create and perpetuate the visual representa- tion of the Allman Brothers in every creative medium, from t-shirts to posters to CDs to stage banners. I evolved from the ABB Assis- tant Tour Manager to Tour Magician -I pulled rabbits out of hats and made assholes disap- pear- to Tour Mystic, which covers a lot more cosmic ground with a couple little side jobs as Chinese Herbalist and Travelosity - I know - I know - a man of many talents.
How did you meet your wife, Kirsten? In 1991, unbeknownst to me, a former girl-
friend of mine wrote a personals ad and placed it in the Chicago Reader on my behalf. A beautiful woman responded and seven months later Kirsten became my wife in a wedding held at the Checkerboard Lounge on the southside of Chicago. The club was owned by Buddy Guy and was the location of many remarkable blues experiences, not the least of which was the 1981 evening that the Rolling Stones came and played there with Muddy Waters - which has just been released on DVD. Performing at our wedding was B.B. Odom,
Junior Wells, Warren Haynes and Allen Woody along with the a cracker jack blues band - the Griff Band.
How did you guys end up living in Macon at The Big House? In 1993 Kirsten and I moved to Macon, Geor- gia, buying the old Allman Brothers home- stead, the Big House, on Vineville Avenue. The Big House became a stealth museum and our home for over 15 years. During those years the house hosted funerals, family re- unions, the return of all the Allman's to spend time in their old home and over 25,000 pil- grims. We eventually created a foundation, built the house into a legitimate full-blown museum to the Allman Brothers Band and turned it over to be operated by the Big
House Foundation which is doing a fine job. Initially as a promotional fundraising tool
we started interviewing people associated with the Big House and produced a 15- minute promotional infomercial that then evolved into a two-hour-and-10-minute docu- mentary about the bands time living at the Big House in the early 70s. We named it Please Call Home. The heart and soul of this documentary is Linda Oakley, Berry's widow and the Earthmother of the Big House clan. Along with dozens of band and family mem- bers, Please Call Home tells the story from ‘69 to ‘73, the formative years of triumph and tragedy of the early days of the Allman Broth- ers Band. Every serious Allman Brothers fan needs to see this film. I was the primary insti- gator and director of this film and our friends at Bright Blue Sky in Macon did the filming and production.You can buy Please Call Home at the Big House gift shop or on line at
hittinthenote.com. All proceeds from the sale go to helping the Big House Foundation. When we moved into the Big House in the
summer of 93, we set about renovating this broke-down palace with the idea of having a small bed and breakfast. Building codes and zoning ordinances in Macon prohibited that on an official level. Our solution was to just invite people to the house and not charge them. So we had countless musician friends and the occasional special pilgrim who stayed with us. Bruce Hampton, Tinsley Ellis, Lee Roy Parnell, Jack Pearson, Jimmy Hall, and a young Derek Trucks among many others as well as Gregg, Jaimoe and Butch and all the old roadies who used to live there, Red Dog, Joe Dan Petty and Kim Payne. At the time we were publishing Hittin the Note magazine out of the Big House. So the Big House really be- came, once again, a hotbed of musical life and creativity. In the spring of ‘94 after numerous late-night conversations on the ABB tour bus, and a five song musical performance at the
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