"Gregg Allman: THe Music of My Soul" - A Review

There’s a funny clip in Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul. Irish presenter Pat Kenny speaks to Cher about her career, her costumes, and her marriage to the titular character of the movie. Cher collaborated with the organist on Allman and Woman, a record cut in the middle of their relationship. Ultimately, she was one of seven women who walked down the aisle with Allman but stood by the decision decades later; music was meant to defy convention, after all.

Allman died in 2017, so he’s represented in this documentary by a previously unaired interview he gave three years prior. His personal life was dotted with tragedy, given that his father was murdered in 1949, and his older brother Duane died in a motorcycle accident in 1971. Bassist Berry Oakley died a year later. This may have sparked his alcoholism, a source of embarrassment for the organ-playing frontman who watched his acceptance speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on videotape with abject horror.

In later years, Allman described his marriage with seventh spouse Shannon Williams as his first true one, as it was a union made from sobriety. “I’d have stayed away from that alcohol,” the musician cited as a chief regret. “All that damn crap is a lie.”

Guitarist Dickey Betts did the majority of the writing on Brothers and Sisters, including the smash hit “Ramblin’ Man.” Allman, grieving for a parent and a sibling, was struggling at this period of the group’s history. Laid Back, his first solo record, sounded terribly different from the jam interludes favored by Allman Brothers Band. Commentators and talking heads in Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul say the frenzied, wild rocker onstage stood at odds with the “sensitive, shy” person in his home life. “Gregg hated to be alone,” the audience is told. “I do think that had a lot to do with why he got married so many times.”

A glorious tribute to one of America’s most spontaneous musicians, the movie inserts archival clips of the singer/organ player living his best life onstage. We see him duetting with Cher, her draped in black latex, him with his blonde locks flowing over the keyboard. “I thought, I can [sic] change him,” Cher told Pat Kenny, a wry smile on her face.

Allman was just one of the musicians associated with Jimmy Carter during his presidential run. It was a huge shift away from the more “traditional” artists politicians associated with on the campaign trail at the time; Allman gave younger voters something to pay attention to, and the pair remained friends for the rest of his life.

In 1989, Allman Brothers Band reunited for a lucrative tour, prompting a permanent union until 2014. Following Betts’ death in 2024, drummer Jai Johanson is the only surviving member of the outfit.

Songwriter Scott Sharrard (and musical director of Allman’s band) contributed to Southern Blood, the final studio album by Allman. The liturgical “My Only True Friend” imagines a conversation between Gregg and Duane Allman.