Guest Book

Since many have asked: Letter to the Editor April 6, 2005 Public Editor The New York Times 229 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 To the editor, My name is Butch Trucks. I am a founding member and am still the drummer for The Allman Brothers Band. In 35 years of playing music for the public and especially due to the nature of the music we played and the time and origin of our group (late 60's, the deep south) we have had more than our share of controversy and criticism. I realize that this comes with the territory and accept it for what it is. When it comes to criticism it is simply one person's opinion. This is the nature of any art form. In these 35 years of criticism I have read reviews and articles that run the gamut but there has always been one article that stands above all of the rest as being the single most mean spirited piece of fiction ever written about us. It is as related to journalism as an ant is to an aardvark. That is the Rolling Stone article about The Allman Brothers Band, written by Grover Lewis, and referred to in Mr. Roy Blount, Jr.’s review: " 'Splendor in the Short Grass': Romancing the Stoned" (New York Time Book Review 4/3/05). First let me state unequivocally that Duane Allman was one of the most powerful, charismatic, and trustworthy men I have ever known. I would use the word "messianic" to describe the impact he had on the people around him and his influence on music today runs much deeper than all but a very few even begin to know. He was a man of the highest character and principles and for Mr. Blount to refer to Duane Allman as "one of these churls" is inexcusable. To put things in there proper perspective I will tell you exactly how our "fellow traveler" came to be threatened and you can decide for yourself if "at my teasing suggestion" is nothing more than a self serving distortion of what really happened. Mr. Lewis joined our tour in 1972 at the insistence of our management. We were a very close knit group of musicians and crew that had discovered "God" in the from of this new music we were playing and were too busy spreading the gospel to even care about the interviews, photo shoots and all of the other nonsense that went with the image building that made for big time rock and roll success. I am sure that "our fellow traveler" was used to bands falling all over themselves at having one of the great writers (he was actually an assistant editor) from the Holy Grail of the time, Rolling Stone Magazine, that he was somewhat taken aback by our lack of interest in his presence. What he wound up writing under the guise of journalism could have been humorous satire at best if it weren't for one very tragic fact: it was published within weeks of Duane Allman's death and the people at Rolling Stone knew of this and had time to pull the article and did nothing. At any other time a suit for slander would have been filed and I assure you we would have won. Grover Lewis' account of his time with us was not journalism it was malicious fiction. Examples: He writes at one point about a conversation between me and Dickey Betts about a book on Zen Buddhism by Suzuki. I asked Dickey if he had read it. He said he had and that he felt that it was a too academic approach to a subject that had to be felt and experienced. Dickey and I went on to discuss the book and the topic for some time. Mr. Lewis' version was that I asked Dickey if he had read the book. Dickey's response was. Yep. It's a good book. There actually was a conversation that went somewhat like this later in Mr. Lewis' stay with us. I had just bought a copy of Saul Bellow's "Herzog" (ironic that he died today). I asked "our fellow traveler" if he had read the book. His answer? It's a good book. We had a road manager that was a graduate of Georgia Tech and before coming with us had been a bank auditor. He was an educated and sophisticated man. Mr. Lewis quotes him as calling the desert as we flew over Arizona "a right smart of sand". I worked with this man for many years and never did I hear him use a phrase that even resembled this. In fact all of the dialogue from any of the members of our group seemed to be taken directly from Faulkner. We are from the south. We did and still do have southern accents. We are not stupid. Please read an article on me from the New Yorker Magazine, 1999. It very correctly describes my tastes in literature and love of philosophy. I could quote many other examples from this article but I'll just get to the one that led to Duane threatening "our fellow traveler". Rolling Stone had sent Annie Leibowitz to photograph the article. As I said earlier, we were busy playing music and all of the publicity nonsense (including photo sessions) just got in our way. I think it took about three days to finally get us together for a shoot. We had all had tattoos of a mushroom on our right calves (I am 57 years old now and when I occasionally notice mine it brings back all of those times). The reasons for getting these tattoos were personal and had deep meaning for us. Somehow Ms. Leibowitz had heard of the tattoos and asked if we would all pull up our pant legs and line up so that she could shoot a photo of them. We looked at each other and started to comply when Dickey Betts finally pushed his pant leg down and said "no, this is silly." Our fellow traveler's" "teasing suggestion" was "it's no sillier than getting a tattoo in the first place". This was the final straw for Duane. That was when he looked Grover Lewis in the eye and said "one more crack like that out of you and I'm gonna knock your block off". I heard from an acquaintance that was friendly with Jan Wenner (editor of Rolling Stone) that he attended a dinner party that included Grover Lewis shortly after his time with us. He told me that they were all having a good laugh about the article that they were about to publish on The Allman Brothers Band. They were both aware of the nature of this piece of "journalism". They also became aware of the death of Duane Allman and still published this fiction after Duane was unable to defend himself. Now I ask you, who is the "churl" in this scenario? I also ask you, if this is an example of Grover Lewis' work how can the term journalist apply in any way? Sincerely yours, Butch Trucks Drummer and partner of The Allman Brothers Band