Guest Book

Thanks Tim, really looking forward to thw show. Hope it is still the first night of this run. I am going with two guys who I was with at the Spectrum in Philly December 1973 to see the ABB. Hey Deb, wow I forgot about the boat ride from hell. We were okay until I said to my cousin, "lets go out the Palm Beach Inlet and check out the ocean...". You were really wet but it was fun. We did get to see the NMAS in Lauderdale that night. I will let you know when I visit next. Carol, thanks for the welcome.

MY MY I have chills reading that WONDERFUL article. Sure did put a :bigsmile: on MY face !!!! Makes me long to go back to Macon.......one day soon. Big Mike !!!!! Glad to see you back !!! Enjoy the show !!! I still remember that "boat ride from hell" !!!! Come for a visit. Ca, any updates on Logan? Pray he doing better. Marci, soooooo nice to see you !!! Miss you. We had some beautiful weather in So. Fla.........mid 80'S and breezy.......took a nice walk on the beach......WOW.......and then I come home and read this GREAT article......that just made my day. Peace & Love

Headline: Going to The Big House -- it's Graceland for Allman Brothers fans By Mark Hinson Tallahassee Democrat (Florida) My 12-year-old nephew Hub Cub grew up having his ears infected with cynically manufactured teeny-bop music that was cooked up in the musical equivalent of a mobile meth lab. It was easily found on the dreaded Disney Channel and on the more noxious Nickelodeon shows. "Do you want to hear a song by (the made-for-TV band) Big Time Rush?" he said once as he cranked up his MP3 player in my car. "It's not nearly as bad as it sounds." I didn't tell him that he was accidentally quoting Mark Twain ("I'm told that Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds") nor did I take the MP3 player and hurl it out the car window as we passed the city landfill. Be gone, Big Time Rubbish. I tried to steer Hub Cub's musical taste by playing everything from The Beatles to Clarence "Frogman" Henry to Mozart to Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Nothing took. It was like trying to pitch opera to penguins. Then, a miracle happened. About two months ago, Hub Cub strolled into my cluttered music room and said, "Uh, have you ever heard of this band called The Allman Brothers? You got any of their stuff? I really like the way Duane Allman played the guitar. I am learning to play it just like him." After I got up from the floor, I reached for the "Eat A Peach" album and said, "Yeah, I may have heard a song or two by The Allman Brothers." If you grew up in the South during the '70s, it was impossible to escape The Allman Brothers. The band laid the cornerstone for Southern rock 'n' roll. Every bonfire party, every beer bash in a cow pasture, every high-school dance in my homeland of Marianna came with an Allman Brothers soundtrack running somewhere in the background. "Ramblin' Man." "Midnight Rider." "Whipping Post." "Sweet Melissa." "One Way Out." You never had to actually buy "Live at The Filmore East" because, chances are, it was already playing on the radio or in the tape deck of your buddy's tricked-out Chevy Nova. It was all just part of the atmosphere. The band's story was also rich in tragedy, melodrama and mythology. Duane, the band's brilliant guitarist, died young following a motorcycle crash 40 years ago this month in Macon, Ga. Berry Oakley, the underrated bass player, was killed one year later in - cue the creepy music - a motorcycle accident. Gregg Allman, the lead singer and keyboardist, tempted fate by marrying Cher. In the 1980s, Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks moved to Tallahassee and opened Pegasus recording studio (which is now part of Florida State's film school). Trucks was an easy-going, likable fellow who loved to tell stories about his rowdy days on the road with the Allmans. None of them can be repeated here because my mother reads this newspaper. I had the chance to meet the living Allman Brothers in the late '80s when they announced a reunion tour at Pegasus. Gregg showed up with a good-looking young blond woman I assumed was his daughter. "That's Savannah," my buddy Dave Murphy, who worked at Pegasus, stage-whispered to me. "She's kind of tiny to have a nickname of a city in Georgia," I said. "No, Savannah, as in the star of adult films," he whispered. "That's Gregg's girlfriend." "I've been going to the wrong movie theater," I said. Hummingbird home Hub Cub's fascination with The Allman Brothers started thanks to his grandfather, Jiddy, whose family owns an acoustic Hummingbird guitar that once belonged to Duane Allman. One of Jiddy's close relatives worked as a promoter in the music business during the late '60s and '70s. According to family lore, Duane traded the Hummingbird for, um, let's just say party supplies. A few months ago, Jiddy decided to get the Hummingbird authenticated, so he called up The Big House in Macon. The Big House is a large, rambling, Grand Tudor-style mini-mansion in downtown Macon where most of the Allman Brothers band lived from 1970 to 1973, the group's most productive and creative period. It was a private home until 2003, when the owners got tired of Allman Brothers fans from around the world knocking on the door and asking if they could have a look around. It took several years and around $2.5 million to turn The Big House into an Allman Brothers museum, which officially opened to the public in 2010. I didn't know much about The Big House when I got in the car on a recent overcast fall morning with Hub Cub, Jiddy and Hub Cub's Uncle Paul and Aunt Sharon for a quick road trip. A curator at the museum had been studying the legendary Hummingbird for a month. As we got closer to Macon, I envisioned a well-meaning-but-modest tourist attraction along the lines of the now-defunct George and Lurleen Wallace Museum in Montgomery, Ala, or the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, N.C. You know, nothing fancy. What I found was an impressive collection and archive that rivals the Elvis shrine at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. The Big House even has a fancy, automatic wrought-iron gate out front just like Graceland's. Inside, the two-story house is packed with Allman Brothers memorabilia, ranging from the ironic (an autographed box of macaroni and cheese) to the iconic (the drool-worthy Gibson Les Paul Gold Top that Duane played on "Layla" by Derek and The Dominoes.) The collection contains 300,000 pieces of Allman memorabilia, which are exhibited in rotating displays. We're talking fringe jackets, guitars, drums, amplifiers, vintage posters, gold records, photos and original lyric sheets ("Blue Sky" was written by guitarist Dickey Betts while sitting on the porch of The Big House one Sunday morning.) There's even a wall dedicated to The Allman Brothers' roadies (aka The Almost Brothers) and a gigantic pool table owned by Gregg and Cher. The vaults of coolness are overseen by archivist and self-professed music geek E.J. Devokaitis, who possesses a frighteningly encyclopedic knowledge of all things Allman. He can identify what month and year a Polaroid fan photo of an Allman Brothers member was taken judging by which shirt Butch, Duane, Dickie, Gregg, Berry or Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson happened to be wearing on that day. Talk about the right guy who found the right job. "I was a huge Beatles fan when I was a kid (growing up in the '80s)," Devokaitis said. "I didn't realize they had broken up." In college, Devokaitis became obsessed with the Allman Brothers after hearing a dorm neighbor blasting the 1989 "Dreams" box set and retrospective. "I didn't realize that all those songs were by the same band," Devokaitis said. "They were true pioneers. They created a sound that hadn't been there before. When Duane plays the slide guitar, it keeps you riveted like Miles Davis or John Coltrane." Near the end of our visit, Devokaitis verified that the Hummingbird did, indeed, once belong to Duane. The guitar is now on extended loan to the museum. Before Devokaitis put it back in the case, he handed it to Hub Cub and invited him to go play it in the "Casbah Lounge" room upstairs in the back of the Big House. When I walked into the Casbah - which is decked out in Turkish rugs and wicker furniture - I had an instant flashback to the crash pads of the '70s. There was even a Pioneer turntable in the corner and albums scattered around the room. If Berry or Duane had walked in at any moment, I would not have blinked before asking Hub Cub to play the opening licks to "Statesboro Blues." Now that's a true big time rush. - Contact senior writer Mark Hinson at (850) 599-2164 or mhinson@tallahassee.com For more about The Big House, visit www.thebighousemuseum.org.

That's awesome BM! I'm sure lots of familiar characters will be there in Philly. Enjoy!

Big fun jamming with Ratdog's Mark Karan, a great blues player who played with Delaney Bramlett for years. Enjoy. http://alanpaul.net/?p=3665

:fanfare: :birthday: Natalie!! :fanfare: :birthday: @TheBronx..thanks:) Barry was one of our long-lost friends when we abruptly moved to FLA, saved our daughter's life, but we sure missed our family and friends.. welcome home Lizzy:reddancer: :wave: Marci , if we can make it to Gadsden, we may just have to stop in Macon and kidnap u on the way :bike: Deb..tix are onsale for BB Mann in Fort Myers:) Kevin surprised me with a pair Sunday morning , God love my good Man :angel: Continued prayers for healing, strength and all the best for Brother Gregory

Natalie is 9???? Time sure does fly..........you were pregnant at the Beacon !!!! HAPPY BRITHDAY, Natalie !!!!!!!

Brent.....even I hollered ROLL TIDE saturday night!!! I think the Dawgs might get a little taste of Gator Tail this year too!! Been Listening to Man In Motion this morning, Warren Haynes...... there is none better than that man right now in the business......makes my monday morning bearable! :inlove: Happy Monday ABB Land!

OMG! Randall how sweet! And a big Happy Birthday to your daughter as well! Lots of birthday twins here! Btw - for those of you who remember me being pregnant with Natalie, she's nine years old today!