With the band: 1969–1972
Instruments: Bass, vocals
From Chicago to Florida
Raymond Berry Oakley III was born on April 4, 1948, and grew up near Chicago. He started on guitar and then switched to bass. As a teenager he went on the road in Tommy Roe’s backing band, and that job eventually brought him south to Florida.
In Jacksonville Berry teamed up with guitarist Dickey Betts in the Second Coming. When Duane Allman started holding jam sessions in town in early 1969, Berry was one of the first players he wanted, and he became a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band.
A Lead Voice on Bass
Berry didn’t think of the bass as just a timekeeper. He played it as a third melodic voice, weaving countermelodies between the two guitars and steering the band’s long improvisations in new directions. His adventurous playing on the early albums and on At Fillmore East is a big reason those records still sound so alive. He also sang lead on the band’s take on “Hoochie Coochie Man” on Idlewild South.
Keeper of the Family
Berry and his wife Linda rented the big house on Vineville Avenue in Macon that everyone came to call the Big House. Band members, family and friends all lived there together. His bandmates have long described Berry as the band’s emotional center, and after Duane died in 1971 he fought as hard as anyone to keep the band together.
Today the Big House is the Allman Brothers Band Museum, and it preserves the place where so much of our early history happened.
Gone Too Soon
Berry Oakley died on November 11, 1972, after a motorcycle accident in Macon, just a short distance from where Duane had crashed the year before. He was 24. He played on two tracks of Brothers and Sisters, which he recorded shortly before his death. He rests beside Duane at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, and his son, Berry Duane Oakley, carries on the family’s music.
Berry Oakley in the Photo Gallery
More about Berry Oakley