Butch Trucks, the drummer for the Allman Brothers Band from their inception in 1969 through to their calling it quits in 2014, died last night, per a press release. He was 69 years old.
Trucks met Duane and Gregg Allman in 1968 while playing in Jacksonville, Florida and the following year they came together to form The Allman Brothers Band along with Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, and Trucks’ cohort behind the drums, Jai Johanny Johanson. Along with Johanson, Trucks’ rhythms were an integral part of the Allman Brothers’ sound, from relentlessly propulsive grooves on long jams like “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and “Whipping Post” to more laid-back, in-the-pocket beats on hits like “Ramblin’ Man,” “Melissa” and “Jessica.”
In short, Trucks’ massive contributions to the Allman Brothers Band, and to music in general, are undeniable and unquantifiable, and he will be missed.
LINK (via: Paste Magazine)
Embedded below is In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, One Way Out, Stormy Monday and Statesboro Blues live from A&R Studios, New York, August 26, 1971.
Yup. I was once similarly bad-hair-day afflicted (but, like all the other guys back then, it was “Where the hella am I goin’?” real and not a comb-over or rug), and know that such “Quarry” music and fashion was all very very much its time… Yet, even now, whenever I hear the Allmans’ “Jessica” [despite a much later, British, early Men & Motors petrolhead TV effort grabbing it as its signature tune], then take a look at what I saw and heard on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test music programme [Brit spelling] years later, one late night back in 1978 – Dickey Betts of the same band cutting loose on “Ramblin’ Man” [available on the Tube] – I think “Hey … maybe it’s not my old memory playing me false … things just might have been a little better back then, certainly more loving / easy-going and a heck of a lot simpler…”.