THE LAST AMERICAN TO DIE

11/11/1918 - A tragedy within a tragedy.  One minute before the Armistice of WWI takes place ending combat at 11:00 in the morning, Private Henry Nicholas John Gunther of Baltimore, Maryland, is killed rushing a German machine gun position in the French village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers (near Meuse, in the Lorraine region of the country).  The soldier is twenty-three-years-old.

Gunther

On June 6, 1895, in the east portion of Baltimore, Maryland, the children of German immigrants to the United States (26-year-old George Gunther and 29-year-old Lina Roth) are gladdened to greet a son into their family, Henry Nicholas John Gunther (Henry gets a sibling brother in 1899 when Charles Augusta Gunther is born).  Growing up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore (originally called "Snake Hill," the residents change the locale's name to Highland Town in 1870 because of its expansive views of Baltimore, and pronounce their neighborhood "Hollantown," and later because of an influx of mountain migrants from Appalachia, it will also be called "Little Appalachia" ... it will officially become a part of Baltimore in 1919) among other blue-collar German-Americans, Gunther is heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic parish of his parents, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, joining its service order for laymen, the Knights of Columbus, in 1915.  Before America becomes a WWI belligerent in April of 1917, Gunther is gainfully employed as a bookkeeper and clerk by the National Bank of Baltimore, while living with his parents in a rowhouse across the street from the city's Patterson Park.

Snake Hill - 1860

Tensions building between Germany and the United States (starting with reports of atrocities during Germany's 1914 summer invasion of Belgium, then moving on to the torpedo sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania killing 128 American citizens in 1915, the restarting of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in 1917, and the British Intelligence interception of the Zimmermann telegram in which Germany offers Mexico the territories it lost fighting the United States in the Mexican-American War if Mexico will enter WWI on the side of the German Empire), the declaration of war against Germany by Congress on April 6, 1917 is not popular in Highlandtown where many American families have relatives that aren't distant at all back in Germany and where a huge chunk of the population is suspected of sympathizing with the Empire (Gunther's first-generation American grandmother is accused of being a German spy by a local pharmacist).  Leaving a good job not a priority, Gunther declines to volunteer to serve in any of the military services of the United States, but is powerless to avoid it when he is drafted into the Army in September of 1917.  One of over two million men drafted under the Selective Service Act of 1917, Gunther becomes a member of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commanded by General John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, with an assignment to the Army's 79th Division's 313th Infantry Regiment, Company A, a unit known as "Baltimore's Own," for all the men from the region that fill out the group's membership.  Training for deployment at Camp Meade (named after the victor at Gettysburg, Major General George Gordon Meade, the facility is located in Maryland's Anne Arundel County, 18 miles southwest of Baltimore), Gunther is assigned the duties of supply sergeant (responsible for getting the mission necessary equipment and supplies to base and then into the hands of the unit's soldiers) and ships out to France in July of 1918 aboard the troop ship, SS Leviathan (the modified, seized German passenger ship Vaterland of Germany's Hamburg America Line, capable of transporting 14,000 across the Atlantic).

Pershing

313th Barracks - Camp Meade

Aboard The SS Leviathan

Arriving in the French port of Brest, Gunther and company continue their journey to the fighting by boarding a troop train of 40 & 8 boxcars (called such because they each could carry 40 soldiers and 8 horses).  Arriving at the front on Thursday, September 12, 1918, Gunther takes a few moments to write home to a friend in Baltimore about his service thus far, and describes the terrible conditions and the prejudice his background has caused, closing by urging his pal not to enlist in the Army.  While the the missive might be true to Gunther, it is nonetheless a horrible mistake by the sergeant.  Letters checked by military censors, Gunther is called to the carpet for his words and busted down to the rank of private (and along with losing his rank, he also loses his fiancée who decides he is not the man for her when she hears of his demotion).  It is a sad turning point in the German-American's life, and with his unit participating in the war's climatic Meuse-Argonne Offensive (so named for the region where the battle takes place along the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest ... a clash involving over 1,600,000 Allied and German soldiers, it will be the AEF's biggest battle of the war <more American ammunition will be fired during the struggle than in the entire Civil War> and cost American forces over 122,000 casualties, including 26,277 dead), to prove his merit as a United States soldier and that the Army has made a mistake taking his rank away, Private Gunther begins volunteering for hazardous duties.  Caught up in the 79th Division's assaults on the critical position of Montfaucon Hill (a site that has already cost the French 300,000 casualties), Gunther volunteers to run messages between regimental and battalion headquarters, dangerous duty that exposes him repeatedly to German sniper fire.  Risking his life over and over running messages up and down the line for over a week, the private is wounded in the hand but successfully survives the experience (the Bible he carries into battle also takes a bullet hit).  Refusing to leave the fighting to take time off for his wound, Gunther is among the Americans that clear 4.3 miles of enemy territory, take Montfaucon, and then advance roughly a mile north towards the Meuse River (Gunther's regiment, the 313th, will lose 45 officers and 1,200 enlisted men during the offensive).

Advancing Through An Artillery Blighted Landscape

Firing On Retreating Germans From Montfaucon

German resolve to continue fighting beginning to break in the autumn of 1918, the German Supreme Army Command, in the form of it's twin powers, Generalfeldmarschall Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg and First Quartermaster General Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff advise Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial Chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling that the military situation Germany is facing is hopeless and that the country should accept an armistice incorporating U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" plan for peace as soon as possible.  Secret negotiations going on between the belligerent countries, a German delegation led by Matthias Erzberger arrive in France and begin final deliberations with Allied representatives aboard the private command train of Allied Supreme Commander French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, parked on a railroad siding in the Forest of Compiegne (21 years later, on June 22, 1940, rubbing humiliating salt into the hearts of the French, Adolf Hitler will use the same train and location when France surrenders to Germany at the beginning of WWII).  The next day, removing himself as one of the obstacles to peace, the Kaiser abdicates his empire and goes into exile in the neutral Netherlands on the 10th (a broken man, he will die there of a pulmonary embolism in June of 1941 at the age of 82).  On November 11th, at 5:00 in the morning, the cease fire ending the fighting is agreed to and between 5:12 a.m. and 5:20 a.m., the armistice is signed by six men ... Marshal Foch, Britain's First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, Erzberger, Count Alfred von Oberndorff of the German Foreign Ministry, Captain Ernst Vanselow of the German Navy, and Major General Detlof von Winterfeldt of the Imperial Army.  All guns are scheduled to go silent at 11:00 a.m., Paris time (the Germans had wished for an immediate cessation of hostilities with the signing of the armistice).

Hidenburg, Wilhelm & Ludendorff

Erzberger

At The Train

Not stopping the fighting immediately with the signing of the armistice proves to be yet another tragedy in a war full of them and though word goes out to the troops in the front lines, there will be several more hours of pointless murder as the Allies try to improve their positions just in case the war breaks out again, and Allied artillery pieces shot off their ammunition so they will not have the arduous duty of hauling their spare supplies of shells and rockets away.  As a result of the delay, the last few hours of the war will see 10,944 more casualties take place, of which 2,738 are deaths.  Lost among the chaos that takes place for the losing German Army is the name and time of the last soldier they lose, but the victors keep much better records.  At 9:30 a.m., while on patrol in a woodland area near Mons, Belgium, the British suffer their last KIA (Killed In Action) when 40-year-old Private George Edwin Ellison of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers is shot by a sniper.  The French lose twice-wounded 40-year-old Private First Class Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trebuchon of the 163rd Infantry Division when a German machine gun catches him out in the open taking a message to forward troops near the Meuse River that there will be a victory celebration featuring hot soup at 11:30 a.m., missing surviving the war by a mere fifteen minutes (the death so embarrasses the French that they briefly cover it up by moving the private's death back a full 24-hours).  Also missing survival by a brief fifteen minutes is a three-year Belgian veteran of the Western Front trenches, 24-year-old Corporal Marcel Toussaint Louis Joseph Terfve of Liege.  Terfve is killed when a German machine gun bullet pierces his lung while he is moving forward with two other men at the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal near Kluizen, Belgium.  The final Canadian to be killed in combat takes place outside the Belgium village Ville-sur-Haine only two minutes before the cease-fire takes effect.  Worried about his exposed position on an open canal bank, 25-year-old Falmouth-born Private George Lawrence Price of the CEF's 28th Infantry Battalion (Northwest) is shot in the chest by a German sniper and perishes leading five volunteers on a patrol clearing houses on the other side of the canal.         

Ellison & Trebuchon

 

Terfve & Price

Still under orders of Brigadier General William Nicholson to take the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers as part of the continuing Meuse-Argonne Offensive, ten miles north of the abattoir of Verdun, the men of Company "A" of the 313th Infantry Regiment wake up on the last day of the war to find their objective wreathed in a cold fog.  Unable to see what lies ahead of their lines, the men go to ground and remain in their positions as German shells and machine gun bursts fly through the damp morning air.  At 10:44 in the morning a regimental runner reaches the area with news that a ceasefire is going into effect in sixteen minutes and that 313th is to hold in place, neither advancing or retreating.  With the new information, the men stay where they are with a single exception, Private Gunther.  For some unknown reason, whether still trying to prove his meddle, win back his stripes, be seen as a hero, or to prove he is as American as any other soldier in the United States Army, Gunther fixes his bayonet to his rifle. suddenly leaps up, and charges down the road leading into the village despite orders and his friend, Sergeant Ernest Powell, commanding him to get down.  Firing forward as he runs toward the two machine gun German roadblock blocking entrance to the village, the position's defenders wave and scream in broken English at the soldier heading their way, knowing the war is only a few heartbeats away from soon ending.  Ignoring entreaties to stop from both sides, Gunther finally gets so close to the Germans that they are forced to defend themselves and a short burst of bullets is sent at the private and he is hit in the forehead and dies instantly, just sixty seconds away from surviving being drafted into the Army.  A conflict so bloody it's battles will claim 8,042,189 lives (and an unknown number of men who will perish later as a result of never healed physical and psychic wounds over the years following the war), 53,402 of which are American dead, Gunther is accorded the dubious honor of officially being considered to be the very last combat death of the misnamed "War to End All Wars," WWI.

Celebrating The End

World Wide Headlines

The site of the private's death marked with a cross by his comrades, Gunther is at first buried in France,  but is exhumed in 1923 and returned to the United States to be buried in Baltimore's Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery.  The last to die in combat during WWI, as 11/11 becomes the Federal holiday of Veterans Day in the United States, Gunther's charge and death seem to wipe away all that came before during his service in the Army, and posthumously he is returned to the rank of sergeant and awarded a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross, and receives a Divisional Citation for Gallantry in Action along with having a VFW post, number 1858 (it no longer exists), named in his honor in East Baltimore.  On November 11, 2008, a memorial is dedicated near the spot where he died in France, and two years later, on 11/11/2010, a memorial plaque that reads "HIGHLY DECORATED FOR EXCEPTIONAL BRAVERY AND HEROIC ACTION THAT RESULTED IN HIS DEATH ONE MINUTE BEFORE THE ARMISTICE," paid for by the German Society of Maryland, is unveiled at 10:59 in the morning.  Rest in Peace, Sergeant!

French Memorial

Grave & Plaque

        

SKY DOG TO THE SKY - 10/29

10/29/1971 - On the cusp of becoming a major star in the world of musical entertainment, tragedy takes away guitar playing marvel, Duane Allman, following a motorcycle accident in the town of Macon, Georgia.  The guitarist is only 24 years old at the time of his death.  

Skydog

Named for Revolutionary War hero, General Francis Nash, Nashville, Tennessee, the town that will one day be known as "Music City," becomes the home of WWII veteran Willis Allman (he, along with his younger brother, Howard, will be among the thousands of Allied soldiers that land on the beaches of Normandy, France on D-Day, June 6, 1944) and his wife, Geraldine Robbins Allman following Allman's return from the war.  Remaining in the service as a recruiting officer stationed in Nashville, the Allman Family welcome into their ranks a third member, Howard Duane Allman, on November 20, 1946.  A year later, on December 8, 1947, the family expands again when Gregory Lenoir Allman is born.  In 1949 the family pulls up stakes when Willis is sent to the Fort Story army base at Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Sadly, while away celebrating Christmas with her parents in North Carolina, the young brothers (Duane has been three for all of a month) and Geraldine lose Willis on December 26th, when the second lieutenant is shot in the chest by a fellow veteran in East Ocean View, Virginia, during a failed robbery following a night of holiday celebrating bar hopping with a buddy.  For the next few years the threesome live with Willis' parents in Nashville.  The small family is fractured once more in 1955 when Geraldine decides to use military benefits available to Army widows to attend college to receive a degree in accounting (a higher paying career than continuing to work as a secretary), while using another widow benefit to send her sons to the Castle Heights Military Academy of Lebanon, Tennessee (roughly 30 miles east of Nashville), while she concentrates on her studies.  Barracks, military uniforms, studies (Duane enters as a fourth grader, while Gregg goes in as a third grader, with Gregg on the top floor of the school's Hooker Hall and Duane assigned a space on the Hall's first floor) , discipline, and being separated from family not to the liking of the wild youngsters from Nashville, the threesome are reunited two years later when Geraldine, now a certified public accountant begins her new career and sets up shop in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Geraldine & Willis

The Allmans - 1947

With Grandma

Military School - Gregg & Duane

Except for when Duane is beating on his brother over one thing or another (per Gregg, the muggings happen almost everyday until they both become teenagers sharing a deep passion for music), the boys flourish in their new home, filling their days with kid adventures, trips to the beach, and summer visits to their loving grandparents.  The Daytona 200 motorcycle race celebrating its 20th anniversary in 1957 (the race takes place just south of the Allman's abode near the Ponce Inlet), Duane develops his life long passion for motorcycles and lots of speed, soon acquiring a tiny Harley 165, which he drives into the ground.  The first Allman to be hit by musical lightning however is Gregg, who after being taught how to play "Comin' Around the Mountain When She Comes" by one of his grandmother's neighbors during a summer visit, returns to Daytona in need of an axe of his own ... which he procures in the form of a brand new Sears Silvertone with proceeds from his paper route and ninety-five cents from his mother.  His motorcycle in pieces, Duane is soon hooked on plucking his brother's new possession and the brothers soon have something new to fight about, at least until bringing peace to her home, Geraldine buys her oldest son a cherry-red 1959 Gibson Les Paul Junior electric guitar (to keep the boys from fighting over Gregg's newest guitar, and electric Fender Musicmaster).  And so the boys begin playing, playing, and playing some more, with both left-handers teaching themselves to play right-handed.  Inhaling the rhythm and blues, country, and rock & roll of the region, Duane tells his brother they have to be professional musicians too after the brothers attend a concert in Nashville (during another visit to their grandparents' abode) feature the guitar stylings of Jackie Wilson, B.B. King, and Johnny Taylor.  Soon both brothers tire of school and just want to play music (they are sent back to military school as their grades begin slipping ... Duane will drop out of school (he also becomes a father for the first time, having a deaf little girl with his high school sweetheart Patti Chandlee that the pair of youngsters put up for adoption) and Gregg will graduate from Seabreeze High School in Daytona ... and both boys will begin boozing and dabbling in drugs, playing with and forming various bands ... the Y Teens, House Rockers, the Escorts (who actually open a concert for the Beach Boys in 1965), the Allman Joys, and Hour Glass (which records two albums for Liberty Records of Los Angeles, that both fail to register with the public).

Harley 165

1959 Gibson Les Paul

Hour Glass Trying To Be The Beatles - Duane 

Strumming And Gregg Singing

Playing way beyond good by 1966, while seeking the right vehicle to bring together his musical vision of the blues mixed with country and rock, Duane begins taking session work on other artist's recordings despite being unable to read charts (instead, he has whatever song he is working on played for him and memorizes it after only one listen), beginning with work at Nashville's RCA Studio "B" (on The Vogues first album, produced by Tony Moon) before moving on to FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he pitches a tent in the parking lot of the studio and befriending owner Rick Hall and legendary bluesman, Wilson Pickett.  During a lunch break from recording his next album for Atlantic Records in 1968, Pickett is taught the Beatles' "Hey Jude" by Duane, and then is invited inside to play on the track, which becomes the name of Pickett's next hit album.  It also serves as a doorway to other session work as other producers and artists want Allman on their albums (among his new admirers are Atlantic Records executive, Jerry Wexler, and the world's then reigning guitar God, that "Creem guy" as Duane will state, Eric Clapton, who is astonished by Allman's lead break at the end of the tune).  Among those that will benefit from working with Duane at Muscle Shoals will be Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Otis Rush, Percy Sledge, Johnny Jenkins, Boz Scaggs, Delany & Bonnie, Doris Duke, and jazzman Herbie Mann (impossible to count, during his Allman Brothers band days, he often just stops in to see who is recording and adds little bits of this-and-that to numerous recordings that go uncredited).  

FAME Studio

Pickett & Duane

Duane & Hall

Another seminal moment of 1968 for Duane is Gregg's story of how his brother discovered slide playing.  Visiting his brother in Los Angeles as Hour Glass crashes and burns, Gregg talks Duane into going horseback riding, a ride that does not go well for the guitarist, who is violently thrown on his left elbow crossing a road.  Absolutely pissed with his younger brother as the architect of the disaster (Duane won't talk to his bother for weeks), on Duane's birthday, Gregg leaves a glass bottle of Coricidin and bluesman Taj Mahal's debut album on his brother's front porch, then rings the doorbell and runs off.  Happy Birthday indeed and another tempest between the boys stilled, two hours later Duane is on the phone to Gregg.  "Baby brother, baby brother, get over here now," Duane tells his brother, and complying immediately of course, Greg learns that his brother has poured the pills out, steamed off the bottle's labels, and placing the empty container on his ring finger, can now play slide to Mahal's version of "Statesboro Blues (matching the slide musings on the recording of Jesse Ed Davis).  As Gregg will later state, "He just picked it up and started burnin'.  He was a natural."  And just like that slide guitar becomes Allman's latest and last musical obsession (while working the Coricidin bottle over his guitar, Allman fingerpicks with the thumb, index, and middle finger of his other hand, picking with one of the three digits while muting with the other two) as he plays and plays, developing an electric bottleneck sound that will soon become known as Southern Rock, with his playing influencing Dickey Betts, Derek Trucks, Gary Rossington, Joe Walsh, Don Felder (he is said to have the taught his technique to the future Eagles guitarist during a late 60s stop in Gainesville, Florida), and countless others (of course there are other stories of how Duane learns how to play slide guitar, but I like Gregg's the best).

Taj Mahal & Jesse Ed Davis

Coricidin Circa 1968

Duane Playing Slide

Meanwhile, Duane is still working on putting a rock band of musicians together with improvisional chops who can play a mélange of blues, rock, jazz, and country in the unusual format of having two drummers and two lead guitarists.  And of course, everyone must get along (around a campfire one evening, the band will all take the musketeer vow of "one for all, and all for one").  Led by Duane, the group that will come to be known as the Allman Brothers Band (thankfully, it quickly rejects the moniker, "Beelzebub").  Emerging from rehearsals and free concerts at the Willow Branch Park in Jacksonville, Florida, the band featured Duane on lead and slide guitar, Gregg on vocals and keyboards (and writing new material), Dickey Betts on vocals, lead guitar (and also writing new songs), Berry Oakley on bass guitar, Butch Trucks on drums, and Jai Johnny "Jaimoe" Johanson on drums.  Shortly after officially debuting on March 30, 1969 at the Jacksonville Armory and signing a recording contract with Capricorn Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records), the group sets up its base of operations in Macon, Georgia (Capricorn's home, the record label and the band will transform the sleepy small town of white rednecks into a vibrant musical location of long hair musicians, bikers, and multiple races), first residing in the apartment of their future road manager (the communal home of the band will soon come to be known as "The Hippie Crash Pad," and Duane will be called simply "Dog" by his companions, and "Sky Dog" by the fan base that begins to grow around his virtuoso guitar playing), Twiggs Lyndon, then on a farmhouse on a lake just outside of the town (the rent is $165 a month and the location is dubbed "Idlewild South" for all airport-like the comings and goings that take place at the location), before eventually settling into a Tudor Revival home in Macon of 18 rooms and 4,440 square feet that is rented from Day Realty for $225 a month, which the group simply calls, "The Big House" (inside the home, the future hit songs "Blue Sky," "Ramblin' Man," "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," and "Midnight Rider" will all be written and eventually the space is made into a museum honoring the band).  Coming together through hours and hours of playing at local venues (they also play two Boston gig, opening for The Velvet Underground at the end of May), Capricorn, and Twiggs' apartment complex, enjoying communal meals at H&H Soul Food Restaurant (where the cook and owner, "Mamma Louise" Hudson lets the broke band to run a tab), and hanging out at the town's Rose Hill Cemetery drinking, taking drugs, and writing songs (Dickey Betts composes one named after a tombstone that grabs his attention one evening, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"), the band is ready to record their first album in August of 1969 (in 1969, Duane also becomes a father for the second time, siring a baby daughter named Galadrielle with his girlfriend, Donna Roosman).  

Twiggs Lyndon

Idlewild South

Soul Food Time

Donna & Galadrielle

Brought to New York City to record at the Atlantic Records studio, giving house engineer Adrian Barber his first producing credit (producer Tom Dowd, a veteran with names like Ray Charles, The Drifters, Bobby Darin, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Creem and others on his resume, is scheduled but becomes unavailable during August of 1969)  the group enjoys New York City (getting there though is slightly harrowing as the truck carrying their gear breaks down in South Carolina) and putting down the tracks that will be their first album, named after themselves as so many first albums are, The Allman Brothers Band.  Taking only two weeks to record, the album features 33 minutes and 18 seconds of music in the form of seven songs ... "Don't Want You No More," "It's Not My Cross To Bear," "Black Hearted Woman," "Every Hungry Woman," "Dreams," and "Whipping Post."  Artwork for the album consists of photography of the band taken by Stephen Paley taken around Macon, the entrance to the College House on the front cover, and the Bond Tomb at the Rose Hill Cemetery on the back, and inside, a special treat to draw attention to the group, a shot of the men naked in a brook (privates covered by standing behind Oakley, only Trucks isn't sitting in the water, compliments of cutting himself earlier in the day and having to keep his thirteen stitch wound dry).  Released on November 4, 1969, the band is soon on the road in support of the album and though crowds react enthusiastically to the material, initial sales are mediocre (less than 35,000 copies) and the record only reaches #188 on Billboard's Top 200 Pop Albums chart.  Music critics however like what they hear, with Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone Magazine calling the record "... subtle, honest, and moving," and the band that has "... transcended their schooling to produce a volatile blues-rock sound of pure energy, inspiration, and love." 

Debut

The Buck Naked Boys - Trucks Standing, Oakley, 

Johanson, Gregg, Duane, & Betts

The vitally important year of 1970 begins with the group performing at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia and ends with them on the West Coast performing at the Fillmore West in San Francisco and then the Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles.  Traveling from this venue to that, in first a Ford Econoline van and then a Winnebago the group calls "The Wind Bag," the group builds it's fan base, performing over 300 times in search of stardom.  And with the traveling on the road comes the usual rock and roll madness of booze and drugs (following a well trod path to destruction, Duane has moved from sniffing clue as a teenager to going on to marijuana, speed, psychedelic mushrooms, cocaine, to heroin ... on October 29th, after a concert in Nashville, the band almost loses it's leader when Duane overdoses and is taken to a local hospital where doctor's expect him to perish, but instead he makes a miraculous recovery that some say comes by way of Berry Oakley praying to God to give the guitarist one more year to live so he can fulfill his dream of musical stardom), and with the Allman Brothers Band there is even a murder, with road manger Lyndon stabbing Buffalo, New York club owner Angel Aliotta to death over $500 owed the band (incredibly, Lyndon will be found not guilty by reason of insanity as his defense lawyer sways the jury with a defense that being out on the road with the band drove the travel manager momentarily mad).  The only time the band seems to slow even a little is when over the course of parts of six months (February to July), they meet up with producer Tom Dowd at multiple studios and record material that will become the seven songs of their second album ("Revival," "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'," "Midnight Rider," Hootchie Coochie Man," "Please Call Home," and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed).  Incorporating the new material into their live performances, the second album sells more copies than the group's debut, rising to #38 on Billboard's album chart, but again disappointing Duane that doesn't chart even higher.

The Whiskey

At Atlanta Stadium - June, 1970

Guitar heaven, attending one of the groups many 1970 concerts with members of Derek and the Dominos (this one in Miami) is Eric Clapton.  The two men meet after the concert and an instant bond (the pair will soon being calling each other "brothers" and "soul mates") develops as the musicians and the members of their bands retire to Criteria Records and spend the night trading licks, telling stories, and listening to tapes of what will become the Idlewild South album.  Impressed with Duane's slide playing, Clapton asks Allman to sit in on the sessions needed to complete what will become the album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs," which Duane does, contributing some of his best known playing to the record (Duane will state that to tell who is playing what on the album is very simple, Clapton is on a Fender creating a sparkling sound, while Allman is producing a "full-tilt screech" with a Gibson guitar) so much so that Clapton offers him a place in the band.  Though Duane never leaves his own group, he does miss four Allman Brothers Band concerts while recording eleven of the fourteen songs on the album with Clapton (the rock classic, "Layla," to which Duane contributes mightily will be chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of its 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, is ranked #27 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time, and was placed at #118 on the Songs of the Century list of the Recording Industry Association of America) and performs as a live Domino at the band's gigs on December 1, 1970 at the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, Florida, and the next day at the Onondaga County War Memorial Stadium in Syracuse.

Eric & Duane

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

Still pushing their music seeking commercial success, 1970 ends for the Allman Brothers Band with two December concerts at the Fillmore East opening for Canned Heat, then holiday concerts in Washington D.C., Boston, home in Macon, and then in New Orleans.  Still audience hunting in January of 1971, the band plays to larger and larger crowds of raving fans at venues in Statesboro, Georgia (opening of course with "Statesboro Blues"), Boone, North Carolina, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Port Chester, New York, before ending the month on the West Coast opening for Hot Tuna (an offshoot of the Jefferson Airplane) in a series of concerts at Bill Graham's Fillmore West in San Francisco.  And somewhere along the way a light bulb goes off in Duane's head of escaping the grind of studio work producing another album by recording a series of their live, crowd pleasing performances that are to take place in march at a favorite location of the band ... Bill Graham's Fillmore East in New York City where they are to open for Johnny Winter and the Elvin Bishop Group  (the band is paid $1,250 for each show).  Eureka mixed with kismet, the album that emerges from the concerts consists of 76 minutes and 22 seconds of music on two records (Side One features "Statesboro Blues," "Done Somebody Wrong," and "Stormy Monday."  Side Two is one nineteen minute and six second song, "You Don't Love Me."  Side Three is made up of the tunes "Hot Lanta" and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.  Side Four is another single song lasting twenty-two minutes and forty seconds, "Whipping Post.") produced again by Tom Dowd (fresh from escaping a cold European winter, finding out from Jerry Wexler on the day of the first concert that he will be recording the Allman Brothers Band that night from inside a truck housing the Location Recorders' 16-track mobile studio) which one day will be selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important."  The breakthrough Duane was hoping for, "At The Fillmore East" (released on July 6, 1971) is now considered to be one of the finest live albums ever recorded (in 2020, The Independent newspaper proclaims it the best live album of all time), is certified gold by October, crests at #13 on the Billboard charts, and eventually becomes the band's first platinum album ... and a bargain for the fans, it is sold as if it is a single disc.  Selling immediately upon release, it also marks the closing days of the band opening for someone else, they are headliners now as The Beach Boys will discover when the Allman Brothers Band closes the Fillmore East for Graham on June 27, 1971.

Bill Graham

Cover Of At Fillmore East - The Allman

Brothers And Their Equipment - Everyone Laughing

Because Duane Is Holding Contraband On His Crotch

Back Cover - Duane's Idea - The Allman Brothers

Band Roadies, The Songs, And Twiggs Lyndon

Following the release and success of At Fillmore East, Duane does what he has been doing for years ... he plays and plays and plays, rides his motorcycle way too fast, and puts excess amounts of booze and drugs into his system.  At the end of June and beginning of July, he does session work on jazz flutist Herbie Mann's album, "Push Push," lending his guitar to six of the seven cuts on the album (he is scheduled to also play on King Curtis' latest saxophone stylings, but the sessions never take place because the horn player is stabbed to death on the mean streets of New York City).  As a member of the Allman Brothers Band, Duane plays gigs with his mates at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, Tampa, Atlanta, Huntington, New York, two shows in New York City's Central Park, Virginia Beach, St. Paul, and North Baltimore, Ohio, and performs live on WPLJ radio, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Minneapolis, Tennessee, Ohio, New York, Austin, Texas, the Whiskey a Go Go, and in San Francisco at Bill Graham's Winterland ... more than 70 shows in all with only two weeks off the road in August (and somehow they all find time to record a handful of songs for the band's fourth album ... "Blue Sky," "Stand Back," and Duane's instrumental, "Little Martha).  Recognizing rest is needed from the grind and drug addictions could wipe out the success the band has achieved, at the beginning of October, Duane, bassist Berry Oakley, and roadies Robert "Kim" Payne and Joseph "Red Dog" Campbell all check into the Linwood-Bryant Hospital in Buffalo, New York for rehabilitation from their various addictions.  Clean for the first time in years, Duane and company check out of the hospital at the end of the month and return to Macon in time to celebrate the birthday of Oakley's wife on the 29th, planning to throw her a surprise party at "The Big House."

Push Push

Gregg Allman, Red Dog, And Payne

Oakley

Picked up at the airport by his brother and Gregg's new wife Shelley on the 28th, one year to the day of surviving his overdose, on the last day of life, Friday, 10/29/1971, Duane sleeps in while his new girlfriend, Dixie Meadow, and Linda Oakley's sister, Candace, bake a cake for the party (he has moved out of the band's house and into a home of his own with his girlfriend.  Waking, Duane gets a ride to the town's Harley-Davidson dealership and picks up his fork leg modified Sportster (which has been newly re-tired, front and back), along with the new helmet he has purchased (he immediately cuts the chin strap in two).  Returning to the "Big House," Duane prepares for Halloween by carving pumpkins on the house's porch, before getting on his Harley at half-past five in the early evening to lead a two-car caravan back to his place to pick up the birthday cake for Linda and a passel of gifts (in one car are Dixie and Candace and in the other is Berry Oakley).  Taking a shortcut home, Duane turns right onto Hillcrest Avenue and steps on the gas.  Disaster strikes moments later when an east bound truck in front of Duane begin makes a left turn onto Bartlett Street and comes to a dead stop in the middle of the intersection.  Trying to swing around the obstacle at speed, Duane hits the truck hard ... helmet off from the impact, the guitarist comes off his bike, and after the Harley bounces once, the five hundred pound motorcycle comes down on Duane and the pair skid almost a hundred feet down Hillcrest before coming to rest on the curb, with the bike's motor still racing.  Following only a few seconds behind, Candace and Dixie stop and race to Duane's side (Berry Oakley has taken a different route to Duane's home), with Candace calling for an emergency ambulance (although it actually doesn't take long, she has to visit three nearby houses before finding someone willing to let her call 911).  Unconscious when the ambulance shows up (meanwhile, Candace drives to Duane's house where she gives Oakley the unexpected news and calls Gregg's apartment to tell Allman his older brother is on the way to the hospital ... his abode in close proximity to the medical facility, Gregg runs to the hospital), the guitarist has only superficial scratches and strawberries on his body, but beyond view, has suffered multiple massive internal injuries.  With Dixie at his side in the ambulance, Duane's stops breathing, but is revived by a paramedic who provides mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  At Macon's Medical Center of Central Georgia, Dr. Charles Burton determines that Allman's only chance is surgery, but his injuries are too severe, and roughly three hours after crashing, the 24-year-old guitarist passes away from a ruptured coronary artery and a severely damaged liver.     

Hillcrest & Bartlett Intersection

The Motorcycle

Big News

Word of the disaster quickly spreading through the musical world, Duane's funeral takes place three days later, on November 1st, at around 3:00 in the afternoon (prior to the official farewell, Allman Brothers Band road manager Willie Perkins ushers Duane's family and closest friends into a side room of Snow's Memorial Chapel where they can view the musician a final time ... when the lid of the casket is finally closed, Duane's beloved Coricidin slide is on his ring finger and a single joint is in his coat pocket).  Behind Duane's flower-covered casket and his guitar case, the Allman Brothers Band, supported by mourning guests Thom Doucette (on harmonica), Delaney Bramlett (of the group, Delaney & Bonnie), and Dr. John perform "The Sky Is Crying, "Key to the Highway," "Stormy Monday," "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," "Come On in My Kitchen," "Melissa" (Duane's favorite song written by his younger brother), and close with "Statesboro Blues" (with Betts playing Duane's slide intro o the guitarist's Les Paul).  Giving the eulogy, Atlantic music executive and Duane's friend, Jerry Wexler, will sum up Allman's life by stating, "Those of us who were privileged to know Duane will remember him from all the studios, backstage dressing rooms, the Downtowners, the Holiday Inns, the Sheratons, the late nights relaxing after the sessions, the whiskey and the music talk, playing back cassettes until night gave way to dawn, the meals and the pool games, the fishing in Miami and Long Island-this young, beautiful man who we love so dearly, but who is not lost to us, because we have his music-and the music is imperishable."  Services over, Duane is buried at one of his favorite locations, Rose Hill Cemetery, under a stone tablet of the musician's own words:  "I LOVE BEING ALIVE AND I WILL BE THE BEST MAN I POSSIBLY CAN.  i WILL TAKE LOVE WHEREVER I FIND IT AND OFFER IT TO EVERYONE WHO WILL TAKE IT ... SEEK KNOWLEDGE FROM THOSE WISER ... AND TEACH THOSE WHO WISH TO LEARN FROM ME."

Funeral Jam

Duane And Wexler

Their leader lost, the surviving members of the band all agree to continue on as a five-member group, and as such, reach even greater commercial success, starting with the band's fourth album and Duane's last music, "Eat a Peach" (the title comes from Duane's response to a reporter's query about what the guitarist does to bring peace to the world, proclaiming "I'm hitting a lick for peace-and every time I'm in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace."  Produced again by Tom Dowd, "Eat a Peach" features 68 minutes and 42 seconds of new and old music (the band will fill out the package with new studio material and sounds from their famous At Fillmore East stand) with Duane playing lead and slide on all four sides ... "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," Les Brers In A Minor," "Melissa," "Mountain Jam - Part One," "One Way Out," "Trouble No More," "Stand Back," "Blue Sky," "Little Martha," and "Mountain Jam - Part Two."  Released on February 12, 1972, the album will reach #4 on that year's Billboard's Top 200 Pop Albums, will eventually be certified platinum and becomes the group's best selling effort.  Sadly, Berry Oakley will not be around beyond 1972 to enjoy the groups success.  Morose from the loss of his friend and the part he played organizing his wife's surprise party and praying at Duane's bedside, the bassist attempts to chase his sorrows away (and the nightmares he begins to have where the hellhounds of Robert Johnson are on his trail) by consuming massive amounts of booze and drugs.  His woes come to an end on November 11, 1972, just slightly over a year from the time of Duane's death, when riding his Triumph 750 motorcycle in Macon with keyboardist, Chuck Leavell, and roadie, Kim Payne, Oakley loses control of his bike taking a sharp bend in Napier Road (only three blocks from where Allman hit the truck) and crashes into a city bus.  As if mimicking Duane's accident, Oakley is thrown roughly sixty feet down the rode, and like his friend, the cycle lands on the bassist.  Despite hitting the bus, sliding along the road, and cracking his helmet, Oakley appears to only suffer a bloody nose and an assortment of minor cuts and bruises, and close to "The Big House," he gets a ride home rather than going to the hospital.  There, he soon becomes disoriented and in pain, admitted shortly after 3:00 in the afternoon to the emergency room of the same hospital Duane died at, Oakley is pronounced dead less than an hour later, a victim of a hemorrhaging brain caused by fracturing his skull.  Like Duane also, Oakley is only 24-years-old at his passing ... he too will be buried at Rose Hill Cemetery, right next to his friend.

Eat A Peach

The Bad News

Duane's & Berry's Final Resting Places

So much promise lost forever on a very sad day in 1971, Duane (and Berry) leaves way too early and the world is a lesser place for the music that is lost ... but the world also was blessed by the music that was created, music that remains a talismans that can transport the listener back to a time when sweet sounds and the smell of freshly picked peaches filled the southern air.  Rest in Peace, Skydog ... you are remembered and still missed.

Fishing

On The Road

Playing

And Playing

And Playing

.      

   .