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Summary
Summary
For the first time, rock music icon Gregg Allman, one of the founding members of The Allman Brothers Band, tells the full story of his life and career in My Cross to Bear. No subject is taboo, as one of the true giants of rock 'n' roll opens up about his Georgia youth, his long struggle with substance abuse, his string of bad marriages (including his brief union with superstar Cher), the tragic death of brother Duane Allman, and life on the road in one of rock's most legendary bands.
Author Notes
Gregory LeNoir Allman was born in Nashville, Tennessee on December 8, 1947. He and his brother Duane worked together in local bands while they were in high school. As the Allman Joys, they played clubs in the South. The brothers moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s and formed a group called the Hour Glass, which released a pair of psychedelic-leaning pop albums for Liberty Records. Neither was successful. They eventually formed The Allman Brothers Band. The band's albums included Idlewild South and At Fillmore East. They disbanded for the last time in 2014.
Allman also had a solo career. His albums included Laid Back, Low Country Blues, and Southern Blood. As a member of the Allman Brothers Band, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2012. His autobiography, My Cross to Bear written with Alan Light, was published in 2012. He died from complications of liver cancer on May 27, 2017 at the age of 69.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Back in 1971, the Allman Brothers Band lost Duane Allman-by any standards one of rock's greatest guitarists-to a motorcycle accident, and a year to the day later, Berry Oakley, the band's bassist, died the same way. In his memoir, the rambling and rambunctious Gregg Allman lays bare his soul, carrying us back to his childhood with his older brother, Duane, their days at military school, the first time he picked up a guitar and started making music, the first songs he wrote, his love for Duane, his voracious appetite for drugs and sex, and his countless sexual conquests, his broken relationships and his addictions, and his deep love for music. Like an old bluesman riffing through a tale of love, loss, and redemption, Allman sings the story of the band's early days as Hourglass and the Allman Joys, the glory days of playing the Fillmore East, the struggles to pull the band back together after Duane's and Berry's deaths, and the failures and successes of his own solo career. In the end, Allman, writing with music journalist Light, has produced a fiercely honest memoir. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
For a time in the 1970s and '80s, during the heyday of southern rock (a genre they more or less created), the Allman Brothers Band was true rock royalty in the sense of being commercially successful yet critically acclaimed for their musicianship, often a fleeting combination in pop music. Eventually, they would be more characterized by their immense capacity for recreational substance ingestion and infighting, and Gregg Allman was there through it all. His guitar-whiz brother, Duane Allman, died while they were still on top, as did bassist Berry Oakley. Gregg married Cher briefly, if notoriously and the tabloid-media die was cast. Now, after a successful liver transplant, a laid-back, aw-shucks as all get-out Gregg has written an autobiography full of details about the inner workings of the band, the evolution of its shifting membership, and the attendant sex and drugs that go so naturally with the rock 'n' roll. Allman is as hard on himself for past foolishness as he is on others, and the book has a palpable undertone of confession, perhaps as a way of exorcising the personal demons of a life lived in the fast lane. It's been a rollicking ride for Allman, full of the highest highs and the lowest lows. This engaging work is a real treat for the man's fans.--Tribby, Mike Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
READING this book is like sitting on a porch with a garrulous scalawag who gives equal time to his dumb decisions and fantastic luck. Only the rascal talking your ear off is Gregg Allman, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. When you first pick up this autobiography (written with Alan Light), you might think the title "My Cross to Bear" more than a little self-pitying; after all, martyrdom is best conferred by others. But after you finish reading it, you'll probably think that, while it's unlikely anyone will base a religion on the sufferings of a millionaire rock star, Gregory LeNoir Allman passed a night in Gethsemane and then some. As boys, Allman and his brother, Duane, were electrified by an Otis Redding concert and started making music themselves. As the Allman Joys (really), they played on bandstands protected by chicken wire so that bottles bounced off harmlessly. They learned how to set a hook, though. "I realized that if we did things right, we could grab people with the first eight bars of a song, and we wouldn't have to worry about the rest of the night," Allman says. With "so much energy, so much drive and so much want-to," the penniless Allmans and their bandmates began to cut best-selling albums and fill clubs. Then came the hard times: the deaths of Duane Allman and the bassist Berry Oakley in eerily similar motorcycle accidents, the failed relationships, the hepatitis C that Gregg Allman attributes to an unsanitary tattoo needle. At the height of their success, the band members walked onto the jet they'd just acquired to find "Welcome Allman Bros" spelled out in cocaine on the bar. Yet there's none of the Dionysian cackling you hear below the surface of "Life," Keith Richards's monumental recounting of the Rolling Stones' story. And while "My Cross to Bear" isn't the most degrading account of a musician undone by narcotics (that honor belongs to "Three Dog Nightmare," by the former Three Dog Night frontman Chuck Negron), Allman reckons he went into treatment 18 times before getting clean. The band that gave us "Whipping Post" and "Ramblin' Man" broke up in 1976, at least partly because of a bust in which he was spared after agreeing to testify against the road manager who'd bought drugs for him. Drinking up to two quarts of vodka a day didn't help, and in 2010 Allman underwent a liver transplant. "I have had my fun when it comes to women," he writes - O.K., but he married and divorced six of them, three by the time he was 30. "My Cross to Bear" has all the earmarks of a text dictated by its subject and cleaned up by someone else, meaning it has too many ho-hum moments but also the charm of a real voice. In Allman's case, that's, a lot of correct Good Old Boy usages ("you didn't want to wear no pair of wool pants without no drawers on") that may challenge readers not conversant with that tongue. In the end, Allman comes across as sort of sweet and baffled; of his ex-wives, he says, "It's not like I want to have a big reunion, but I don't hardly ever hear from any of them." There's information here about how to write a song (match the bridge to the final verse the way you'd match your pants with a shirt) and sing (it's easier on your vocal cords if you throw your head back when you're belting one out). But you get the impression that his main goal is to do for potential addicts what Angelina Jolie does for the children of Africa. He finds God, at which point you expect him to say the whole thing's been worth it, as survivors often do. Instead, his last words are "I don't know if I'd do it again." Who would? David Kirby is the author of "Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll."
Kirkus Review
Assisted by rock journalist Light (The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys, 2006, etc.), Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer Allman confronts the ghosts of his past and emerges with new insight into the familial and artistic bonds that bound--and continue to bind--the Allman Brothers Band. Addicted to drugs and alcohol for much of his adult life and married multiple times, the author certainly has a hayloft full of celebrity scandal to sift through. While ABB's principal songwriter and lead vocalist covers all of his lowlights, he's much more interested in exploring the fantastic blend of blues, rock and jazz that so famously bonded he and late brother Duane to four other maverick musicians starting in the late 1960s. This is a story about musical brotherhood. With gentlemanly charm and compassion, the author vividly recounts how a guitar first transformed the lives of two restless boys living in Florida with their widowed mom. Allman's portrayal of his complicated relationship with Duane is rich and moving. Although dead by the age of 24 following a tragic motorcycle crash, Duane (considered one of the greatest guitar players of all-time) nonetheless looms large in these pages. The author's ability to share his enduring guilt in the aftermath of Duane's tragic passing is nothing less than profound. After successfully receiving a new liver in 2010, Allman appears to have at least one more silver dollar left in his pocket. As his many-faceted memoir so effectively demonstrates, the road does, indeed, go on forever for the Allman Brothers Band. Life, love and music from one of the most influential American recording artists of the last 40 years.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Founding member, singer, and keyboardist of the Allman Brothers-pioneers of blues and country-based jam rock in the late 1960s and early 1970s-Allman (along with music journalist and critic Light) tells his life story in this conversational memoir. Allman recounts his Southern upbringing, early days learning music and playing in clubs, and the eventual rise to fame of the band that bears his and guitar-playing brother Duane's last name. Both Allmans faced their share of trials along with their musical success, and Gregg Allman honestly reflects on the tragic death of his brother in a motorcycle accident, his own struggles with drugs and alcohol, and his many relationships, including a high-profile marriage to Cher in the mid-1970s. Throughout, Allman conveys his deep love of creating and playing music as well as sharing that joy with an audience. Verdict This laid-back, occasionally contemplative book communicates a lifetime of adventures and many ups and downs. Fans of the Allman Brothers and related bands will want to read this accessible firsthand account of one of the icons of classic rock.-Jim Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. Lib., NJ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Prologue: January 1995 | p. 3 |
| 1 Brothers | p. 9 |
| 2 Dreams | p. 29 |
| 3 The Foot-Shootin' Party | p. 55 |
| 4 Hollyweird | p. 79 |
| 5 Us Against the World | p. 105 |
| 6 The People's Band | p. 131 |
| 7 Come and Go Blues | p. 159 |
| 8 Uppers and Downers | p. 179 |
| 9 October 29, 1971 | p. 195 |
| 10 "Who's Gonna Be Next?" | p. 207 |
| 11 Multi-Colored Ladies | p. 225 |
| 12 Cher | p. 241 |
| 13 Trials, Tribulations, and the White House | p. 261 |
| 14 It Just Ain't Easy | p. 277 |
| 15 No Angel | p. 295 |
| 16 Ain't Wastin' Time No More | p. 313 |
| 17 One Way Out | p. 335 |
| 18 Low Country Blues | p. 345 |
| 19 Trouble No More | p. 365 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 379 |
| Index | p. 383 |
