where you were born and grew up. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in May 1954 and grew up in New Orleans until I moved to Macon. I graduated from High School in ‘72 and moved to Macon in ‘73 and I moved to Macon basically because I had been driving back and forth. I had met the Allman Brothers band back in 1970, and be- tween then and ‘73 I had come to know all of them really well. I would go back and forth to Macon and I’d stay at either Butch’s house or Dickey’s house or Twigg’s house. I’d be going back and forth and taking pictures of the kids and the families and all this stuff, and I’d be visiting Capricorn Studios and Capricorn Records and talking to the people over there. Finally, Mike Hyland, who was the publicist at Capricorn, said to me “why don’t you just move to Macon and we will make you Capri- corn’s photographer,” and so I said, well that’s fine, I will do that. So, at 18 or 19, what- ever I was, I got in my car and moved to Macon. Got an apartment and started living in Macon and was there for ‘73 and part of 74 and moved back to New Orleans later in ‘74 because I wasn’t really making a lot of money or anything in Macon. But I did what I had to do. It served its purpose and well, that is the short end of the story.
So how did you originally get started? I mean, being allowed or encouraged by the Allman’s to take pictures of them? It doesn’t seem like it would be an easy thing to happen, but I guess it was for you. In those days, it was. I was 16 years old and living in New Orleans. My father died when I was 15, and he left me a bunch of cameras. He was an amateur photographer and when he died I inherited several workable cameras, and instead of taking pictures of flowers and homes and things like that, I focused on rock stars and concerts. The Allman Brothers Band was one of the first ones that I went to see. In
Duane Allman (Sidney Smith Photo)
November of 1970 I crashed the Tulane Uni- versity homecoming dance with some friends to see this band of brothers that I had been hearing about and with camera in hand. I did- n’t expect much, but was blown away by what I saw, with the exception of fact that the kids in that room were screaming things like “play ‘Wipeout’ and play ‘Gloria!” And they com- plied, ya know, they played right along. It was a very small room and I took a few pictures of each band member and then after they got offstage, I was just kind of hanging out back- stage and Berry Oakley was the first member of the band that spoke to me and he offered me some snuff. I didn’t know what the hell it was. I just said, no, I’ve never touched the stuff and he said, “Hey man, it’s just snuff kid,” I said, “Oh okay.” Then I remember see- ing Willie Perkins running around backstage with his briefcase full of stickers, backstage stickers which stuck in my mind. I got myself a little briefcase and started putting backstage
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