It's funny, sometimes life just comes down to bringing a little bit of light to somebody when you can.
Derek Trucks
I remember the first time hearing a recording from Minton's Playhouse; it was Charlie Christian and a young Dizzy Gillespie, and he was just the best musician in the room.
You hear it in the great musicians, whether it's a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player - you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there's something they're trying to tell you.
My grandfather's from Pinson, Alabama, all the Truckses came from there.
There's some songs you write like you would write for a four- or five-piece band. But there are times when you start writing and you can immediately hear the full band.
But every so often we'll get to this place where everyone in the room is fully focused on what's happening. You see it happens in sports sometimes, when there's a really important moment. It's a great thing when you can get to those places, when you look up you don't see a bunch of phones out.
The one thing the Allman Brothers Band does not do is phone it in. They bring it every night and that's something I draw from.
I've always been of that mindset - when you're writing tunes with people, there's a traditional way of chopping things up, and then there's the way that feels right. If people contribute, you hit 'em accordingly.
You can remember almost every Elmore James solo by heart because he was playing songs. Nothing's wasted. Nothing's throwaway.
When you think about your heroes, it absolutely shapes how you play and who you are.
B.B. King wanted people to carry the torch. He wanted people to keep that music alive, and he would talk about it.
My favorite artists are able to take things to the edge or just over the edge. Miles Davis and Duane Allman, for example. It's about not playing too many notes. Those guys had lots of phases to their careers, but they always played with economy and intelligence.
You hear a great Art Blakey drum solo or Elvin Jones, and you can tell when they're taking a breath. You can tell when they're loading up for something big. There's just this humanity in it, and I think that's important as well.
When things come up, you deal with them. However uncomfortable that is, let's have this discussion right now.
My earliest memories are of traveling from Jacksonville, Florida, to visit my uncle and his family in Tallahassee.
We got our old Neve recording console, it was owned by The Kinks for a long time.
The Allman Brothers Band has a long, storied history and I wouldn't count them out. It's just not in the cards for me.
When you're dealing with the age of Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram, then everything becomes very selfish and cynical.
When you're improvising, you connect with people in a way you don't in normal life, strangely.
A lot people hit the road trying to make some cash. We are out here trying to do something that we really believe in. That's what all of our musical heroes always did.
I used a '57 Les Paul on one track, 'These Walls', which features Alam Khan on sarod. I tuned it way down because the sarode is naturally in C but I tuned the guitar down to D and he came up to D. It was all a pretty simple setup.
I have only a couple of Super 6s now, but I do have quite a few black-face Fenders around the studio. They all have slightly different character and tone, so I keep collecting them.
George Alessandro in New Jersey builds these great amplifiers. He was working on my Super Reverbs for years and he's kind of a vintage Marshall specialist. He built this amp and it's kind of a cross between a Dumble and a Super Reverb but a little juiced up with a little more power.
We all notice that the nights that are the most magical are the ones where everybody is taking a deep breath and kind of relaxing into it and relying on the people around you.
I remember recording with Johnny Sandlin at his place right outside Muscle Shoals and he turned me on to a lot of those musicians at an early age, like Roger Hawkins and David Hood and just a ton of great players.
A lot of the gear came out of some of the old studios here in New York City. We picked up a lot of old microphones, reverb tanks, tape machines, so yeah, we try to record the old way, which takes more time and energy, but it certainly feels better when you're getting to the end of the process of making a record.
But I don't pretend I earned a Lifetime Achievement Award.
I think the first time I was at Red Rocks was my first gig as a member of the Allman Brothers Band, June of 1999.
He was very sweet, but just his persona was intimidating. He was Gregg Allman. I think a lot of people had that feeling when they met him.
You can't have the Allman Brothers without Butch Trucks and Gregg Allman. Those are just irreplaceable spirits.
And you can't have an Allman Brothers gig without an Allman brother. I've heard people try to argue that you can, but I'm not buying it.
People have a tendency - you let your ego get in the way of the big moments.
But the Allman Brothers made some great studio records.
It's been a slow steady climb since my solo band got together almost 20 years ago. Me and my manager Blake were just talking about this, how every show has a few more people at it, every record has done a little better.
To be part of the Allmans for 15 years was a huge honor. I mean, it's a legendary band. I got to be around a lot of people and make a lot of great music.
When you do a different city every night, it's easy to repeat things. There are songs you want to play for people and get excited about so you don't always switch things up.
My dad was a roofer; my mom worked in elementary school.
The tune 'All My Friends,' we recorded because our friend who wrote the song, Scott Boyer, passed way, and Gregg Allman had passed and he had recorded the song on his first solo record.
Well I've been playing an SG forever, and I've got some other vintage Gibsons I like to use in the studio.
It's always nice with two guitarists in one band to have some contrast.
When you're producing your own record, you do your best to be objective and take a step back from it from time to time.
I don't really love the guitar hero trip, anyway, so it's not something I'm actively searching for or after. I don't like what it's about.
Slide can sound like the most beautiful woman's voice.
Y'know, you can sit in a room, practise all day, learn your scales and blaze blues riffs: it's easy to hide behind that. But I think with the slide, it's a little bit tougher.
I was nine when I bought my first guitar at a garage sale.
You hope to catch the band on a good night and you hope that it sounds good when you hear the tapes back, and you hope that when you mix it you still have the feeling that you had when you were onstage, but it seems like it never quite works out that way!
It was pretty surreal because The Allman Brothers' 'Eat A Peach' and 'Live At The Fillmore East', and the Eric Clapton 'Layla' record was the music I grew up hearing all the time.
I remember a festival we did in Denmark with the Clapton band where you suddenly realize it's an actual band - and you're on an equal stage playing music together.
One of those Rolling Stone Greatest Guitar Player lists came out and there was no Albert King. That's impossible! There are 10 people on there who wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Albert.
I got a picture of me taken next to George Jones. I rarely ask for that, but he's someone I couldn't pass up.
