Please Be with Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman

by Galadrielle Allman

  They didn’t have to talk about it. They played a reeling, endless jam that touched on the lives they had all lived separately and it took off like a rocket. Together they had all of the ingredients needed for greatness, and they were hungry for it. Their experiences were pressed into the service of their songs, every hard time useful now as grist for the mill and transformed into something beautiful, full of pride and longing.

  The men played without speaking or wondering how they had gotten to this new place. Nothing had ever felt like this before. Not to any of them. Duane told them that if they wanted out of this band, they would have to fight their way through him to get out the door.

  “This is it, man!” Duane was over the moon. He had found what he was looking for. They all felt it.

  Lying in bed, Donna knew something felt off. Her body was heavy and her mind kept drifting, settling on Duane, then flying off into vague worry. As she wondered what it was, she rested her hand on her flat belly. She decided she needed to take a pregnancy test.

  Her sister Joanie came with her to the doctor’s office. Donna panicked and tore up her first form when she realized she had filled in her true name and address. Joanie stuffed the pieces in her purse. She knew her sister was pregnant; she could just tell. The air around Donna seemed still and charged, and her face looked serious and beautiful. She was different somehow.

  Joanie was right. At eighteen years old, Donna was pregnant.

  Donna lay in a warm bath and looked down at her long legs. She covered her breasts with her palms. Somehow she wasn’t afraid. Her body finally felt like it really belonged to her, and it magically knew how to make a baby. Her life was opening up before her and although she couldn’t see what it was becoming, she could feel it expanding. She would finally have space to maneuver and to grow. Telling Duane was the only worry. She had no idea how he would react.

  Her most recent letter from him was postmarked Miami, Florida, so sitting in her friend Maureen’s living room, she dialed the operator and asked for help calling recording studios in Miami. The operator placed four or five calls and Donna left messages for Duane at each studio, and it worked. By the end of the day, Duane called her back.

  “Come to Macon as soon as you can,” he said. “Everything is going to be all right. I love you.”

  He sounded really happy; he made it feel easy. She was so grateful.

  With her mother’s help, Donna packed the suitcases she had been given as a graduation present. They folded her nightgowns and underthings, her new navy blue crepe dress, and a hot-pink mini with fancy white stitching all over it. The dresses would in no way adapt to her growing belly, and Donna assumed they were her mother’s way of saying she wanted Donna to keep dressing like a proper young lady.

  Donna fit in a neat stack of parenting books, including Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care and A. S. Neill’s Summerhill. She took little else. Tommie was surprisingly accepting and promised she would come to Georgia when the baby was born. Her father, on the other hand, stopped speaking to Donna for several weeks when she told him she was pregnant and going to live with Duane. As she was leaving for the last time, they met at the front door. He was moved to tears.

  He quietly said, “Goodbye, Buttons!” He had never called her Buttons before, and there were tears in his eyes. Donna had seen her daddy cry only once before, when his father died.

  Donna walked down a flight of rolling stairs onto the tarmac at the tiny airport in Macon, balancing her little cosmetics case against her hip. She wore her new prim minidress and her blond hair brushed silky straight. Duane was there to meet her.

  As she walked shyly beside him through the parking lot to his car, the weak latch on her case sprang open and her books tumbled out at their feet. A smiling pink-skinned infant on one cover, a doctor in a white coat and a woman with a huge belly on the others, scattered facedown and pages flapping. It was mortifying to her. They hadn’t even had the chance to ease into the idea, and there it was.

  Duane took her to a small apartment on College Street that Phil Walden had rented for the band, a real hippie crash pad in the same building where Twiggs had an apartment.

  The only furniture was mattresses on the floors and a Coke machine filled with bottles of beer. Duane offered Donna no comfort on her first night there. A kind word and his arms around her would have gone so far, just to curl up together and dream of their future, but he stayed up late, talking to Twiggs and Jaimoe in the main room of the apartment, and left her alone in the one bedroom. As she unpacked her nightgown, she could hear Twiggs and Duane talking through the door. She heard a rumbled, garbled question from Twiggs, and then Duane’s answer:

  “How do you ever know if they’re the one?”

  He made her wait most of the night before he climbed into bed smelling of beer and pulled her body into his. The way he felt against her almost made her forget what she had heard him say.

  Their first weeks together were spent in constant motion. Just a few days after her arrival, Duane told her he had to go to Jacksonville to take care of some business. Duane and Donna drove the Dogsled down to Jacksonville to Berry and Linda’s house. On the drive, Duane told her the Oakleys were expecting a baby of their own, any day. It was comforting to know Linda was already a couple of steps ahead of her on the path. Duane and Berry thought it was so cool they were going to be fathers together. Everything they were going through felt connected, new, and hopeful: the band, the families, the budding spring.

  Donna looked at Duane’s profile in the dark car as he leaned forward to light two cigarettes at once on the glowing coil of the lighter. He handed one of them to Donna with a wink. Sly and the Family Stone came on the radio and he sang along in a sweet and funny falsetto, “I … I … I am everyday people.…” Donna didn’t know if she had ever felt freer.

  They pulled up in front of a gray house where the Oakleys and Dickey Betts lived. It was late, but all the windows were blazing with light and you could hear music and voices from the street.

  “Are you ready to meet everybody?” Duane asked. Donna nodded and ran her fingers through her hair.

  Berry’s sister, Candace Oakley, opened the door. She was one of the most beautiful and hip girls Donna had ever seen. Candy was not much more than five feet tall, with bronzed skin, bright blond hair down to her waist, and smart blue eyes that flashed over you so quick, you couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking. Berry’s wife, Linda, walked up behind her, almost six feet tall with long, wavy light brown hair, dreamy blue eyes, and full lips curved into an easy smile. Her hands perched proudly on her big round belly. They both had a refined hippie girl style that Donna couldn’t imagine pulling off: They wore strings of colorful beads around their necks, open silk blouses, tight cutoff jeans aged to pale perfection, and handmade sandals. The little blue crepe shift dress Donna’s mother bought her suddenly felt like a costume straight out of a Gidget movie. She felt like a square. They led the way into a small living room with people sitting on every available surface: draped together in armchairs, cross-legged on the floor, separating stems and seeds out of a pile of marijuana on an open record album cover. The room was smoky and smelled like spices.

  Linda thought Donna looked like a fashion model, standing just behind Duane with her chin resting on his shoulder, looking around with dark, calm eyes. She was so thin and tall, ladylike, looking just like Joni Mitchell on the cover of her first album, with long blond bangs and delicate wrists. Donna noticed another very pretty girl with dark brown hair down her back and an incredible tan. She stood up as soon as she saw Duane. When Donna asked who she was, Linda smirked and said, “Oh, you mean the Polynesian Princess?”

  Donna watched Duane walk after the dark-haired beauty, down a dark hallway and into a bedroom, and a chill ran through her. When he pulled the door closed behind them, Donna’s first instinct was to bolt. She wanted to run as fast as she could under the rustling palm trees, out into the night. Looking at the closed door that separated her from Duane, she
suddenly knew her new life could disappear before it had even started. Duane could easily follow any girl through any door at any time and never come back. It would be that simple. She wanted to be alone, so she could shake the sinking feeling in her belly, but there was nowhere to run to. When he opened the door and returned to her side, she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. If she was going to be part of this world of his, she was going to have to be cool.

  She was shocked out of her reverie by a deafening crack that could only be a gun. Berry loped into the room laughing. “Damn! Dickey just shot his gun off the porch!”

  The police were at the door within minutes, just long enough for someone to toss the baggie of pot out the back window into the bushes while everybody tried to fan the smoke out the back door. Donna was terrified. Two uniformed officers passed through the house quickly, asked a bunch of questions, and left without hassling anyone too badly. Dickey was polite and calm with them, and then lit a joint the moment the door closed behind them.

  Berry, Duane, and Dickey took turns singing, but they clearly needed a stronger vocalist. Duane knew what he needed to do. He had been telling Jaimoe about his brother’s voice for months; it would fit perfectly on top of the music they were playing.

  Gregg’s time in Los Angeles had been hard on him. Liberty was no more tuned in to his real potential than they had been with Hour Glass. They made a few mediocre singles and nothing much came of them. He was humiliated by the choices the label made for him, like the Tammy Wynette song “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” He was feeling pretty low. He was so depressed he even contemplated putting a gun to his head.

  He had made a number of friends and solid connections with other musicians, including the guys in a band called Poco, and he was considering joining their band when Duane called. It was the first time they had spoken in eight months, and it was all business. “Baybro, I’m putting a band together with two drummers, two guitarists, and a bass player, and I need you to get your ass down here, round it up, and send it somewhere.” Gregg thought it sounded like a train wreck, but it was the highest compliment to hear Duane say he needed him to be his singer. Gregg left for the airport that night.

  When Gregg arrived at the gray house, it was packed with people he either didn’t know or knew only dimly. He followed the sound of his brother’s voice out onto a screened porch. He set eyes on a little beauty who took his breath away. Good God! Hair past her waist as blond as sunshine and a tight little body! She laid a smile on him that made his knees go weak. Duane stepped between Gregg and the girl and gave him a big squeeze. “Baybro, that is Berry’s baby sister Candy. You best behave!”

  Back at Butch’s house, Gregg sat and watched his brother tear into “Statesboro Blues,” the same tune he had started with back in Los Angeles. During their time apart, Duane’s slide playing had taken an astounding leap forward. If Gregg hadn’t heard it for himself, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible. When the band all kicked in, the playing was so powerful, Gregg felt the hair on his arms stand up. Then he started to feel like the odd man out.

  In anticipation of Gregg’s arrival, they dusted off an old country blues tune that Muddy Waters had electrified first, common ground for them to stand on together, a song called “Trouble No More.” Duane handed Gregg the lyrics he had written out by hand.

  “Bro, I don’t know. I need some time to get comfortable here, you know? You guys already have it together and all.”

  “Oh no you don’t, man. You are not going to embarrass me in front of these people. I have been telling them for days how you are the only one who can sing for us. Now get your shit together and sing.” Duane’s eyes burned through him. There was no way out, so Gregg sang. He poured his anger and stress into the song, and it fueled him. He dug into the deepest, most guttural and bluesy side of his voice and unleashed everything he had. The smile that spread across Duane’s face flashed all the way across the room. Duane was so thrilled when he was done; he grabbed Gregg’s face in both hands and kissed him on the lips.

  Gregg’s power and soulfulness were beyond anyone’s expectations. He sounded amazing. All fear was gone. All that was left to do was pull together six or seven songs and get in front of a crowd. Gregg told them he’d been writing steadily in L.A. He had twenty-nine songs in his notebook, and a few might be just right.

  They also had to decide what to call themselves. The first band name they lit on was Beelzebub, but the potential for calling down bad juju was discussed and the name was scrapped. The Allman Brothers Band seemed like a natural choice to everyone, except for the brothers themselves. Duane and Gregg didn’t want the band to feel like they were not six equal partners, but everyone else thought it was a great name, and it meant something: All men are brothers, and that was what they were all about, spreading the brotherhood.

  Duane explained to Donna that she would stay upstairs from Linda and Berry, with his friend Ellen Hopkins, whom everybody called Hop, for a few days while the guys practiced and traveled to a few gigs around Florida. Ellen was a young graphic artist who worked at a local television station, another one who seemed to have a proprietary eye on Duane. Ellen watched him walk through her house with something like hunger. Donna could feel that she was not entirely welcome. She didn’t know what the story was there, but she could feel something.

  When the band returned to Jacksonville after a week away, Duane and Dickey took Donna to Sarasota for a quick visit. Dickey’s wife, Dale, had family there. Duane told Donna, “You are really going to like Dale. I like Dale. She’s a solid chick.”

  Donna didn’t care for the word chick, but she wanted to be solid, too. That sounded just right.

  Florida was a world away from Missouri, the air and light gentle and lulling. She and Dale spent most of their time in the swimming pool talking and soaking up the sunshine. Time with Duane was very scarce. After a few days, he said it was time to continue on to Daytona to see his mother. Donna’s head was spinning; in less than a month they had visited four new towns and met most of the people who would fill her new life.

  They stayed with Jerry for several days, and Gregg came and joined them. Jerry was clearly thrilled to be with her sons, but Duane seemed nervous. He had planned to tell his mother about the baby coming, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He pulled Gregg aside and asked him to tell her, but he didn’t do it.

  Jerry was very welcoming to Donna, talking over her shoulder at the stove, asking Donna if she liked to cook, too. She even insisted that Donna sleep beside her in her queen-sized bed, saying it would be more comfortable than the living room. Jerry got a little tipsy at dinner and while they were falling asleep told Donna she loved her. It was incredibly sweet.

  Out in the garage the next morning, Duane got down on one knee and slipped a beaded Indian ring out of his pocket.

  “Donna, will you marry me?” She smiled and said, “Well, I don’t know.… How do you feel about babies?”

  “I feel good about ’em,” he answered, kissing her belly. He slipped the toy ring on her hand. He stood up and wrapped his arm around her, whispering, “I love you,” into her hair. She was so relieved she thought she might cry. They didn’t say a word to Jerry about the engagement or the pregnancy.

  (photo credit 14.1)

  Macon is beautiful in the spring, white magnolia blossoms hanging heavily in the trees, fallen pink cherry petals swirling on the cobblestone streets, and new grass growing in so green it hurts to look right at it. The Ocmulgee River and the train tracks run side by side, the twin means for carrying King Cotton to market back in the day. Together they mark the far edge of Rose Hill Cemetery, a magnificent rambling city of the dead where marble stones rest in the shade of grand old trees.

  Duane and Dickey walked to Rose Hill together with their acoustic guitars and sat in the shade of a tall elm within sight of the river. They smoked a joint and started to play, rambling country blues that wandered between them like a trail. Once their high and their song had faded a little, the
y lit cigarettes and started to talk. Duane knew that he and Dickey had to support each other, actively. They would have to protect each other. He’d say, “When I listen to you play, I have to try hard to keep the jealousy thing at bay and not try to outdo you when I play my solo. But I still want to play my best!”

  “That’s a thin line,” Dickey said in agreement.

  They were equals, both powerful lead guitar players in their own right, and the music would come off only if they both blazed as brightly as they could. Competition was inevitable and it wasn’t a bad thing, it would help them both get stronger, but resentments could never grow. Duane loved the way Dickey got sounds out of his guitar that Duane could never replicate, and he told him so. Dickey said he felt the same way about Duane’s playing. They raised the bar for each other. They vowed to keep talking as things arose, if either of them felt the need to.

  Duane was bound to get the lion’s share of the press attention. His session work was being steadily released and would continue. Some songs were even charting. He was becoming known, and while he was at ease representing the band in interviews if need be, he would not allow them to be divided. If the focus stayed on making one another better and pushing forward as one, they could really grow.

  When Duane came back home from Rose Hill, he told Donna that they all had to protect one another, no backbiting or gossip. They were a family and that was a serious and profound responsibility. No one could be left out or left behind. If she saw anyone struggling, she was to help them out. He was such a beautiful man, she thought. She promised she would be the best friend she could be to everyone.