The Allman Brothers Band

Southern Rock legends most famous for taking thirty minutes to play a two-minute blues song and for reforming constantly after breaking up even more constantly.

The group's logo- instantly recognisable to fans but just an elaborate way of writing "Illman Prothers Pand" to anyone else.

Brothers Duanne (slide guitar and sideburns) and Gregg (vocals, piano and flowing locks) spent their early musical years unsuccessfully forming groups and unsuccessfully releasing unsuccessful music. The trend continued when they formed The Allman Brothers Band and released two studio albums, which were almost entirely ignored by the record-buying public as a whole.

The band stark nude in a creek but with whipping posts carefully concealed.

While their studio output remained underwhelming, they began establishing themselves as a concert drawcard among hippies who liked jamming but were scared of psychedelics. A live album was inevitable and At Fillmore East was released in 1971. Joining the brothers onstage were Dicky Betts (guitar and bickering), Berry Oakley (bass) Butch Trucks (drumkit, unnecessary other drums) and Jai “Jaimoe” Johanny Johnson (drums and J-names).

At Fillmore East proved a huge success and subsequent rereleases set the blueprint for cynical marketing exploitation. The album was released on CD and then later as an expanded edition (1992’s The Fillmore Concerts), a deluxe edition (2003) and a subsequent box set in 2014, persuading many fans to fork out hundreds for essentially the same product.

In 1971 the band was looking towards a future that promised to be longer than one of their drum solos but found their upward trajectory rudely interrupted by the motorcycle death of leader Duanne Allman, who crashed into the back of a truck and slid 90 feet across the road, dying instantly. A year later bass player Berry Oakley crashed his motorbike into the side of a bus but walked away from the injury, only to die quietly of a brain injury several hours later. Oakley died a very bass-player death (almost unnoticed and causing a dull thud noise) as opposed to Duanne who went out like he played: flashy and sliding.

With the death of their leader, the group should have quit, or at least removed the plural from their name, but they continued under the leadership of Betts who steered the group in a more country direction while Gregg Allman’s relations with the rest of the group became more and more estranged. 

The surviving Allman’s drug-taking and alcoholism were leading him to become less unreliable and more prone to reckless behaviour, at one point becoming so inebriated he actually married Cher (they divorced four years later, which meant the marriage lasted longer than his two previous marriages along with the marriage, he would enter into the following year).

The only album that Gregg and Cher would create together. The music contained within is just as bad as the cover image would suggest.

The group broke up in 1976 but reformed two years later when everyone concerned realised they needed the money. They signed to Arista at the start of the eighties and became slicker pop/rock outfit which everyone, including the band themselves, hated. The break up was inevitable and gratefully received by all.

1980's Reach for the Sky. Nobody cared. Nobody at all.

Another brief reunion proved more popular with fans but dissolved when Allman started to sober up and realised how hard it was to cope with Dicky Betts without the benefit of alcohol.The group reformed for a thirty-year reunion with Derek Trucks on guitar, who was born when the original group had already celebrated 10 years together as a group. Trucks gave the group a new sound, which displeased Betts who displeased the rest of the group with his displeasure and led to them announcing they were pleased to tour without him and would like him to please go away. Betts tried to sue the group and was paid off while the band continued with Trucks and Warren Haynes.

Warren Haynes, they say if you're ever lost then just start a Jam band and Warren will show up and ask to sit in.

Remarkably the Allman Brother Band enjoyed a further ten years of success selling out large venues filled with college kids whose parents hadn’t even met when Duanne met his untimely demise. The group finally decided to disband permanently in 2014. Three years later, reunion rumours were silenced permanently when founding member Butch Trucks took his own life and Gregg Allman joined the band reunion in the sky by succumbing to liver cancer.