Allman Brothers
From page 21 of Classic Rock Magazine December 2003
in arms
SOUTHERN ROCK’S FINEST EXPONENTS WERE THIS MONTH coming to terms with their second loss of a key member to a motorbike accident. Bass player Berry Oakley’s death happened just a thousand yards from where Duane Allman had perished barely a year earlier, on the streets of Macon, Georgia. Both men were 24 when they died.
Another tragedy had been on the cards for the hard-living rockers, however. “We were all living pretty reckless,” guitarist Dickey Betts recalled, “and we’d been told that if you guys don’t slow down a little then this is going to happen again.” Happily, the band returned to the stage on New Year’s Eve, with new bass player Lamar Williams, at the Warehouse in New Orleans, vowing that a double dose of tragedy wouldn’t stop them becoming one of America’s biggest attractions.


