, and if they’re going to go with some other dude, they’re going to do it. There ain’t a damn thing you can do about it—now, tomorrow, yesterday, a week from now. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. There was always this sense that I was going to change. That just wasn’t going to happen.

  From what I see in relationships, the tightest ones are between a man and a man, because a man will step in front of a bullet for his friend. It’s too bad, because you’d think that a man and a woman should be the tightest, but it just hasn’t been that way for me. I’ve always known which guys have my back; it’s why I pick them the way I do.

  The Allman Brothers Band, 1992

  Kirk West/ABB Archives

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More
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  IT WAS EARLY SPRING IN 1989 WHEN THE ALLMAN BROTHERS GOT back together. And when that happened, things started to turn around.

  About this time, someone had come up with the idea of “classic rock” radio stations, and they started popping up everywhere. Man, they played us over and over. We put out a box set called Dreams, and that thing just took off. All of a sudden, I get a call: “Hey, man, this is Dickey. What do you think if we just get together up in Tallahassee and talk?”

  It was a real déjà vu, because we’d also gotten back together in ’79—there seemed to be a pattern. I remember how cool it was outside when I was driving up to Tallahassee in my brand-new white Trans Am, thinking about the drive to Macon I’d done ten years before.

  We met at Butch’s studio. Everybody was drinking beer, and before the meeting was even over, we were all doing a line on the table. Way in the back of my head, a little voice was going, “See, same old thing.” Part of me was thinking, “The Allman Brothers again?” But what appealed to me the most were the memories of the good times. I wanted to go back and feel that way again.

  I’ve played with some real killers in my career, but there’s just something about playing with the Allman Brothers. It’s like a special fishing hole that you have—that one over there is good, but this one down here is a motherfucker. When the Brothers were on, and if Dickey was having a good night, no one could touch us.

  One positive was Warren Haynes, because he served as kind of an anchor for Dickey. Warren was Dickey’s choice as the other guitar player; it was a package deal. That was Dickey’s choice to make, because I sure wasn’t going to do it, and the drummers weren’t going to either. I had met Warren earlier, around ’86 or so, and I liked him right away. I liked what he brought to the table, because he could play, write, and sing, so he helped make it desirable to put the band back together.

  Johnny Neel was the choice for the other keyboard player, even though I thought he was a little bit squirrelly. His being blind got me, I guess, but I really didn’t like having him in the band. Dickey wanted him and I went along with it, because it did save me from playing a lot of stuff I didn’t want to play anyway.

  Then we had to audition for a bass player. I had never really done a full-blown audition, and I hated it doing it this far down the line. Just through word of mouth, something like eleven bass players showed up. We played the same three songs all day long—“One Way Out,” “Dreams,” and “Whipping Post.”

  There were some good players; there wasn’t a one of them that was bad. And they were everywhere—we took a break and I went into the bathroom and there’s a guy in there with a bass and a Pignose amp hanging around his shoulder. He was standing in the door, grooving. I bumped into him, literally, and I said, “Oh, excuse me.” And he goes, “Hey.” I didn’t know who he was; he was from New York, and he was a very, very good bass player. A cartoonist could do a real number on that whole thing.

  There was another dude with real long hair who had four basses lined up, just beautiful machines. He sat over in the corner, waiting to be last. Well, that was Allen Woody. Just the way he grabbed his shit and plugged it in—he had this air about him. He had a very confident look, which is just what we wanted. All through the other auditions, I kept looking at him. Before he even played a note, I thought, “That’s him.”

  When he played, he played somewhat like Oakley, but no one can play like Oakley could. We even told all the bassists before the audition that they weren’t there to fill anybody’s shoes, that those shoes can never be filled.

  So we played and we played, and it was kind of like The X Factor. There’s a lot of truth to that X thing. Some people had it, but Allen Woody was covered with it. He just had that charisma. It was like having a revolver with a bunch of unmarked bullets and trying to fit them into the cylinder, and then finally one just slid right in there.

  It wasn’t necessarily his chops. There were some guys that were more technical, and they could lay down the groove and support the band and all that. This one guy played well—he played a lot like Willie Weeks—but he was just a raging geek. I imagined riding on a tour bus with him, and it just didn’t fly.

  We got through the longest day in history there. We told everybody to go home, that we’d contact them. We’re all sitting in the band room, and it was just hands down. Somebody goes, “Man, Allen Woody was a son of a bitch.” I hadn’t remembered his name—I’m not too good on names, but I’m great on faces. I’ve heard quite a few names, you know? We come to find out he was from Nashville, where I was born, and had been playing just about as long, played with people that all of us knew. I just thought that this guy was meant to be here. It was unanimous.

  Once we had Woody in place, the déjà vu just continued when the people at Epic Records tried to get us straight in the studio, like Capricorn had ten years earlier. And just like last time, we all said in unison, “Fuck that. All we’ve done is sit down in a room over in Tallahassee. We seem like we’re going to get along together, but let’s see how we do over a long stretch.” We told them that we were going to do a tour, and if everything worked out—spiritually, musically, and personally—then we would go into the studio and do a record.

  For the crew, I brought in Bud Snyder and Rich Cramer from the Gregg Allman Band, and Joe Dan and Red Dog came back to work for us. Joe Dan had been making custom boots in Macon, and Red Dog was doing stagehand work in Tampa. It was good to have them back, and we always tried to take care of those guys.

  Some years later, me and Red Dog had a falling-out. Red Dog got fired, but not necessarily by me. He probably just left us as much as he was fired, because he was just getting too old to be humping amps. Last year he passed, and it was right as my own health was a problem, so I couldn’t go to the funeral. They called me and told me he was real sick, that he had lung problems. He was a heavy smoker. He got COPD and quit smoking, but it was too late for him. Boy, I miss that old coot. I will always hold him in the highest of respect, and I don’t think there’s a person in this band who didn’t just love him.

  At first, we really didn’t have any management looking after the band, but then Danny Goldberg, who had worked with Led Zeppelin, Bonnie Raitt, and a whole bunch of other people, stepped into that role. Danny told us to go ahead with the reunion tour, and then, if we were still cool, we would record an album with a chunk of money at the end of that. So that was our mind-set as we set out on the Dreams tour in the spring of 1989. In March 1991, we didn’t renew Danny’s contract as our manager, and Bert Holman, who had been our tour manager, took over and has been running the show for the last twenty years.

  Having Woody in the band reminded us all where we used to be. It was a real refreshing injection. Suddenly, everybody felt a few years younger. Like when you learn a new song and it’s really killer, and you sit there and play it six or eight times, it renews the whole project. You spit out a new one and it’s like “Well, I’ll be damned, I can still do this.”

  Sometimes you feel like you’re getting stale. You’ve gone around the horn and played all these songs, maybe in a different order, but over and over still. You go to so many far-flung places and you get new people and new audiences, some who have never heard you. But still, after a while, you need to get new life in the band—new material, a new player. Especially with a new bass player, which is like the backbone of the band, everybody kind of plays a little bit different. It’s a good revision of the same thing, a good breath of fresh air, and you have a new outlook.

  I really enjoyed that tour, because we had been apart for almost a decade and people had matured, at least musically. At first, I think fans showed up out of curiosity—“Let’s see what you old fucks still have left”—but they liked what they heard, and they started coming back for more. We had to build a fan base all over again, but as word of mouth spread about how good the music was, more and more people took notice. It felt great, man, and that really helped the music.

  I was so happy I got picked to tra
vel on the bus with Warren and Woody, because those two were just so funny, man. They were like Martin and Lewis, or maybe like Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. We’d get in the back of the bus and have some serious fun. All Woody had to do was say something and we would just crack up—he was a naturally funny man.

  Warren and Woody didn’t know each other all that well before joining the Brothers, but I sat there and watched a relationship develop that went all the way to them forming a band together, Gov’t Mule. Warren knew Johnny Neel from Dickey’s band, and Woody knew Johnny a little bit, but Warren and Allen didn’t really know each other, and it was great watching them come together.

  Warren gave the music a different flavor, there’s no question. It was like adding a great spice to a pasta sauce; it just makes it that much better. He also has this intestinal fortitude where he’ll just walk right up to whoever it may be and just say, “Hey, hoss. Your name is what? James Taylor? Well, come on, let’s go over here and pick some.” It’s the same exact kind of balls that Duane had.

  Good as the new additions were, that’s not to say that some of the old personality rubs that had been there before didn’t show up again. Dickey and Butchie got into it right away over a couple of things, and it showed once again that Dickey still wasn’t into working with people; he was into telling people what to do. Meantime, my drinking was still there, but at least it wasn’t interfering with my playing. I was what they call a functional alcoholic—that’s what they call it in the big book. It wouldn’t be too long, though, until I just gave it all up.