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Southern rock can be linked back to March 26, 1969, when

Duane Allman, the founder and leader of the Allman Brothers

band, summoned his brother Greg to join a band that

fused blues, rock, jazz, and country music,

a combination literally unheard of at the time.

From forming the Allman Brothers band in 1969

to his untimely death two and a half years later, today,

we're looking at the life and tragic death of Duane Allman.

But before we get started, make sure you subscribe to the Weird

History Channel, leave a comment,

and let us know what music stories you

would like to hear about next.

Now, to the whipping post.

Sometime in the summer of 1960, Howard Duane Allman

bought his first motorcycle.

According to his brother Greg, the 14-year-old Duane

became a terror of the neighborhood

with that motorcycle.

He was frequently seen and heard ripping

through Daytona Beach, Florida, where the Allman family moved

two years earlier.

The same summer Duane bought his motorcycle,

the 13-year-old Greg got a summer job as a paper boy.

After several months on the job, Greg

went to a Sears department store one afternoon

with the intention of buying a pair of gloves.

His attention though was diverted

by a display of guitars.

Instead of gloves, Greg bought a Teisco Silvertone guitar.

Back home, Duane used to play the guitar

on the sly, which infuriated Greg and caused

the brothers to fight.

But according to Greg's 2012 autobiography My Cross to Bear,

there was no question that music brought the two together.

When Duane rode his Harley into the ground,

he traded in the salvageable parts

for a Silvertone of his own.

Greg gave his older brother a few basic lessons,

but Duane was a quick study.

And after a year of practice and an inspirational BB King

concert, the Allman boys formed several local bands,

including the Kings, the Uniques, Y Teams,

the Shufflers, the Misfits, the Escorts, the Allman Joys,

and Allman Act.

In early 1967, the Allman boys were

booked for a month long engagement

in St. Louis, Missouri.

It was here that the brothers bumped

into the nitty gritty dirt band's manager, Bill McEwen.

McEwen told the Allmans to stop spinning their wheels,

give it the road, go to California,

and get serious about making music,

and get a recording contract.

Duane and Greg left Florida and relocated to Los Angeles

with their group.

McEwen got them an audition with Liberty Records, who

then signed the band.

But the record company wanted to mold them

into a bland commercial rock band similar to Los Angeles

rock bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Byrds.

Soon after signing the Allman Brothers five piece,

Liberty changed the band's name to Hourglass.

They were forced to wear ridiculous hippie costumes

and even restricted their live gigs

to preserve the band's mystique.

Liberty didn't even let Hourglass choose the songs

on their self-titled debut album and only loosened the reins

on their second album after the failure of the first.

Greg Allman called Hourglass's output a shit sandwich.

Yep, that's probably where Spinal Tap got that line from.

After the demos for a potential third album recorded

at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals were ejected by Liberty,

Duane and Greg moved back to Florida

and sort of dissolved Hourglass without really telling anyone.

When Liberty Records threatened to sue Hourglass

for breaking up, Greg went back to Los Angeles

in the fall of 1968 to record a solo record for them,

which would fulfill the band's contract.

With the disaster of Hourglass behind them,

Duane spent a few months jamming with local Florida musicians.

Nothing was really clicking for him

in regards of forming another band.

Duane was in a holding pattern.

Luckily, Fame Studios owner Rick Hall

remembered Duane from Hourglass's recent sessions,

sent him a telegram to see if he was interested in a paid gig.

And in November of 1968, Duane Allman

played lead guitar on Wilson Pickett song "Hey, Jude."

It was during the sessions for that album

that inspired Pickett to give Duane

his nickname Sky Dog because he could hit the heights.

Paul was also pretty impressed with the Duane's session work.

He signed Sky Dog to a five year contract

as Fame Studio's primary guitarist

where he played for Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, Otis

Rush, and countless others.

But it was Duane's work with Pickett that created the buzz.

This is how Eric Clapton put it.

"I remember hearing Wilson Pickett's "Hey, Jude"

and just being astounded by the lead break at the end.

I had to know who that was immediately, right now."

While under contract with Rick Hall's Fame Studio,

Duane slowly put a band together consisting of drummer Jaimo

Johanson, Johnny Sandlin as the second drummer,

Paul Hornsby on guitar and keys, and bassist Berry Oakley.

The group had immediate chemistry.

And Duane's vision for a different sounding band,

one with two lead guitarist and two drummers,

began taking shape.

Duane was thrilled at how well his unnamed band was gelling.

But Duane was slowly becoming frustrated

with being what he called a robot for Fame Studios

producers and musicians that came through using him

as a young gun for hire.

Now, depending on who's telling the story,

Duane's future was decided by either Rick Hall

of Fame Studios or Atlantic Records vice president Jerry

Wechsler.

According to Jimmy Johnson, co-founder of the Muscle Shoals

Sound Studio, the moment Jerry Wechsler heard Duane's solo

on Pickett's "Hey, Jude" on a lo-fi playback over the phone,

he called Phil Walden, who had been looking for an artist

to manage ever since his client Otis Redding died.

After quite a successful run managing soul and R&B acts,

Walden wanted to switch genres into rock music.

So Wechsler excitedly told Walden

about Duane, who then immediately flew

to Muscle Shoals to buy Allman's Fame Studio

contract from Rick Hall.

Walden and Wechsler envisioned Duane and his band

as the foundation of their new Atlantic distributed label

Capricorn Records.

Now, if Rick Hall tells the story,

he says he wasn't happy with Duane or as recording methods.

According to Randy Poe's 2008 biography Sky Dog:

the Duane Allman Story, he offered Wechsler and Walden

the chance to buy out Duane's contract and the tracks

his band recorded for $10,000.

Given a second chance, a new contract

with Capricorn Records, and the freedom

to make whatever kind of music he wanted,

Duane returned to Jacksonville, Florida.

Duane was now in search of the perfect band.

Already jamming with Berry Oakley on bass

and Dickey Betts on lead guitar, Jaimo on drums,

Duane also recruited Butch Trucks

as his band's second drummer.

And a couple weeks after he assembled these players,

the five musicians found themselves

jamming in a small room at Oakley's home.

The jam went on for three or four hours.

And when the music trailed off, Duane looked around the room

and said to no one in particular,

"Man, anyone who ain't in this band

has got to fight their way out."

Now all they needed was a singer.

But Duane already had a plan.

Duane called Greg in Los Angeles,

where unbeknownst to him, his little brother

was considering suicide.

Greg explains the situation in a letter he drunkenly

wrote to Cameron Crowe in 1973 while on tour

promoting their most recent album Brothers and Sisters.

"I'd been building the nerve to put a pistol to my head.

Then Duane called me and told me that he had a band.

He said, 'I want you to come down here, round it up,

and send it somewhere.'

I put my thumb out and caught the first thing smoking

for Jacksonville."

Greg was intimidated by the musicians Duane put together,

but his big brother pressured him into singing his guts out.

It was a sink or swim moment, and Greg delivered.

It was at this rehearsal on March 26, 1969,

when the group was rehearsing "Muddy Waters, Trouble No More"

that Dwayne's vision came together,

and southern rock was conceived.

Four days later, after Greg's first rehearsal

with Duane and the group, the Allman Brothers band

made their debut on March 30, 1969,

at the Jacksonville Beach armory.

Oddly enough, Greg didn't perform

with the band for this gig.

Duane Allman was only 22 years old.

But after a year and a half in Hourglass,

he taught himself to become arguably the greatest slide

guitar player in the world.

He invented a genre of music that would later

become southern rock.

And in two and a half years, he would be gone.

Once the Allman Brothers were signed to Capricorn Records,

Duane didn't break from his cycle of rehearsing, recording,

and touring for two years.

Phil Walden suggested moving the band to Macon, Georgia,

where he was in the process of setting up Capricorn Records.

The band eventually moved into the former frat

house near the local college the band

christened the Hippie Crash.

Pad.

It was there the Allman Brothers band

recorded their self-titled debut between August 3 and 12 of 1969

and released it on November 4, 1969.

They then set out on a rigorous two year tour,

performing nearly 500 dates in an econoline van

and later a Winnebago nicknamed the Windbag.

As a result of the band's relentless touring schedule,

their second album Idlewild South

was recorded in bits and pieces over a period

of five months in various cities,

including New York, Miami, and Macon between February

through July 1970.

When sales proved to be as slow for Idlewild South,

Duane pushed the band to perform 300 gigs

in 1970, which actually earned the band a reputation of being

a phenomenal live band.

This revelation gave Duane a career making idea.

The Allman Brothers third album would be recorded live

at the Fillmore East, Bill Graham's legendary New York

rock venue.

And it would be here where Duane Allman would become a legend.

At Fillmore East was released as a double album on July of 1971.

And within two weeks, it landed on the American charts.

The group encountered huge crowds

at every gig following the release.

And guitarists would seek out Duane backstage

and tell him how much he had inspired

them to stop playing safe commercial rock

and play real music.

Finally, enjoying a little success

after two years on the road since their debut,

the band decided to take a short vacation,

relax, and enjoy some of their success.

On October 21, 1971, Duane took a short ride

on his Harley Davidson Sportster to Berry Oakley's two story

band headquarters and residence the group

called the Big House in Macon.

He was going to wish Oakley's wife Linda a happy birthday.

Shortly after leaving the Big House at about 5:45 PM,

Duane headed east out on Macon on Hillcrest Avenue.

It was at the intersection of Hillcrest and Bartlett

that Dwayne spotted a flatbed truck crossing Hillcrest

from his left to his right.

The truck suddenly stopped in the intersection,

forcing Duane to swerve sharply to the left.

At this point, Duane clipped the back of the truck's bed

and was thrown from the motorcycle.

Duane's Sportster flew in the air, landed on him,

and slid between 50 and 90 feet beyond the point of impact.

The weight of the motorcycle crushed his internal organs.

According to a report by John Lando from Rolling Stone

on November 25, 1971, Dwayne's girlfriend Dixie Meadows

and Berry Oakley's sister Candy were following him

from some distance behind and had not seen the accident.

When the girls had found Duane under his motorcycle,

they stayed with him until an ambulance arrived.

He reportedly stopped breathing twice in the ambulance

but was revived both times through mouth

to mouth resuscitation.

Although Duane was alive when he arrived at the Macon

medical center, his massive injuries

were too much for his body despite three hours of surgery.

Doctor Charles Burdon, the intending surgeon,

later said that any of those injuries Duane

sustained-- his collapsed chest, his ruptured coronary artery,

or severely damaged liver-- would probably

have caused his death.

But the combination of all these injuries

left very little hope upon arrival.

And at the age of 24, only two and a half years

after the Allman Brothers formed, Duane Allman was dead.

Services were held three days later on Monday, November 1,

1971, at Macon's Memorial Chapel.

Nearly 300 friends, relatives, and admirers attended.

Duane's guitar case was propped up

at the front of his floor wreath casket,

and the Allman Brothers band gear was set up behind.

At 3:00 PM, the remaining members

of the band played several of their songs as a tribute

to Duane such as "The Keys to the Highway,"

which Duane had recorded with Eric Clapton on "Layla,"

then did "Stormy Monday" and "Elizabeth Reed."

Greg also sang a couple of the songs

by himself while playing Duane's antique guitar.

When Greg finished, he lowered his head

and fingered the guitar's fretboard nervously and said,

"This is a very old guitar, a very beautiful piece.

It was made in 1920.

And I'm very proud to have it.

And I'm very proud that you all came."

Although the Allman Brothers band stayed together until 2014

with several hiatuses and several different musicians

along the way, they were never the same after Duane's death.

Bassist Berry Oakley died in a drunken motorcycle accident

about three blocks away from where Duane died a year and two

weeks after Duane's crash.

Greg testified against Scooter Herring, his personal road

manager and valet, after Herring was

charged with multiple counts of conspiracy

to distribute narcotics.

Greg's testimony labeled him as a snitch among band mates,

and the Allman Brothers band broke up.

The band reformed, but they never quite

captured the spirit they possessed

when Duane was their leader.

So what do you think would have happened

if Duane would have lived?

Would he have been the greatest guitarist of all time?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

And while you're at it, check out some of these other music

stories from our Weird History.