“The last thing I ever said to my brother was a f- lie, man. Incensed, Gregg stole into Duane’s house while he was sleeping the next morning, found his brother’s stash, “poured out about half a gram, and snorted it up.” As soon as Gregg returned home the phone rang and Duane was furious and asked whether he had taken his coke. Allman writes that he gave Duane $100 to buy a gram, but he never got the drug. Other stories aren’t as amusing, such as when Allman reflects on his last memory of Duane. “Duane was able to keep a straight face, and he went, ‘Gregory - at the table?’ My mother gave me one look and said, ‘Get up from the table and go to your room.’ ”

Big brother, sitting in a wet bathing suit on a hard flat chair and already understanding the theory of amplification, seized on the moment by breaking wind, “like a moose” and framed baybrah. One morning when they were children, Gregg was already working his mother’s last nerve for some infraction or other. The book’s most indelible moments focus on the relationship between the two.Īt times, the memories are hilarious. The musician doesn’t skimp on dishing on the final acrimonious departure of founding member Dickey Betts from the band in 2000 or on his conflicted relationship as “baybrah” of Duane Allman.

But the book’s detail-rich examination of key events in his music career gives Cross its dramatic momentum and value. He’s struggled with drug and alcohol addictions, battled hepatitis C and had a liver transplant.Īllman doesn’t spend too much time explaining why his marriages failed and gives only cursory mention to his five children. He had to testify against his band’s roadie for selling drugs to him and was blasted as a “narc” by Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia.

His five marriages failed and one of them, to pop culture fixture Cher, made him People magazine fodder in the 1970s.

Gregg allman my cross to bear