“I think most of us were there,” Gregg says, settling back on the sofa. He doesn’t have many, but he certainly came through with that one,” he laughs with his gentle Southern drawl, a hint of the charm that has proved irresistible over the years.īutch and Gregg were among those present on the September day in 1970 at Miami’s Criteria studio when Duane suggested speeding up the doleful riff that Clapton had been playing around with, and then came up with the magic seven-note riff. “It was Butch’s idea – and a damn good one, I must say. “That’s only the second time we’ve played it, and it was the best of the two,” Gregg reveals the following afternoon in his hotel suite. To my 6am brain, stewing on sensory overload, it’s positively spooky. And tucked in by the percussionists is a tall, thin boy with long blond hair in a pony tail, absorbed in his guitar, emitting the same ‘crying bird’ tone that jousted with Eric Clapton on the original Layla, recorded by the latter in 1970.īack then it was another lanky, longhaired boy, Duane Allman tonight it’s Butch Trucks’s 23-year-old nephew Derek Trucks. Guitarist Warren Haynes, who first joined The Allmans 14 years ago, seems to act as the band’s musical fulcrum, while to his right bass player Oteil Burbage surfs the big beat wave. As if that isn’t enough there’s another percussionist, Marc Quinones – a mere dozen years in the band – adding congas to the rolling beat centre stage. Up at the back of the stage are two other original Allman Brothers: drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe, drawing on 35 years’ worth of rhythmic telepathy.

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