history. Buck and his mother, Marijohn Wilkin,
also founded Buck Horn Music in Nashville in the '60s and the first writer to sign with their publishing company was a neophyte song- writer by the name of Kris Kristofferson. Buck Horn Music published all of Kris's
first songs. These songs are all classics now. I was fortunate to have spent a lot of time at Buck and Kris's apartment in the alley behind Music Row in the late '60s and was one of the first people to hear Kris play his new compo- sitions like "Me and Bobby McGee"and all those great songs from that period. I was crashed out on Kris' sleepin' bag one
Sunday mornin' when he stumbled in half- drunk and kicked me in the side and de- manded that I listen to his new song, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down.” He always played a 12-string guitar back then, and all 12 strings were always totally out of tune. He sounded awful and I told him so. Later that mornin' when I was as drunk as he was he played that song again for me and I got it that time. What a great batch of songs he turned out durin' that period! “Some great times were had with Billy
Swan and Art "Neckbone" Shilling - and Buck and Kris and Tony Joe (White) - hangin' out at Bob Beckham's office every afternoon for guitar pulls. Later, Buck and I asked a young Tuscaloosa high school graduate named Chuck Leavell to Nashville to join our band, the American Eagles. He got his first session pay from these sessions but that's another story. Long live Landlocked Surf Music!”
Amen, John, thank you for that saga. Now, how's about laying it down about a guitar - you know the one I mean. You know that Strat that Duane Allman gave Delaney Bramlett. I trust what Delaney says about that Strat and there are probably a lot of stories about that Strat, but you can believe me when I tell you that that Strat used to be my guitar back in about 1966 or '67. Me and
Duane and Eddie Hinton were sharin' a small garage apartment in Sheffield, Alabama. Later, Duane asked Eddie to sing with what turned out to be The Allman Brothers Band. Anyway, me and Hinton and Duane were
sharin' this little one room garage apartment and Duane had some fantastic red hash. It looked like the red clay dirt that we have in Alabama. We used to joke that we did not need even need to hide it and that we could just cake it all over our boots and stuff and people would just think it was Alabama red dirt. (Laughs) Well, me and Duane were sittin' around
one night, smokin' Duane's hashish and he was playin' my Strat - I mean really playin' it, makin' magic- he was gettin' sounds out my guitar that were blowin' my mind. It was easy for me to see that Duane had found his Muse and seen his musical matrix, and I was real high and spiritual - sometimes we'd get so stoned that we felt like high priests goin' into the mystic and we could see thangs for what they really were - anyway, Duane was smokin' on that Strat and I was smokin' his hash and I made an offer to trade him my Strat for the rest of his hash probably about a 1/2 ounce. The funny thang was we kept sittin' there and jammin' and writin' little snatches to songs and we both smoked up the rest of the hash together. I think Hinton may have gotten a few tokes. When the hash was all gone, Duane still had that Strat of mine. I just learned from reading (the) interview with Delaney Bramlett in GRITZ that Duane gave that Strat to Delaney and he still has it after all these years...God Bless Delaney. I knew Duane was special, even back then, way before The All- man Brothers ever got together.
Didn't you say you knew them when they were the Allman Joys? I used to hire The Allman Joys to open our shows when I had The Rubber Band. We were big stars to Duane and Gregg - we had a hit single that was on Columbia Records called
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