Please Be With Me by Galadrielle Allman (Book Review)

allmanbookPlease Be With Me, A Song for My Father” is, quite simply, the most insightful book written to date about The Allman Brothers Band. In a quest to learn the true nature of the parent she never knew—the famed guitarist died when the author was but two years old—Galadrielle Allman illuminates the passionate contradictions of the founder of the iconic Southern rockers in such a way she also shines a clarifying light on the extended family as well.

She does so in a vibrant way that renders visceral the emotional highs and lows of the germination of the band and the growth of its community. The Allman band’s inexorable rise to fame of the band, from Duane and sibling Gregg’s childhood without a father (he was murdered when the two were just toddlers), to their discovery of the redemptive power of music and the ambition that arose from that shared epiphany, gathers momentum when the author recounts her father’s drive to make a legitimate name for himself as a session guitarist in the wake of the bitter disappointment arising from the brothers’ short-lived ‘discovery’ by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and their resulting California sojourn.

Galadrielle describes her father as a fearless guitarist in her introduction to Please Be With Me and it’s that virtue (and its corollary vice of recklessness) that she so astutely details in her account of her father’s activities inside and outside the recording studio. The supreme confidence that made Duane Allman such a fiery improvisationalist also stood him in good stead as he dealt with business figureheads such as Rick Hall, owner and operator of the Fame Studios in Alabama where “Skydog” (as Wilson Pickett helped dub him) first gained some recognition, and Phil Walden, former manager of Otis Redding who went to sign Allman to a contract as a solo artist; that transaction would eventually lead to the handpicking of the band that would not only change the face of contemporary rock and blues, but alter the culture of the American south in an equally profound way.

With objective observations, honest reflection and a reporter’s eye for detail, Galadrielle conducts candid interviews with family members including her mother and grandmother, early musical comrades like Johnny Sandlin and long-term road crewmembers such as Red Dog, not to mention an ever-so fond recollection from Boz Scaggs on whose first solo album Duane shone. These forthcoming exchanges unearth memories that blossom into vivid recounts of Galadrielle’s early childhood, ABB road trips and the profound suffering the group and its community dealt with not once–with Duane’s death–but twice in a year’s time, when original ABB bassist Berry Oakley died in a motorcycle accident all too eerily similar to his mentor’s.

Along the way Please Be With Me gives just the proportionate insight into the main characters in this story, including brother Gregg and his independent insularity, guitarist Dickey Betts’ volatile iconoclasm and the insensitivity of Walden’s business operation around which he built Capricorn Records. Galadrielle Allman writes her story in such a disciplined manner, she restrains herself from digressions that would reflect poorly on her subjects and herself and the focus she applied to rendering her five years of research is all too evident as the book evolves.

That focus is never more evident than in the tale of her father’s renouncement of Galadrielle’s mother Donna around the same time he comes to (some) terms with the indulgences that were once a means to continuing inspiration—a workaholic pace that had him continuing session work as ABB toured incessantly and a fondness for drink and drugs that became dead ends in themselves. Perhaps having reached an apogee as a musician and collaborator with Eric Clapton on Layla (Duane is acknowledged as the catalyst to the album’s successful creation by the artists and the album’s producer Tom Dowd, who had also produced the Allmans second album Idlewild South), his movement to clean himself of his addictions, and the demand of the same of his peers in the group, had a bitter downside.

The artistry in the conception and execution of Please Be With Me is that it’s profoundly sad ending only enlightens the reader to the palpably high hopes and expectations of the Allman Brothers’ whole family as At Fillmore East grew in popularity while the band worked on the follow-up that would become Eat A Peach. Galadrielle Allman almost makes it sound like it was destiny that her father would die before fully enjoying the fruits of his labors, yet it’s a tribute to the survivor in her—and the band that has since soldiered on to its forty-fifth year of existence in 2014—that the picture she paints, in its depth and breadth, she also frames, with a down to earth pragmatism that could only come from an elemental connection she finally draws to the man that, along with her ever so resilient mother, originally gave her life.

 

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10 Responses

  1. Nice review Doug. I loved this book and besides my passion for all things Allman this is just a great and moving human story. How one could read this and not walk away loving Big Linda and Donna and all these wonderful females who have been largely lost in all the previous Allman books. The dedications she wrote were also wonderful and moving and that she made sure to include all the kids of the band just seemed like such a fitting conclusion.

  2. well i was going to have [email protected] , as my e mail address , but remembered that there was only one skydog , the brilliant duane , please be with me , ive loved that since the first time i heard it , 71 or two ? there abouts , jesus i love that beautiful subtle , ever engaging , duane skydog with his slide dobro or gibson , almost beyond measure ….

  3. When I heard Duane Allman’s daughter had written a book, I wondered what she could possibly say because she was so young when he died. Well, sounds like she did her homework and wrote a great book! I plan to get it.
    I’ve always loved the Allman Bros band and have enjoyed concerts at Pine Knob, and Gregg always started on time!

  4. I was originally looking forward to this book coming out………….what a huge disappointment!

    It’s REALLY a DRY read………..no real substance or personality to it.

    1. WHAT??? You must be an awful cold-hearted reader if you didn’t catch the emotion in this. What did you do, scan the book in one evening?

  5. Good review….I read the book, it is very well done, with inspired gems. The tragedy of Duane’s recklessness is a sad one sitting aside the purity, the wisdom, the confidence, and natural inspiration of his musical voice. Pity the reviewer didn’t mention Jerry, and not by name, till the very end of the review, Duane and Greg’s guiding strength of a mother. I think she is a very important part of the story.

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