My Cross to Bear (38 page)

I have a real thing for animals, and I always have. I’ve never been without an animal. My first dog was a little black dog, and all four paws were white, so we named him Boots. I have a picture of me and Duane and Boots sitting on my grandmother’s steps. I really enjoy having God’s creatures in my life. Not too many, though—I don’t take in just any animal.

When I wasn’t hanging with Marcia and Chuck, the Toler brothers lived just a few blocks over, which made it easy to go down to Telstar Studios for rehearsal. We’d call them up, and they would open up for us. They would turn on the big speakers, and all the instruments were set up, ready to go. We got a lot of shit written in there, including most of the songs for my next two albums. I wrote a lot with Tony Colton, and he also provided the comic relief. Tony is the funniest British cat I have ever met in my life—that guy could make me laugh like no one else.

In between the laughs, though, there was no doubt that I was having a tough time. I might have been playing in a band I liked, with a good group of guys, but we were making peanuts and I just kept on drinking. The cops down in Bradenton/Sarasota didn’t like me too much either, and everybody knew it. I played a lot around town, because I’d get drunk and go jam anywhere. I was well-known, of course, and the cops were just gunning for me—they were always looking to pop me for drunk driving, or just to be a general pain in my ass.

I remember the only time I had to go to jail was back in the ’80s. I got five days because I had a DUI. It was the middle of the night and I had just gotten this new Pontiac, one of those 6.6 Trans Ams, a real heavy car but a lot of engine. And I was boogying, man.

They made me go down there and sleep it off. The judge gave me five days and fined me a grand. He almost made me serve another five, because when I came to serve I showed up rotten drunk. He didn’t appreciate that, but somebody spoke up and saved my ass. Maybe there was a fan in the crowd.

Doing those five days, I got sick as a dog. As I remember it, you didn’t have a room and a bed; you had to just sleep on the hard floor. Thank God I had a big heavy coat. I was in there with a bunch of other folks and then they moved me in with three other guys. And I got so sick. I don’t know if it was the food or if it was nerves, probably a combination of both, but I about went nuts. Incarceration? I can get through a lot of things, but not that. Just the thought of incarceration makes my tummy kind of flip-flop.

No two ways about it, the ’80s were rough. When the Brothers were broken up, from ’82 to ’89, my drinking got much, much worse. It was seven years of going, “What is it that I do?” Being self-employed your whole life, that becomes a certain rock, a reinforcement. When that’s gone, not only are you bored stiff, but you just want to cry—“What do I do? I know I used to serve a purpose.” And subconsciously, there’s that fear of everybody forgetting about you.

Despite that, I always kept writing, always kept looking for more ways to make music, but with the music of the time being what it was, it was just hard to find an audience. The thing is, no matter what I did with my solo career back then, no matter how much I clicked with my band, it never was the Allman Brothers. I knew it as well as anyone. And it was that, as well as the money, that kept pushing me back to familiar places.

In the spring of 1986, my band did two runs with Dickey and his band, which allowed us to play bigger venues. Much as I knew the troubles that came with Betts, the money was good, and I was just tired of not making shit. We’d each do a set with our own bands, and then both bands would come out and play some Allman Brothers tunes together. Everybody was really fucked up. Dickey was cussing his guys and bossing them around like they were a bunch of field hands.

It wasn’t how I ran my band, but it was typical Dickey. Still, hard as it was to watch all that, that tour led to two Allman Brothers reunion shows later in the year, one in July at the Charlie Daniels Volunteer Jam, and then the “Crack-Down” benefit show at Madison Square Garden on Halloween.

The bottom line was, musically, me and Dickey needed each other, so we would put up with each other as long as we could. It would always ease things out when we had new material—but it had to be good material, not just something thrown together or contrived. Even with decent material, though, everything was always temporary. Something would happen, tempers would flare, and once again we’d go our separate ways.

B
EFORE THAT RUN WITH
D
ICKEY,
I
HAD GOTTEN A CALL FROM
Forrest Hamilton, who is not with us anymore. Forrest was the younger brother of Chico Hamilton, the famous jazz player. Chico was a good friend of my brother’s, and a good friend of mine for that matter. At that time, I didn’t have a recording contract or nothing, so Forrest called me up and said, “Man, I got three songs that I’m going to send to you—tell me what you think.”

I’d been in California at the time and I liked what I heard, so I called him back and Forrest said, “Listen, why don’t I fly you out here to Los Angeles, and let’s see what happens.” I’d taken Danny Toler with me to Rock Steady Studios, and we’d cut those three songs in two days, recording my version of the Beatles’ song “Rain” with a huge choir singing background. We also brought “I’m No Angel” out there and did a demo of that one.

In September 1986, with those songs in hand, Epic Records offered me a recording contract, and we headed into Criteria Studios to record
I’m No Angel
. I had a lot of hope for that record, I really did. The sessions went well, and it felt good to be back in Criteria again. Frankie Toler, at one time, was one of the finest drummers around. If you listen to
I’m No Angel
or my follow-up,
Just Before the Bullets Fly
, there’s some incredible drum work on those albums.

When we got to Criteria, Don Johnson called me up and said, “Hey, man, it’s Don. You need some help with that record over there?”

I told him, “Yeah, I do. I’ll tell you what—I’ll leave three songs that you can pick up, then give me a call after you listen to them and tell me which one you want to do.” He chose “Evidence of Love,” and we worked for four hours on it, and we got it. The key was really bothering him, but we worked it out.

Don was really Dickey’s friend, from back in the Macon days, so I wondered about that phone call, because we were never really that close. I think he might have done it for the exposure, because he had just finished cutting a record, in the same room at Criteria that we were using for
Angel
. Maybe he did it just to see if he could, I don’t know, but whatever his reasons were, he did his very best. The best that was in that man came out on “Evidence of Love.”

I’m No Angel
was a good album, overall. The title song had a good hook to it and did well on the radio—thanks to Tony Colton for writing that one for me. The album eventually went gold, and led to the recording of
Just Before the Bullets Fly
in 1988.

Those two albums are really just one long one. We got in such a groove making
Angel
that by the time we were finished we had four or five songs left over. Rodney Mills was the producer, and while I didn’t know him that well, we worked very well together. There was no bullshit, and it was a comfortable experience. He caught on real quick to how I work in the studio, and he was very attentive to all the instruments. He treated the other guys very well, and I liked that.

The recording of
Bullets
went real easy too. We were in the same room at Criteria, same producer, same guys in the band, same guy changing the tape, same guy bringing in the food. Same exact experience as
Angel
, except it didn’t sell, and that’s a shame, because
Bullets
has some of my favorite songs on it. It is a really good album, but I don’t think Epic supported it like they did
I’m No Angel
. I don’t think they promoted Dickey’s record
Pattern Disruptive
either, probably because they wanted us back in the Allman Brothers.

And eventually, their plan worked.

A
S
I
KEPT TOURING AROUND,
I
CONTINUED TO MEET WOMEN
wherever I went, and with my drinking being what it was, I continued to get myself in trouble.

In late 1988, the Gregg Allman Band was playing what would be its last tour of the West Coast. From San Diego to Vancouver, we riddled the place with gigs. During that time, we ran into two girls from Capistrano who started coming to the gigs. One of them was named Shannon Wilsey. She had this white, white hair, and her friend had this real black hair—the two of them looked like they could have done that black-and-white scotch commercial. This was back in the day of the real short one-piece dress, the five-inch spike heels, and no underwear.

One day, both of them came over to my room, and they started a pillowfight. One of them sat on my knee, and oh boy, that did it. She told me, “Nope, not now. It wouldn’t look right,” but the next day, oh God! Shannon was incredible, and shit, she was just barely of age.

We ended up staying together for about a year, but our relationship just kind of faded away. Let me say this: I never, ever gave Shannon any heroin. Later on, her mother accused me of all sorts of things like that, but I never turned Shannon on to heroin. In fact, the last time I saw her, she opened her makeup kit and I saw a bunch of needles in there, and I told her never to do that stuff, because I knew what it felt like to be strung out. I tried to talk her out of it, but she didn’t want to listen to me.

Shortly after I stopped messing with Shannon, she got into porn, using the name Savannah. Somebody told me that she had gotten into porn, but said, “She’s only with women.” Well, I ain’t messing with nobody who’s in porn flicks. That stuff isn’t like spin the bottle, you know. To each his own, I suppose, but I have never associated with anyone in that business.

When I asked her if she was making porn movies, she kept avoiding the question. Finally, she said, “Look, that’s really none of your business.”

I told her, “I’ll take that as a yes, and with that, I’m gone.”

It was too bad, and it was even worse when I got word in 1994 that she shot herself. That upset me, because despite all the accusations, I knew the truth about what had happened. I was not going to have that on my karma—that I somehow turned her on to that shit.

I’ve always believed in karma, even though I didn’t know the word until I moved to Los Angeles. All it boils down to is the golden rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If everyone would live by the golden rule, then the world would be at peace.

All in all, it was a weird time for me when it came to women. My next wife, Danielle, was just from another planet. I don’t know why I married her. That was a midlife crisis, I guess, because I was really doing well. I was out in Los Angeles, singing the opening track for the movie
Black Rain
. I was staying at the Riot House, and Steve Winwood was in town. He was playing at the Universal Amphitheatre, and a couple of the guys in his band were some of my old players. Randall Bramblett was playing with him, and so was Mike Lawler, so I had to go.

I went over there and had a good old time. What a gracious gentleman Steve is, and his wife is just a sweetheart. A lot of British guys you meet are real cocky, especially about the blues issue. They try to talk to me about the “British blues,” and I don’t want to hear that shit. My brother hated that too. There was some Brits playing some blues, but there ain’t no such thing as British blues—that sounds like blues that was made in Great Britain. Rock and roll and blues is America at its finest. British blues is like a parrot that lives in Greenland, man.

Danielle was staying at the Riot House with this redheaded bass player I knew from New York, and I was there by myself. I offered to take them to the Winwood show, but he couldn’t go, so it was just me and her. We had a good time, and she was dressed up real pretty that night. I was in my mid-forties, and I was thinking, “Man, I’m going to get old and ugly one of these days, and them girls aren’t going to look at me no more,” so I figured I needed to find me a babe and settle down.

She looked real good, so I flat-out told her, “I’ve got to go to Nashville tomorrow”—that’s where I was meeting the band for the rest of the tour—“and if you want to go with me, be ready at nine o’clock.”

That’s how I left it with her, and sure enough, she was in the lobby the next morning. It surprised me, because she didn’t seem the type. As I found out later, she was a pretty hard woman.

We got married in Vegas, and right after that I OD’d back at the Riot House, so our marriage started off with a bang.

At first we had a lot of fun, but we didn’t have much in common. Even just going down to a funky blues bar like Blake’s in Berkeley, where I met John Lee Hooker. I took her there one time, and she said, “Christ, how can you stand the stench of this place?” I knew right then that this thing was on its way out.

To tell you the truth, I was scared of Danielle, especially after one time when she hit me square in the face—God knows what she thought I did to deserve it. She wasn’t afraid of much. One night I was at the Silver Dollar Saloon in Nashville, and I drank twelve kamikazes. She came in and told me it was time to go. We walked out on the street, and this guy was there, trying to fix his Triumph motorcycle.

I said, “Shit, man, you ought to get yourself a Harley-Davidson.”

He told me, “I wouldn’t have one of those pieces of shit.”

I don’t like anyone talking badly about Harleys, so I said, “Those of us who can afford them love them.” That son of a bitch got up, came over, and the next thing I knew—bam! He cold-cocked me. Danielle jumped up on that boy’s back and started sticking her fingernails in his eyes and ripping his nose. Man, he was bleeding and screaming like a butchered hog. That guy was scared, because he thought he’d lost both his eyes. That was something, man.