When filmmaker James Keach took on directing the new documentary “Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul” about the co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, he knew the group’s music — but he wasn’t really familiar with their history. Then he spoke to his wife.
“‘You have to do this movie,'” Keach remembers her saying. “‘They got me through school.'”
A good decision for the director, who previously documented the life of Glen Campbell in “I’ll Be Me” (2014) and co-produced the Johnny and June Carter Cash biopic “Walk the Line” in 2005 and the Linda Ronstadt documentary “The Sound of My Voice” in 2019.
Rare interview as a core
“Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul,” produced by Subtext and ROLLING STONE, will be playing in more than 200 theaters nationwide as a special one-night-only event beginning Wednesday, June 17. It is based on a rarely seen interview from 2014 that Allman gave just three years before his death. Keach – whose older brother is actor Stacy Keach – reports that Allman’s manager Michael Lehman asked him to direct. “I was interested in two things,” says Keach. “Firstly, his relationship with his brother [Duane Allman, der 1971 starb]. The thought of something like this happening to my brother Stacy really hit me. And then we also grew up in a little town in Texas called Taft that was very segregated.”
Keach, 77, discovered parallels to his own life. Gregg and Duane Allman were born and raised in Nashville in the 1950s, long before the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It was no different for the Keach brothers.
“The blacks and Mexicans lived on one side of Taft, and the whites lived on the other,” Keach says. “That always made me incredibly upset. It made me realize that someone had drawn an artificial dividing line. And I realized that Gregg and the Allman Brothers were exactly against it.”
Inclusion as a band principle
The lineup of the Allman Brothers Band reflected the group’s self-image. Drummer Jaimoe, the last living founding member of the Allman Brothers, was black, as was Chank Middleton, Gregg’s best friend and constant tour companion. If Jaimoe and Middleton were not allowed into a club, restaurant or hotel with the rest of the band, the entire group left the establishment – this is what Allman says in a scene in the documentary.
“That really moved me,” says Keach. “In these times, such an attitude is important.”
The Allman Brothers were mostly white guys with long hair and hippie clothes who played the blues. Their setlists were full of covers of songs written and recorded by Muddy Waters, Elmore James and other black blues greats. Duane Allman, a legendary guitarist, had also ventured into R&B and recorded sessions with Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Rise and first fall
After a stint as Hour Glass, Duane and Gregg put together the Allman Brothers Band, which soon became known for their legendary Southern rock jams. Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul celebrates the 1971 double album At Fillmore East as the greatest live recording of all time. (I can attest to this: I was at the Allman Brothers’ famous late show at the Fillmore East on June 23, 1971, which didn’t end until 7 a.m.)
But Duane’s life was cut short just four months later when he died in a motorcycle accident. He was 24 years old. That same night, according to the film, Gregg overdosed on heroin. That could have been the end of the Allman Brothers – but Gregg recovered, and the troubled band struggled through a series of further tragedies, including the death of bassist Berry Oakley, also in a motorcycle accident, in 1972.
The deaths, meanwhile, fueled Allman’s growing addiction to heroin, cocaine and alcohol.
Addiction as a symptom
“Addiction is numb,” says Keach. “Addiction is a symptom of something else. Whether it’s drugs, sex, rock or whatever – you’re trying to numb something, to put something over a feeling you can’t handle. As Lenny Bruce said, ‘I take a hit and feel like a new person. And then the new person wants a hit too.’ This is a vicious circle. I think it worked for Gregg for a while – and then the new person wants a move too, and then the new person gets really beaten up, and we all know how that turns out.”
The documentary delves deep into Allman’s weaknesses and failures; Keach even highlights his numerous marriages – seven in total, including a brief liaison with Cher. Allman’s last wife, Shannon, 37, appears in the film. “I think he loved falling in love,” Keach says. “That feeling, that emotion, satisfied him deeply. And then when they tried to control him or change him in some way, he rebelled.”
The film also touches on Allman’s decision to testify against the band’s tour manager, John “Scooter” Herring. Herring had provided coke to Allman and other band members and was arrested in 1976, charged with five federal counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Herring, who died in 2007, was sentenced to 75 years in prison and served 30 months. Allman’s statement caused a deep rift in the band and led to the first of several dissolutions.
Betrayal or loyalty?
Keach is convinced that Herring “had to hold his head.”
“The band wouldn’t have been able to continue otherwise,” he says. “The loyalty among the boys was: You don’t rat on the other guy, and Gregg was forced into that… His intention wasn’t to save himself. It was to save the band. At least that’s what I was told.”
As for Allman’s own addiction – despite numerous stays in rehab clinics, he was unable to get it under control for a long time – he finally made a radical change in 1995: He quit drugs, alcohol and even cigarettes. For the rest of his life he campaigned staunchly against drug abuse. Allman died in 2017 from complications of liver cancer.
“From Gregg, I learned how to deal with addiction and how to deal with trauma,” Keach says.
Premiere in New York
At the film’s New York premiere earlier this month, Keach focused on the story of addiction and redemption.
“To see this man hit rock bottom after 15 stints in rehab and then come back – for me, that was a 12-step call that I wanted to make to the whole world. It’s really great when he finally gets sober and the audience applauds,” Keach told those in attendance. “I thought, ‘Ah, we made a connection. And Gregg made a connection.’ His music is phenomenal, but so is his story.”
Steve Bloom is co-author of Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide with Shirley Halperin.