Gregory Lenoir Allman (born December 8, 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee), known as Gregg Allman, is a rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band.
He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2006. His distinctive voice placed him in 70th place in the Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".
Allman was born in Nashville but his family moved to Norfolk, Virginia when Allman was an infant. While his family was in Norfolk, his father, Willis Allman, a career United States Army sergeant, was murdered by a hitchhiker and fellow veteran who he picked up a day after returning from a long tour of duty.Geraldine "Mama A" Allman moved her family back to Nashville.
In 1957 they relocated to Daytona Beach, Florida. Along with his older brother Duane, Allman attended Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach. During his teenage years, Gregg took an interest in the guitar, which was spurred by summer visits in Nashville with his grandmother. However, Duane would soon become the superior guitarist and Gregg switched his focus to vocals and keyboards. Little Milton was one of his favorite singers.
In the mid- to late-1960s, the Allmans played in a series of bands including The Escorts and Allman Joys, mostly around the Southeastern United States. Toward the end of the decade, The Allman Joys relocated to Los Angeles, California, and were signed to Liberty Records, which renamed them The Hour Glass. Strongly controlled by the label, the group produced a pair of psychedelic blues albums. All the players were deeply dissatisfied with the results; Duane Allman in particular spoke bitterly of the Hour Glass' output. The label however, was impressed with Gregg Allman's vocal abilities and abilities as a keyboardist.
After its second album, The Hour Glass broke up and Duane Allman returned to the South, playing sessions at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Duane Allman was assembling the group that would become The Allman Brothers Band - Duane and Dickey Betts on guitars, Berry Oakley on bass guitar, and Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson on drums. Liberty Records still believed that Gregg Allman had more potential as a solo act, and allowed the rest of The Hour Glass to leave on condition that Allman stay in California to record for them.
He quickly grew miserable with this arrangement, and when Duane called from Jacksonville, Florida in March 1969 to say that he had assembled a band that needed a singer, Gregg jumped at the opportunity. He had long wanted to play the Hammond Organ, and was given one immediately upon joining the band.
Allman played the Hammond B-3 (preferring a 1969 B3 hooked to a Leslie speaker 122RV) and handled much of the lead vocal and songwriting duties for the Allman Brothers Band, along with occasional piano and guitar contributions.
After the death of Duane Allman in 1971, Gregg Allman started out on a solo career. His first album, Laid Back, was released in 1973 to a positive critical reception. It included a couple of reworked Allman Brothers songs, such as a horn-infused version of "Midnight Rider" that made it to #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and originals like "Queen of Hearts", which Allman and the band felt did not quite fit the Allman Brothers sound. Allman also covered a traditional gospel song "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" and former California roommate Jackson Browne's song "These Days."
Allman's solo career has continued intermittently throughout the subsequent decades, sometimes touring when the Allman Brothers Band is off the road. Generally, these solo efforts - first with the Gregg Allman Band, and later with Gregg Allman & Friends - eschew lengthy guitar solos and cast Allman more in the mode of his favorite soul singers. The bands often include a horn section and are more groove-oriented, mixing original songs with reworked Allman Brothers songs and covers of blues, R&B, and soul songs.
Allman struggled with drugs both legal and illegal, primarily cocaine, heroin, and alcohol, from the 1970s onward. He was sober as of the mid-1990s.
He continues to tour every year with The Allman Brothers Band, which in 2003 released Hittin' the Note, its first studio album in nearly a decade.
On June 23, 2010 Allman underwent liver transplant surgery. He had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C in late 2007 and has been battling the disease ever since. Gregg Allman has successfully kept one of the most influential bands of all time together for the most part, molding and altering their sound to accommodate newer members overcoming tragic experiences.
Allman has been married at least six times and has several children and three grandchildren.
His first son, Michael Sean Allman, was born in July 1966 to Mary Sutton. His marriage to Shelley Kay Winters (later Jefts), produced another son, Devon Allman, on August 10, 1972. Devon is also a musician, leads the band Honeytribe, and has appeared with the Allman Brothers Band on a few occasions. At the time of his first solo album, Laid Back, Allman was married to Jan Blair, sister of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' bassist, Ron Blair.
Allman was married to the entertainer Cher from 1975 to 1979. They had one child together, a son, Elijah Blue Allman, who later formed his own band, Deadsy. The couple tried a musical collaboration, releasing an album Two the Hard Way (billed as Allman and Woman) in 1977.
It was universally panned, and it has long since been out of print. The Hard Way Tour did not achieve success either. In an interview on NPR's On Point in March 2011, Allman expressed that he and Cher split due largely to his desire to no longer live in Los Angeles, and his growing discomfort with his wife's celebrity lifestyle.
Allman was married to Julie Bindas from 1979 to 1981. They had a daughter, Delilah Island Allman, November 5, 1980.
In the late eighties he convinced the future porn actress Shannon Michelle Wilsey "Savannah" to travel to San José, California, to make a casting, when they arrived she discovered the movie thing was fake, later she was pregnant by him and lost the baby (or aborted it).
Around 1992, he met Shelby Blackburn, who had interviewed him at a radio station where she worked. Out of this relationship came daughter Layla Brooklyn Allman, born March 31, 1993. Layla fronts the band Picture Me Broken.
He married Stacey Fountain in 2001. Allman currently lives in Richmond Hill, Georgia.
