Rare tapes spur Alan Paul’s second book on the Allman Brothers

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Photo: Courtesy of Alan Paul

When it was suggested that Alan Paul write another book about the Allman Brothers, he scoffed at the idea. The Squirrel Hill native had penned what many consider to be the definitive history of the band, One Way Out, published in 2014.

But a friend and editor, Brad Tolinski, insisted there were more stories to tell, specifically about the period between 1971-1976, arguably the band’s most creative and productive era. Paul decided to give it a try.

Then came a rare gift: a cache of cassette tapes from Kirk West, a photographer and Allman Brothers’ insider. Tapes that had been recorded in the 1980s by West, interviewing band members and friends, some of them dead. Tapes that hadn’t been heard for almost four decades.

“I was already writing the book before Kirk offered me the tapes,” says Paul, who appears July 27 at Cinderlands in the Strip District to promote his new book Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the ‘70s (St. Martin’s Press). “But they became so essential, and central to what the book was. … The book still would have been good, but these tapes gave it so much more depth.”

Paul admits he was moved by again hearing the voices of Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and Red Dog, a longtime band roadie. And he was especially gratified listening to them talking to West, who was Paul’s entrée into the world of the Allmans and helped him understand the importance of the band.

“Kirk liked my work, we collaborated on a couple of things, and it opened up all these doors,” Paul says, adding that “[Kirk] had a real desire to have the tapes utilized. He’s tickled by this whole thing.”

The audio version of Brothers & Sisters features clips from some of the interviews conducted in the 1980s.

“You hear Kirk’s voice, and he’s really, really happy that these tapes, that have been moldering in his desk, are seeing the light of day,” Paul says. “It’s really a mutually beneficial thing.”

Brothers and Sisters recounts many of the band’s highlights from the era, notably tours with the Grateful Dead (especially the 1973 concert in Watkins Glen, New York, that attracted over 600,000) and its support of Jimmy Carter’s presidential bid. There also are plenty of low points — disputes within the band, the deaths of guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakey (both within a year, both victims of motorcycle accidents), and substance abuse issues.

Gregg Allman, who died in 2017, especially seemed to be prone to controversy, whether it was because of his marriage to Cher or his attempts to confront substance abuse in rehab.

But Paul found one instance where Gregg Allman found a bit of respite from his troubles. While at a rehab facility in Buffalo, New York, Allman received letters from a group of students from St. Canisius High, a boy’s private prep school, asking him to visit their campus.

Not only did Gregg Allman respond, but in a scene that reads like it’s from a Cameron Crowe movie, he also recruited a band of local musicians and performed there.

“I was delighted to have found that story,” says Paul, who gleaned a lot of information about the event through a 2017 story in the Buffalo News by Sean Kirst. “And I was excited that in the last chapter of this second book about the Allman Brothers that I’ve written, I was able to come up with something new.”