The Genius of Duane Allman

Profound moments, those when we feel the beauty, and elation of existence, are rare and far between. These moments might hit you like a gust of wind out of nowhere when you are in a beautiful place or with someone you love. For some, they might come through prayer or meditation. And for others, they come through music.

Those who experience music this way live for those moments when it becomes not just music but a passageway to the mystical - a reminder that we are not alone in our pain and that there is something lovely beyond our immediate realm of existence. Duane Allman seemed to possess such an otherworldly connection. In his relatively short career, Duane could communicate to a place within us that words can’t reach and wouldn’t be sufficient even if they could. He communicated through music the most profound of life’s emotions from confusion, sorrow, and guilt to peace, love, and awe.

Gregory and Duane exemplified the mythic nature of the almost-twins they were – each portraying a different side of God, as the Greeks might have said. Duane’s octave-swooping slides on Whipping Post capture the unrelenting feeling of being run down and lied to over and over again that Gregory so blatantly puts into words. In Not My Cross To Bear, Duane’s elegiac response to the verbal calls of Gregory is as bluesy as it gets -a weary lyrical declaration somewhere between pleading for understanding that he’s done all he can in a failing relationship, yet not quite sure if he really has. Similarly, In Goin’ Down Slow, the reverb, strategic rests, and paradoxical alternations of major and minor guitar chords reiterate Gregory’s enigma of whether or not he’s lived a good life.

Like salt, Duane intensified the piquancy of anyone he played with. Boz Scaggs sings that he’s crying on Loan Me a Dime, but it is Duane’s guitar that actually does cry. He’s every bit Aretha’s equal in his musical assertion that no, indeed, Life Ain’t Fair.

But while Duane captured so clearly universal feelings of pain and hopelessness, he also captured life’s flip side. The sentiment in Hey Jude is only somewhat convincing, until about ¾ of the way through when Duane sweeps in, reaching down into the depths of Wilson’s soul and pulling out a cogent scream that would convince anyone that things will, eventually, be okay. About 3/4 of the way through Mountain Jam, breathless glissando with alternations of sustained notes and scale climbing create a revelry at the majesty of God’s creation and the thrill of being alive, soaring high and free before peacefully gliding above the earth and its temporary sorrows.

But the most sublime Duane moment might very well be the second half of Layla. In the first half of Eric Clapton’s heartbreaking rendering of his betrayal of a good friend, subsequent guilt, and confusions at love unrequited, Duane comes in like a tempest intensifying the frenzied tangle of a ravenous soul that can’t get what it wants and didn’t just find that it gets what it needs. It could be the darkest night of anyone’s soul: those who have done things we are ashamed of, those who have watched helplessly as loved ones suffer and die, those whose hearts have been crushed and those who have unwittingly been the crusher, and those whose prayers seem to float away in the air like so many colored balloons lost somewhere in the clouds. Like the pain of life itself, it goes on and on, nearly 3 ½ minutes, until we wonder if it will ever end.

But then the simple piano interlude says to just hush and hold on a second. And Duane comes in, sliding up and down the octave covering us and recovering us with a warm blanket and rocking us to sleep just under that piano refrain. Even when it seems like it should end around at around 6 minutes, he just keeps telling us over and over in this gentle melody that there is a place of peace and love beyond it all.

The Layla solo is nothing less than a musical rendering of the faith and hope: a knowing that we are not alone, and, that as dark as things can be, there is a lullaby waiting at the end.

And the song finally ends, like all things will, fittingly, with a birdcall reminder that we will someday be carried to this place on heavenly wings.

Thank you, Duane. Sleep well in the land of the angels.