My Cross to Bear (45 page)

I treat them just like my mother treated me. She told me in my early teens, “Son, be what you want to be, but be the best one on earth—shoot for it, anyway. You may not hit the highest rung, but aim for it.” And remember, I did really well in school until I bought that guitar. I was valedictorian two years.

My son Devon Lane Allman is doing quite well. He has a son of his own, Orion Gregory Allman, which made me a grandpa for the first time. Devon’s band is called Honeytribe, and he can play the fucking blues. Recently he’s teamed up with Cyril Neville, one of the Neville Brothers, and Mean Willie Green playing the drums. They’re all from New Orleans.

He comes to visit me on Sundays and Mondays for football. We both love football—but not college football, I can’t stand that. The captive audience of all these students and the band and all that shit? The best part about that are the cheerleaders.

Devon’s a good kid, and he loves me a lot more now than he used to. One time when I was drunk many years ago, I told him, “Man, you don’t want to be in the music business—look what it’s done to me. The best thing for you to do is go on to school and do something, but don’t bother me.” I said some hurtful things to him that he’s forgiven me for, which is an age-old story between fathers and sons. The same thing will probably happen between him and his kid, but I hope he learns from my mistakes.

The truth is that I don’t know Elijah very well at all. It seems to me that he’s not happy, and that he doesn’t feel good about things. Elijah was a real happy kid, but because I wasn’t welcome in that household, I can’t say exactly when he got so down and depressed. The thing is, I don’t think Elijah can figure out why he’s so down either. He doesn’t have much of a family life, and if I was retired, I would get in my car and go and get him. I just wish I could get him turned on to something that he really likes.

The music he makes scares me. They call it gothic, and it’s scary-sounding, man. It’s like he tries to play as outrageous as he possibly can, and he definitely achieves that! I don’t mean that in a bad way. I love him to death, but I don’t understand his music; I just don’t get it.

My little girl Layla, she’s gorgeous, man. She just turned nineteen. She’s a singer and a writer, which I think is great. Last year, she started calling me. One time she told me, “Dad, I’m so sick of seeing your picture and your name and hearing your music everywhere. Here I’m trying to get something going, in a completely different genre of music. So what’s the big secret?”

I said, “Well, gee, let me write it on the back of a postage stamp and I’ll send it to you.” Come on—the secret? I guess first you go ask your dad…

Having the name has its advantages and its disadvantages. It seems like, unless they’re playing the same kind of music that I played with the Brothers, or kind of reminiscent of that music, the name doesn’t help. “Now we’re gonna bring up Layla Allman—by the way, this little girl’s father is you know who, ya da da.” Then they’re usually scrutinized more. But she went out as Layla Brooklyn, since her name is Layla Brooklyn Allman, and that didn’t do it either.

I’ve tried to put myself in their place, and I think I would have never let people know who I was. In the end, they have to go through all of it—the hard work and carrying amps and all that shit—just like I did. You have to get out there and be seen, and make sure people know they’re going to see a kick-ass performance.

This year, the whole family is coming to my house for Christmas. I think we’re all really a tight-knit family; it’s just that we don’t ever see each other, you know? I’m the one that’s always gone, so I can’t really bitch.

Duane’s daughter, Galadrielle, is writing a book about her father, and she’s trying to talk to everybody who ever came in contact with him. She’s such a sweetheart, and I wish her all the luck in the world on that. It means so much to me to have a connection to her, because I’m the only uncle. At this point, she’s more like my third daughter than my niece.

The thing about Galadrielle is that she looks just like my brother. It’s not just her appearance—it’s everything. She has so many of his mannerisms, I tell you. Sometimes when I haven’t seen her for a long time and then I see her, it’s just like looking at him.

Danny Clinch

W. Robert Johnson

Allman Family Archives

Toby Canham/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

My family through the years

Allman Family Archives

W
HEN
I
WAS A KID IN
N
ASHVILLE, WE WENT TO
S
UNDAY
school at the Presbyterian church on Green Hills Boulevard. It was a beautiful church, with beautiful grounds. I enjoyed going there, because I would look at the way the place was built and I just loved it. I didn’t like Sunday school that much, because we did things that I didn’t think pertained to religion. I thought we should have been over in the big building, listening to the preacher.

We knew the preacher, and he would come over to the house every now and then, like they do. It was all well and good, and as I got a little older, my mother began to give me the option. She said, “If you want to go to church, I’ll take you. If you don’t want to go, you certainly don’t have to.”

I do believe in God, because somebody had to plan all this—stuff like this just doesn’t happen. I didn’t always feel that way, though. For a long time, I didn’t really believe in God, but I didn’t really not believe in him either. It just wasn’t one of my favorite subjects. Where I came from didn’t really matter to me: I was here, I was glad I was here, and I hoped to do the best that I could.

Thankfully, by the time everything started going on with my liver, I’d been thinking differently about all that for a while. About fifteen years ago I started wearing a cross, because I finally got some sort of spirituality. Until that point I’d always felt alone, and while sometimes I still get that way because I have a real phobia about being alone, at least now I can do something about it. As long as you have spirituality, you’re never alone. It’s sort of like my mother said all those years ago: now I have my own kind of faith, just like other people. They take what they want of faith, and they leave the rest alone, and I do the same. That’s the way it should be.

A big part of my getting straight with God had to do with sobering up. I’ve had a life that’s gone all different places and directions, and I’ve missed out on a certain amount of stuff because of the drugs and alcohol. As I got sober, because I was so sick of missing out, I finally reached out and prayed. Before then I’d been praying for a long time, but I never seemed to get any kind of answer. Later on, though, it became clear to me and kinda hit me at once. It was such a revelation, man.

Basically, what I did, in one big fell swoop, was surrender, and with that came all the rest. My life went into something like the spin cycle of a washing machine, and when I came out, I didn’t want any more cigarettes, and I damn sure didn’t want any more liquor. Now, if I’m having a problem, or a friend of mine is having a problem, or something is keeping me from sleeping, I’ll just lay there and not really pray so much as just meditate. I get real still and talk to the Man, and he’ll help you if you ask him. The thing is, you have to help too. I don’t know where the saying “God helps those who help themselves” came from, but it’s so true. If you show a little, God shows a lot. If you just do what you can, he will do the rest.

God is there all the time, and so is my guardian angel, or whatever it is that keeps me from self-destructing, or keeps me out of harm’s way. As many bus rides as I have taken, as many planes as I’ve been on, the law of averages says that somewhere, sometime, something is going to happen. Man, they have watched over me so good—but still, you’re the only one who can keep you from lighting a cigarette, or pouring a drink, or loading a needle. It comes down to you having to be the man of decision.

You have to have a real belief in order to deal with life’s challenges. My spirituality has allowed me to keep my demons at bay, and the more that happens, the stronger I become. There are times when I’ve been at the end of my rope, but never once did I seriously consider suicide. I firmly believe that if you take your life, you will go to a place that’s mediocre and depressing—which is kind of the way I felt for a great deal of my life, and I don’t want to go to a place like that. A lot of people say, “Well, this is your hell, and we’re all going to heaven.” You know what? This ain’t all hell—as a matter of fact, this is miraculous. Life is such a gift.

Since I cleaned up, my faith has continued to pick up over the past few years, and I think it might have something to do with my last wife, Stacey. Of all my wives, I was married to her the longest. We were together for seven out-of-sight years. But when she said, “Let’s get married,” I said, “Married? Married for what?” I said, “Look, not to bring up my five marriages, but each one of them was fine until we got married, and then it started going downhill.” I don’t know what it was, but we got married and, once again, it just didn’t work.