This is great. But I think I speak for many of your readers when I say that what we really want is more alligator stories.

Where DO you get all the Duane photos? I've only been visiting your blog for a couple of months, so I don't know the story behind your Wednesday Duane pics, but I sure do look forward to them.

I would surely be interested to hear about how you "discovered" the ABB. I first saw them at the Byron GA, "Atlanta Pop Festival" [1970- 1971?]. THey playde the big stage but I watched them all night one night at the small stage way back in the woods and away from the crowds--unbelievable.

Duane Allman definitely makes the list of the top 5 electric guitarists of all time. Depending on my mood, he and hendrix trade places for my #1 spot. He had an uncanny ability to render (and REND) old southern lullabies and could reach for notes that just didn't exist on any human scale.

Harry, I do NOT post too much about gators. I know I don't. I've refrained from posting about them many, many times.

Carl- I have tons of Duane pics. I had to put myself on a schedule or I'd be posting them constantly. I used to post pics frequently over at the ABB site. Now I keep them for here.

You're so lucky to have seen him at Atlanta Pop. Tell me everything! I started listening to them because of an album cover- my brother's copy of the first ABB album when I was a kid. I put the record on because I liked how Duane looked. I'm not deep. ;) I think he's the best guitarist ever.

I'm glad you like the pics. I think it's just you, me, and one other guy.

Donnah, that wasn't a criticism. I'm saying we like the gator stories. It's your "unique selling point", as the marketing people say.

Am I filling the gator niche, Harry? LOL.
But I can OPINE!

Donnah-- I am high school class of 1969. By the time Byron came to Atlanta it was two years after Woodstock, Atlanta was still in the deep south (and very provincial) and so by 70-71 the west coast music rennaissance of 1966-68 was still "fresh" and just making its impact really felt here. BY 1966 or so I was into the Beatles, Dylan, the Stones and even-- though I didn't know who he was at the time -- Van Morrison, but within a 36-40 month period beginning in late 1968 the music exploded here in Atlanta and I "discovered" and really bonded with Hendrix, Quicksilver, Joplin, Gracie Slick, the Grateful Dead, Spirit [a one-hit wonder, I admit], Neil Young, CSN, Carlos Santana,Alvin Lee, Johnny Winter, Traffic, Blind Faith,Joe Walsh, Procol Harem, and so many other greats of the age (all still fresh and great today!). I remember swelling with Southern pride at Byron when I realized that Duane Allman's leit motifs during the ABB's signature jams were not always blues-based but (just as often) variations of very, very old southern lullabies and ditties (eg, the ditty, "Momma's lil' baby love shortnin' shoertnin', Momma's lil' baby like shortnin' bread..." appears throughout the Fillmore concerts and in many jams. The ABB was the South's contribution to the music rennaissance of the late 60'2-early 70's just as Faulkner was arguably South's biggest (to date) contribution to great American literature. Nice, in a way that the ABB came into their own at the end of the rennaissance and the begining of the decadent, imitative music of the mid-70's that preceeded the wasteland that was disco and after.(IMHO it was all over by 1974).

Strange how all the really great musicians really do die young, isn't it?

I have been going nuts trying to find out where the quotation on Duane Allman's grave comes from.

It is just one of those crazy things that you get to talking to someone about and then you go batty trying to find out.

Any chance you know?

Yep. It comes from his journal.