I want to say thanks to Butch for his dedication to the music and the fans, and his honesty throughout the contentious times the band and extended family went thru over the years. People may not have agreed with his point of view, but he was authentic in letting people know how he felt. The best thing anyone can be is to be himself, and he did that. He created a musical legacy with Jaimoe and then had the vision to evolve that when Marc came on board.
As sad as some people are here, know that he went on the road to his brothers, and they are having a very good time up there.
http://www.legacy.com/ns/butch-trucks-obituary/183714639
In a statement released Wednesday, Gregg Allman mourned the loss of his longtime friend and partner. "I'm heartbroken. I've lost another brother and it hurts beyond words. Butch and I knew each other since we were teenagers and we were bandmates for over 45 years. He was a great man and a great drummer and I'm going to miss him forever. Rest In Peace Brother Butch," Allman said. -
"When Butch came along," Betts told Guitar World about Trucks joining his co-founder bandmates, "he had that freight train, meat-and-potatoes kind of thing that set Jaimoe up perfectly. He had the power thing we needed. Now we had a five-piece band that really started to sound like something." -
[Edited on 1/26/2017 by gina]
I'm just sitting here listening to Idlewild South as that was my first.
Beautiful as always but a bit of a sad listen tonight...
Goodbye Butch. And thank you for all the music ...
I walked in the the grocery store today (Shop Rite) and immediately heard the last screaming guitar crescendo of Whipping Post. Good-Bye Mr. Trucks, you will be missed.
So many lost in the past year, but Butch's passing seems to me personally to be a greater loss. Kind of a passing of time. Seems that the Allmans created the Jam Band scene so many of us enjoy today.
Condolences to the Trucks extended family. We all are suffering with you.
I might be mistaken, butI think Butch kind of invented the Streaming Music that we all enjoy today. Moogis was such a wonderful idea and new at the time. Watched all of the 40th anniversary shows online. Was the next best thing to being there.
Such a sad day. Love to all.
RIP Butch Trucks, thanks for making a dream come true.....sail on, sail away.
RIP Butch "Freight Train" Trucks. Thanks you for everything you have given me and this great family following.
We have been sad all day. Just seems like such a gaping, nearly intolerable loss.
Condolences to his family, and friends, and then all of us for this tremendous loss.
He gave us so many years of such fine music, he just gave of himself.
Thank you Butch Trucks. Freight Train, homeward bound. RIP.
May his loved ones find peace.
R.I.P. What a drummer.
Haven't seen any comments from DB?
I knew blasting FE this evening would make me feel better.
RIP Butch.
[Edited on 1/26/2017 by piper]
That photo of the Beacon marquee really opened the floodgates
Thanks for Moogis, Butch, that was such a thrill
And for the music since Robarts in Sarasota summer '69
What a Run!
RIP Butch.
You and the ABB brought me countless hours of beautiful music to rock my soul.
The ABB has been playing in the soundtrack of my life for over 47 years and counting. I first heard the band in 1970 when I was 11 years old. My first big concert I attended was the ABB at the New Haven Coliseum in 1975 with Muddy Waters opening.
My heartfelt condolences to everyone in our extended family, all of us "peach heads" all around the world.
Alas, there will never be another ABB band performance.
God bless Butch and may God bless all of you.
Pretty rough news. Butch Trucks was exactly 1/6 of the greatest thing that ever happened to music. The original ABB was just that - a BAND, where each member had their perfect contribution. Never before had anyone blended so many different types of music into something as perfectly new and exciting - and somehow beyond each of its influences.
There have been a fair amount of great bands since, including the other ABB lineups, that do what the original ABB did, but they all drew on what the ABB had figured out. Nobody else can claim that they did it first, or that they were not influenced by the ABB.
Butch was as much a part of that as anyone. He was the heavy drummer in a band with two (or three) drummers. He allowed Jaimoe (and Marc) to do the "icing" that set up the foundation for the rest of the band to melt your brain. It cannot be discounted. It would not have been the same with a single drummer or even two who were not Jaimoe and Butch. It was somehow the perfect pieces for the puzzle.
At the very beginning of the ABB or at the very end 45 years out, there was Butch Trucks doing his part...
In a historical sense, Butch's passing is a huge loss. In a current sense, it is terrible for his family and friends. Hopefully they are comforted by the sympathy and appreciation of his fans.
Everyone should read the obituary on Alan Paul's site. If for nothing else, there is a photo of Butch and Jaimoe that Derek took at the final Beacon Run that is a real tear-jerker today.
Here's the link to Alan Paul's obituary......
http://alanpaul.net/2017/01/rip-butch-trucks-1947-2017/
I haven't posted on here in a long while, but I am compelled to join all of you in appreciation for all that Butch Trucks has brought to our lives and to the music that will continue to reach others. I had the pleasure of catching the band live at least two dozen times and he was anchoring everyone of those shows. Unexpected, but here we are. Turn the page again.
Love the Beacon shot! So many great memories there...it was Butch that came out and addressed us in the crowd the first time the ABB ever played Layla in dedication to Tom Dowd.
Thank you for all of it, Mr. Trucks.
That photo of Butch and Jaimoe that Derek took IS a winner.
The black and white one of Derek and Butch on the TTB page is special too.
A thread for pictures of Butch would be great, if anyo n e has the tech savvy.
As for the question of DB weighing in, too soon. We all grieve in our own way, privately for many.
just terrible. I don't know what happened but if you asked my 3 weeks ago which original member of the ABB would be the next to pass butch wouldn't have come out of my mouth. not that I want any of them to leave us but butch didn't have a ton of health issues that I know about
I'm shocked and sad, but thinking of Duane, Berry and Butch playing together again right now while all of us are mourning as a very comforting thought. I wish I could hear these three as the best power trio the great hereafter has ever known.
I hope King Curtis sits in second set.
I have a Butch story. 2 actually. Everybody has been posting pictures when he showed up at the Sweeties Party at the Beacon. I was there, but left to get hats for my kids and missed Butch.
The second story is about BoboFest - when 30 of us descended on Pittsburgh to see Bobo - Bob O'Brien, one of the funniest and best posters on the ABB site. Bob had cancer, and we were all going to meet him in person and support him. It was one of the best weekends of my life. We lost Bob in 2007.
Old Time Fan, who had had words with Butch in the past (online, I'm sure), sent a PM to Butch explaining what we were doing for Bobo. Butch was gracious enough to give OTF 4 backstage passes for the show. I am looking at the poster from that show - July 16, 2005.
OTF wasn't sure who to invite backstage, so it ended up being Bobo, OTF, myself, and TerriB. I remember Karen (BixSixPeachHead) also being on stage. Kirk gave us all the rules, and then had Butch come over and talk to us. It was a big deal for Bobo to be back there - and I made sure I sent Butch a PM thanking him.
Another funny thing happened backstage. Kirk showed us the setlist - and back then, Lee was tired of a few songs, and always called them beer songs. When they started up, he would go buy beers for everybody. We saw three of his favorites on the setlist that night. We called him and told him to get ready to run. We laughed every time they started those songs, because we could see Lee go back to the beer lines from his seat. (It wasn't the best setlist that night, but we didn't care).
Something weird happened with one song that night too - it sounded like the sound swirled around and was going to lift everything off the stage. I remember Butch looking up like WTF?
Butch also had a great idea with Moogis - I thank him for being able to watch the shows at home.
My condolences to the Trucks family - I'm going to miss the Freight Train.
What a sucker punch right to the gut. I woke up today with all of my personal problems and struggles and saw a facebook trending story about Butch. huh? How is this possible?
I'm in the thick of life with an infant and a toddler and any parent knows that life is just warp speed for those first few years and I had kind of lost touch with everything Allmans but in a rare combination of events, I found myself tonight in an empty house with no wife and no kids for one night only. I decided to put on the 40th Anniversary DVD and turn it up full blast on the home theater and hear once again what sustained me for most of my life. The Allman Brothers Band and that percussion section that is unmatched anywhere on Earth. A guitar player myself, I worshiped Duane, Dickey, Derek, and Warren, and it took me several years to really understand that the thing that kept me coming back again and again to the Allman Brothers Band was the DRUMS. It's a force that no other band had. Bar none the best.
God Damnit. Rest in Peace Butchie. I'm gonna miss you Brother.
Just wrote this about Butch in regards to the tour I did with him this past summer:
Never saw this J Skolnick Photography shot before. This show and the 14 shows I played after it were filled with little momentary sparks of understanding between Butch and I. I would often hit a note, turn around, and I'd see a face similar to this one; eyebrows raised, as if he was challenging me to do it again because it challenged him. Then we'd lock eyes for another second and go on playing with this unspoken mutual acknowledgement of some presence driving this music that neither of us were quite in control of. I think Butch knew damn well who that presence was.
On the second show of the tour, a small picture of Duane (amongst hundreds of other musicians) was hanging backstage. A few minutes before walking on stage, clad in a Duane Allman T-Shirt, Butch looked into Duane's eyes in that picture and said "this one and all the others are for you, bro." I watched quietly from a few feet behind him and marveled at how familiar his tone was. Like it hasn't been 45 years since they last spoke.
Because it hasn't been.
When Butch played, Duane listened. Through all these years, Duane was just on the other side, pushing Butch and making sure the switch he turned on inside of him almost 50 years ago stayed on. Butch knew it the whole time. Butch and I talked on the bus for hours a day and weeks on end about philosophy, religion, politics, literature, music, and everything else. On the days I wore a Duane Allman T-shirt (I recycled the same one because I thought I'd be on the road for 6 days and it ended up being 20+), his conversation was less directed at me, and more directed at the picture on my chest. He seemed to jump back into a conversation with an old friend in the middle of talking to me.
I don't think Butch would've believed in a "jam in the sky" idea of an afterlife, but I think anybody that has had the privilege to know Butch knows that him, Duane, and Berry are having a thunderous reunion right about now.
Link to the pic:
Very sad news....Butch had a good run and I'm glad I got to see him play. He and J (and Marc) formed a unit that was very special.
RIP Butch
This news is tough to take in. I always admired Butch for his commitment to the band and the music. I'm not a drummer, but I know that it requires a complex mixture of mental and physical work. To reach the heights of his craft for the number of years that he did is something that I really can't fully comprehend.
My condolences to his close family, his extended family, and all of us fans that are feeling the loss of this founding member of the band we love.
RIP Butch Trucks from an Allman Brothers Band fan in Australia
Very sad day, I played Allman Brothers music all day.
Respect to his family and friends on this sad day.
Thank you for sharing your gift Butch. It was always a thrill for me to hear your opening of Trouble No More. The first song the ABB played. The last song the ABB played. And still one of my favorites. May you Rest in Peace.
I'm devastated and it feels as though I'm in a bad dream I'm going to wake up from. Rest in peace Butch, and thank you for the wonderful music through the decades that was the soundtrack to the lives of myself, my family, and my friends.
Lot's of great memories.
RIP Butch
Gregg, Warren, Derek, Devon, Duane Trucks and others react.
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/butch-trucks-death-rockers-react/
This hits hard. The Brother's have taught me passion, inspiration , perseverance and how to love something or somebody. Before I loved any human being I loved The Brother's . I'm talking about the kind of love that can be felt between 2 people. I loved The Brother's and with their powerful music they managed to give that love right back to me. Rest in peace Brother.
Great shot.
Very sad news.
R.I.P. Butch from Italy.
