Gregg Allman is one of the most respected musicians in rock and roll history. As a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band with his brother Duane, and in his own storied solo career, Allman’s soulful and distinctive voice has always been a standout (he made it to Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time list at No. 70). His Hammond organ work has been his defining instrument and his songwriting is what helped him achieve stardom.

This latter Gregg Allman talent, the songwriting, was why he and his brother Duane hooked up to form their famous band.

Duane Allman was a session musician at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in the ’60s where the idea of starting a band with his brother germinated. At the time, Gregg was working on a solo project in L.A. he wasn’t particularly jazzed about, so when Duane called from Jacksonville, Florida, in ’69 to tell him he had assembled a band that could use Gregg’s singing and songwriting talent, he jumped at the chance. He quickly packed up some songs and headed back to the South.

The group that would become The Allman Brothers Band included Duane on guitars, Gregg as songwriter, lead singer and Hammond B-3 organ player; Dickey Betts on guitars; Berry Oakley on bass guitar; and Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe“ Johanson on drums.

The band has been credited as the principal architects of what record labels decided to call “southern rock”…but they also incorporate elements of blues, jazz, and country. Their live shows had jam band-style improvisation and instrumentals that became must see events. They captured this on their live album At Fillmore East which is widely regarded as one of the best live albums ever made. The album peaked at No. 13 on Billboard’s Top Pop Albums chart and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. It became the band’s commercial and artistic breakthrough.

The Allman Brothers Band continued on even after Duane’s death in 1971, creating huge records like Eat A Peach and Brothers and Sisters. Gregg Allman developed a solo career and a band under his own name in the years that followed.

At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, the Allman Brothers Band was honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, in part a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the group’s seminal album Eat a Peach. Gregg himself, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, was nominated for a Grammy as Best Blues Album for his acclaimed first solo record in 13 years, Low Country Blues, and received the “Living Legend” award from Classic Rock magazine last year.

Allman’s tell-all memoir, My Cross To Bear, was a New York Times bestseller for many weeks. The book focuses on his journey as a struggling artist through the formation of the Allman Brothers Band and their ultimate explosion on the music scene.

Last year, a multi-generational assortment of musicians from the worlds of rock, blues and country joined together at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre for an all star performance to pay tribute to Gregg Allman. The result is a multi-media package, All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman. Those contributing included Jackson Browne, Dr. John, Taj Mahal, Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave), Keb’Mo’, Vince Gill, Martina McBride and others.

Gregg Allman’s latest Rounder Records‘ album project is Gregg Allman Live: Back to Macon, GA, which is scheduled for release later this year..

We caught up with Gregg Allman via a phone interview last week. Here’s his take on…

What are you up to today?

Allman: I’m here at my place in Savannah, Georgia, with my puppies and a cup of coffee just relaxing until it’s time to go back out on the road.

Gregg Allman Live: Back to Macon, GA, is being released soon. What makes this project special to you?

Allman: Macon is a wonderful town with wonderful people. I still have some dear, dear friends there. Macon holds a special place in my heart. It comes with a lot of different memories, but the good ones are all that matter to me now. I’m so proud of this album; boy, we were smokin’ that night.

The band…

Allman: I have a 9-piece band that I have been building for seven and a half years, hand pickin’ them one by one. I have some exceptionally, exceptionally, wonderful cats, man. I mean, I looked for anyone who could be my teacher. All of them are way better than me. That’s what they do.

I have three horn players, bass player, guitar player, one full set of drums, and Marc Quinones from the Allman Brothers playing percussion. I play acoustic and electrics and Hammond organ.

I’m playing electric guitar again. I have an exceptional organ player, Peter Levin. Man, he is just out of this world. He plays a tiny bit like Leon Russell only he’s got his own thing in there. He’s really good. I’m so fortunate to have found all of these people. And not to mention, they get along beautifully.

Also in this band, there is one band leader. That’s me. “Band leader” is kind of a “I’m in charge” expression, but there needs to be one focal point. When we get to a place in the music and something ain’t right, I hold up my hand. It stops immediately, we talk it over, find out what’s wrong. I still keep the rhythm going with my foot and we creep back into it. So we can get it right.

The last tour we did, I arranged for us to get into this rehearsal studio, and I said, “You’ve got eight songs to learn, guys,” and they were all down in two days. Everybody is all about music.

Think about it. I played 45 years with a very good band, a very exciting band and a very good bunch of entertainers. I not only played with ‘em, I grew up with ‘em and I wrote just about all the songs for ‘em. Now I have taken all those songs I wrote for the Allman Brothers Band and rearranged ‘em, put horns on ‘em, and man, wait ’til you hear it. I can’t hardly tell you about it. I so look forward every night of playing. You’ve got to know they’re good if they fulfill my desire to play. If they satisfy me after playing with the Allman Brothers then they’ve got to be up in that category. If not that, a smidge more (he laughs)

On FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. What makes that place so special?

Allman: Speaking of Muscle Shoals, we are slated to go into the studio in Muscle Shoals with this band in December with Mr. Don Was, who did a few of the Stones’ records, all of Bonnie Raitt’s, just about, and many, many, many other. He was the band leader on the All My Friends thing they did for me. Right now Muscle Shoals is inactive because they’re redoing it, putting a facelift on it or something. We plan to go in there and record. It will be my first studio record since Low Country Blues, and I look forward to that.

What is it about Muscle Shoals? I recorded there in the mid ’60s, just out of high school. It’s just a simple little room. They seem to think it’s in the water, in the river that runs through—there’s also an Indian burial ground.

The start of the Allman Brothers Band…

Allman: That happened in Jacksonville, Florida, not Muscle Shoals. I brought 22 songs back with me and I played ‘em a bunch of ‘em. This was early in my writing career, so after about five of them and them startin’ to snore, I laid “Dreams” on ‘em and I was in like Flynn.

Is it true you coined the phrase “Southern Rock?”

Allman: No. I don’t know where that ever came from. Let me tell you something about rock and roll, okay? This is an opinion, and this is the way I see it. Believe me, I’ve been around it a long time. I’ve been subjected to it, I love it.

There were and still are four kinds of rock and roll—two black, two white. Jerry Lee Lewis, Ferriday, Louisiana; Little Richard Penniman, Macon, Georgia; Elvis Aaron Presley, Tupelo, Mississippi; Chuck Berry, St. Louis, which back in the ’50s was a lot more southern than it was northern. So that’s four gentlemen from the southern states of America. So sayin’ “southern rock” is like saying “rock, rock” (he laughs). I think it’s one of the most ridiculous statements.

Actually, what I think is ridiculous is that everybody has to have a label on the kind of music they’re listening to. All this stuff—it all came from rock and roll—the only kind of music America has claim to is rock and roll and blues and rock and roll stemmed from the blues. It is structured the same way. Some blues players say, “well, it’s about liquor, money and not having it, or a woman or significant other or girlfriend that’s either left or you just found her.”

This one blues guy (he laughs)—I’m not going to tell you who it is because you knew him, said, “the only difference, you know, we weep and cry about it, and the country music people whine about it.” But it’s about the same thing. The chord progression is the same thing—it’s all built around three chords. So that’s what I think about “southern rock.”