When Watson was free, he and Condon got to work putting a defense together. They wanted to trace Twiggs’s behavior and personality from birth until the night at Aliotta’s Lounge. They had Twiggs write a personal chronology, and interviewed his family, the band, and many of his friends. In the end, they felt confident that they could show he had no option but to commit the crime.
When Condon came to Macon to visit the Lyndon family home, he began by stating that his hourly rate began from the moment he left his office until he returned there, travel time included. As far as the Lyndons understood, Phil Walden was paying Twiggs’s legal fees, but most likely he was billing the band.
The trial was slated to begin in September 1971. Condon said it would likely take two weeks, because he had waived a jury trial. Watson suggested that the two state psychiatrists jointly interview Twiggs. They agreed that he had had a psychotic episode brought on by the stress of life on the road with the band. Berry Oakley was assigned the task of testifying personally to the effects of life on the road.
As soon as Berry and Kim landed in Buffalo, they asked a friend there to help them find drugs. He took them to a local pharmacy. They were dope sick because they knew better than to risk flying while holding. After a ridiculous negotiation, with the pharmacist telling them he could only give them drugs if they said it was for pain, Berry said, “Fuck Payne, the dope is for me!” Kim says they were only given enough to feed their enormous tolerance and the week they spent there was fraught with sickness.
On the stand, Berry paused for long moments to process his thoughts before answering. The state’s attorney was getting frustrated. He asked Berry how many times he had taken LSD: more than twenty-five, fifty, one hundred times? Finally Berry said, “Lots more than a hundred times.”
While he talked and spaced out, Berry kept pulling out a roll of tablets and popping them in his mouth. Finally, the prosecutor demanded to know what drug he was taking, in plain view of the court.
Berry smiled and said, “Tums, for my tummy.”
Twiggs was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sentenced to six additional months in a state mental hospital.
The Brothers played two nights at Winterland in San Francisco on October 8 and 9, and after the second night’s encore, Duane snatched his strap off and turned his back on the crowd, quickly walking into the wings, wound up and ready for running. It was hard to find a place to put the immense energy that surged through him when the band built to such intensity and then stopped. It could feel like a free fall, and the only stable place was inside another song. It hadn’t felt right all night. It didn’t get off the ground. He felt alone, out on a limb, and no one followed where he was pointing. Butch brushed by him as he left the stage and Duane grabbed his arm and said, “I need to talk to you!”
“Okay, man, let’s go back to the hotel and we’ll talk,” Butch said.
An hour later, Duane was pounding on his door. “When Dickey gets up to play, y’all are pounding away, backing him up, and when I get up there you’re laying back and not pushing at all!” Duane shouted as he shouldered his way into Butch’s room.
Butch met Duane’s angry eyes and raised his voice, something he had never done before. “Duane, you’re so fucked up you’re not giving us anything.”
Duane looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He knew Butch was telling him the truth. They sat together in silence for a minute or two.
“This shit has got to stop,” Duane said quietly, and put a hand on Butch’s back as he walked out the door. “Thanks, brother.”
Heroin had gained the upper hand, in ways I’m not sure Duane believed it could. He had fallen prey to the idea that snorting it was safe and his abhorrence for needles would protect him from serious addiction, but the lie of that was starting to show.
Jerry Wexler and his partner Ahmet Ertegun took Duane and Gregg into a back room at a party in New York and told them they needed to talk. They didn’t waste a moment with polite chat. They told the brothers they had seen this bullshit all before and they were not going to sit by and watch two young, talented men kill themselves. They were squandering their talent and their opportunities. They had watched helplessly while Ray Charles struggled with heroin. It had killed Charlie Parker. They would be no different. The shit had to stop. Wexler and Ertegun were self-made millionaires who had launched the careers of an astounding number of artists. To be scolded like a couple of kids deeply embarrassed the brothers. Gregg felt sure all they really cared about was Duane, because of the way they spoke directly to him. He felt invisible next to his big brother, and guilty that he had been the first one to bring dope around.
Duane was resolved. The next time he spoke to either of these men, he would be clear-eyed and sober. And he would make sure everyone in his band was clean, too.
He was the bridge between the band and the businessmen. He was the one who started the train rolling and he was responsible for all of them.
It bothered him that he hadn’t seen clearly the moment when heroin started working against him, beaching him on the other side of the warm wave where there was only cold grit and need. Around this time, he told Jonny Podell, “I’m not doing heroin anymore, heroin is doing me.” He had called Podell to ask him to sort out rehab beds for everyone. He arranged for Duane, Berry, Gregg, Kim, and Red Dog to enter Linwood-Bryant Hospital, in Buffalo, to undergo medically supervised detox. The bill is marked October 20, 1971. Dickey agreed to clean up and would take care of it himself. I believe Jaimoe and Butch did the same.
Gregg told me very simply that drugs would have come between him and his brother eventually. Drugs were the thing that would have driven them apart, he said. It made me consider how different their personalities were. Gregg was the dreamer, private, shy, and comfort-seeking, while Duane turned toward the world; he wanted to engage with it and sought a sense of purpose. Gregg could retreat into himself and his high, with a woman and a bottle, and become completely unreachable. As heavily as Duane was into drugs, he wasn’t an escapist, and when it began to interfere with his music, he knew enough to put an end to it.
Gregg didn’t show up to fly to Buffalo, and Duane called him from the airport, furious. Bunky Odom, who was traveling with them, overheard Duane say, “You are not fit to fry fish for my band.”
Red Dog went to visit Twiggs in the mental hospital while they were all in Buffalo for rehab. He and Twiggs were left alone and they had a nice visit. Twiggs told him an incredible story about a man who hadn’t said a word inside for more than twenty years, until Twiggs convinced him it would be a gas to surprise everyone by simply saying hello the next day, and the man agreed.
Duane didn’t go to see Twiggs. He couldn’t handle it.
When Duane got out of rehab, he went to Manhattan and called Ace and told him he wanted to take him fishing when he got back to Macon to tell him about it. He said he had learned a lot and wanted to share it. Ace was into meditation and yoga, and he could go deep in conversation. Duane was looking forward to a good long talk. They had plans to make.
He also called John Hammond and invited him to come hang out at his friend’s place on Fifth Avenue, where he was staying for a couple of days.
“It wasn’t often that I got to hang out with him,” John recalled, “but when I did it was just terrific because we talked music and blues and he knew the guys that I knew and I hipped him to some guys, he hipped me to some guys.… It was just terrific. I was about to go to play these shows in Canada,” John said. He had a loft downtown on Broadway and they headed over to jam together and keep talking.
Duane was in a good space. During his week in Buffalo, he had let the last year sink in. He had never felt stronger or sharper. With Layla, At Fillmore East, and the new songs, he was doing the best work of his life and he didn’t want to waste any more time chasing a high.
Having friends like John, musicians he admired, there was really no limit to the projects he could envision for the coming year. Money was starting t
o come in, and that would help buy a little downtime.
“He was talking about producing a record for me, and I was so excited,” John said. “What a fantastic deal that was. He was beginning to talk percentages and stuff, which I didn’t know anything about, but it all sounded really real and exciting. I had to leave early the next morning for Newfoundland and he was on his way home to Macon.”
Still, they couldn’t resist the chance to play together, and Duane had carried the Dobro over. They sat knee to knee and started rolling through tunes they both loved. The city was quiet in the time between night and earliest dawn, the sky still dark, but shifting every moment toward pale blue morning, only the momentary hiss of a passing taxi now and then, and soon enough the sound of the first steel gate being raised on a distant market. Duane loved the way John played. He had been living and breathing the blues, watching and learning from the best, a direct line from Charley Patton to Howlin’ Wolf to John. He was holding down stages alone with his guitar the way the original masters did it. His deep, gravelly voice, the sound of his boot heel on the floor, and the wide resonance of his National. He loved it, the interplay between them.
“We jammed, and had ideas for songs … country blues, slide, Robert Johnson stuff: That was my inspiration. I had played with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, and all these guys he admired so much, and he’d ask me about them. Duane would have been a great producer. He knew how to deal with sidemen, with players and producers, instinctively, I guess. He headed back to Macon, and that’s the last time I saw him. He was a great person and I often think about him and wonder, what if? I feel richer for having known him. He was a cut above everybody else. He had such a vision of what he wanted to do, how to make songs work. He could really play anything. He had the facility to play and I admired him so much.”
The next day was Linda Oakley’s birthday, October 29, 1971, and Duane wanted to be home for her party.
Can you feel it?
The road is waiting and his wheels have started to roll. I can’t stop them.
I stopped working. For months, I refused to write it, but it stayed there, just waiting for me. The road was laid under the first sentence I wrote about him years before. I idly picked up a good bottle of whisky at the grocery store and was walking out into the parking lot with the small brown paper bag before I realized what I’d done. I stood like my grandmother by my kitchen sink and swallowed a hot shot of the amber liquid like medicine for pain, and then another. If I couldn’t slow down the story, I could slow my mind and numb my heart. I think of the recording of Duane’s drunken voice, talking to a DJ, saying his grandfather soaked his feet in Jack Daniel’s. I drink and then I sleep. When I wake up, the white page is still on the screen, the cursor blinking like a traffic light. The road is waiting and my father is moving now, picking up speed. I am reckless with rage. There is nowhere to turn.
You learn how to stay suspended in a moment when someone you love is taken from you. You imagine the moment just before the thing happens, and part of you lives there.
You camp out, pinning down the moment in time when everything was still okay, and hold it still with the weight of your body and the force of your will.
Part of me lives on Broadway, staring up at John Paul Hammond’s lit window from the street. In the stillness when the wind shifts, I can hear the sound of them playing—two moans, one low and one high, threading through each other like smoke.
Anything is possible from where I stand. Duane will walk out the door soon.
He could turn right instead of left. He could miss his plane. Or decide to fly to Canada with John. Some small choice could change now, and everything would be different. Everything.
(photo credit 24.1)
Linda Oakley, at my request, wrote me an account of October 29, 1971.
They had just returned from Buffalo, N.Y. and the craziness of “getting clean” … getting together … and, at last turning over a new leaf. We’d been through a baptism of fire, reborn and renewed. The path before us was clear. We were headed for higher ground.
It was so so good to be back home … “all in our places with sunshiny faces.” … We had gotten a big orange pumpkin to celebrate the season. Berry and I took the Beebop out to the garden. In the warm afternoon we spread ourselves next to the fishpond and set to work scooping out the squishy pulp. Brittany clutched her Crayola pens, ready to draw a face for Daddy to carve.
We heard a car and a motorcycle pull into the back driveway. Visitors! Peering over the hedges, I saw a huge bouquet of flowers held aloft by brother Duane. He graciously presented them with a big hug and a “Happy Birthday!” He and Dixie had just returned from a stopover in The Big Apple to see John Hammond. I was so touched and thrilled that they’d taken the time to come over and wish me well.
“Ah, a Jack-o-lantern I see! Can I cut out the eye, nose, and mouth?” That was typical Duane. We later wandered into the house as he rhapsodized about the great time they had with John Hammond.
“… up all night with our acoustics, just riffin’. Such a righteous cat, man!” He was glowing.
Berry wanted me to show off my new patchwork knee high boots. He’d had them custom made for me at “Granny Takes a Trip” in New York and they’d just arrived via the post.
“You look so good in them boots it’s enough to make my old pecker hard!” Again typical Duane: bold as brass! I took it as a great compliment. So did BO of course. “I hear you’re takin’ your old lady out jukin’ tonight!” We were supposed to go to dinner while Aunt Candy entertained the Beebop.
Duane and Dixie headed home to recover from their travels and Candy left to run some errands. We started getting ready for our big date; just waiting for Candy to get back. That’s when the phone rang.
They were all headed to Duane’s place; him on his bike, Dixie behind him in the car, Candy following in Mehitable. The bike spun out and slid after glancing off the back of a truck. Dixie screeched to a halt and ran over to where he lay. Yes, Candy was right there. I can only imagine how surreal it was for them. She told us he’d been taken to the ER … they were there waiting to hear.… Berry and I just looked at each other.… He was just here.… How could this happen? NOT DUANE!
Promising to call as soon as he knew anything, Berry raced to join the gathering of brothers and sisters keeping vigil at Middle Georgia Hospital.
I went through the motions of fixing dinner for Brittany, music playing, I think it was Cowboy, as I sent out my prayers. Time slows down when you are waiting, waiting and wondering, worrying and wishing and hoping. At last I heard the back doors opening and closing. I ran to the stairs. As I stood on the landing, Berry was dragging up the stairs. The look on his face just pierced my heart. Candy came in right behind him and said,
“He’s gone!”
Heartbreak. Broken. Devastation. Disbelief. We were the walking wounded, sometimes not even able to walk. Joanie and I talked about this yesterday. That night, she and Callahan and Berry and countless others filled Grant’s Lounge to celebrate Duane … many toasts of tequila. I think they were expecting him to show up and tell them it was all a bad dream. When the bar shut down, Joan and Michael managed to walk to their apartment. Berry had driven his Z car. He almost made it safely home but he missed the turn into the driveway and hit the wall instead. The car was totaled but Berry was able to extricate himself. Luckily Willie was there and got him into the house by the time the police came. The rest of the night is a blur … thankfully.
I don’t recall who spilled the beans about the surprise birthday party they had planned. Berry? Candy? That’s what they were up to. Showing me the love again. More than that it was a time to get us all together again, celebrating the mission of the music. Drawing the family in … the circle. Well the circle had been broken.
Strangely it came together because we all loved Duane so much. You and Donna came back to Macon. Sisters had been apart too long. We had shared a lifetime in the blink of an eye. That was the most amazing funeral
I have even been to. It was Glory Gospel Hour, a real revival. The roster of musicians and dignitaries alone would have made you think the King had died. “Long Live the King!”
We put on our finest frocks and danced and sang and clapped and cried our eyes out. The band and guests played for all they were worth, enough to wake the dead? I think Duane would have been pleased that it was a celebration of his life. Oh but the sight of that guitar, like a quiet sentinel on its stand …
My beautiful birthday bouquet was joined by a multitude of floral displays. Most impressive were the ones arranged in the image of his Les Paul. There were flowers all over the front porch of the Big House, spilling out into the front yard for all to see. Do you know, when those blossoms began to fade and dry, we made candles. We pinned the flowers around the surface of each one, then dipped them in the hot wax until they were firmly attached. We gave them as Christmas gifts. Tuffy’s sister still has one.
Those Cowboys sang us through our grief with their angel harmonies … and lending his voice as only he could, there was Duane with us still.
I love you,
Linda
A flatbed truck began to make a wide turn in the middle of the intersection ahead. For a moment, it seemed that Duane could easily make it around the back end of the truck, but when it stopped short, he was forced under the hot, spinning body of his Harley and knocked unconscious. Candy and Dixie leaped from their cars and ran to him, calling out for help. Candy banged on the doors of several houses on the street, pleading for someone to call an ambulance. She pulled the covers off the seats of her car to cover him while they waited for help to come. He had a scratch on his face, but the worst of his injuries did not show. It took forever for the ambulance to come, its siren blaring.
Please Be with Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman Page 33
