Portrait of an artist with Gibson, empty cold-pill bottle, and guitar-face.
Wail on, Skydog!
Donnah: I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but that bottle looks like a paregoric bottle to me. Still available (though rarely used anymore), Paregoric was a 19th century opium-based tincture commonly used through the 1950's. Essentially it is Laudanum, the favored opiate of those 19th century Romantic poets asnd writers (Byron, Shelly, et al). It was a cure-all: stomach medicine, pain reliever, tranquilizer and sleep-inducer all in one. Moms of us early Baby boomers (1946-1955) used it to keep us quiet on long trips until Benedryl came along (then they switched to that). I remember my mother telling me that "hobos" would sometimes drink it to get "drunk". Maybe it was used as cough syrup too, but I've never seen a cough medicine bottle shaped like Duane's; hell, that little thing wouldn't have held more'n 6 or so tablespoons. I've always liked the mystery of what he used to make that slide-- as I think I said long ago, me and my buddies up here had always thought it was a test tube, but I can see from your pics that it does have a narrower neck-- it's definitely a bottle of some kind. How come it's opaque?
Posted by: Carl at January 26, 2005 09:46 AMAlthough I'm sure Duane would have chug-a-lugged laudanum, the bottles he used were empty Coricidin bottles. Coricidn was a cold pill. I guess I should clarify.
He also sometimes wrapped the bottle in gauze.
Posted by: Donnah at January 26, 2005 10:03 AMHi, Im living in Paris, France. And I'm actually writing a long article on Duane and the Allman Brothers Band for Blues Magazine (www.bluesmagazine.net) that we're selling in french records stores. I'd like to know if we could use some of your gorgeous pictures of Duane (I've never seen so much pics of him!!!) for the article. I'm a big fan of Duane, I'm 17 years old, I was helped by my uncle who works there and that's my first article. Thanks. My e-mail adress is fastnbulbas@hotmail.com
Sure, Joaquim, go ahead. Send me a copy of your article when you're done, OK? I'd love to read it.
Posted by: Donnah at January 28, 2005 07:12 AMI am intrested in buying some of the phots of Duane, theres 1 you posted of him wearing the shirt shown in the book that comes with the Derick and Dominos album, Do you know where I might purchase any of them
Posted by: jerry at January 31, 2005 07:21 AMThe Layla shirt. Someone tried to sell it on E-bay not too long ago for $200K.
I think I know which pic you mean because it's very cool, but exactly which pic are you referring to?