One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band

Guitar World magazine writer Paul (Big in China), who has written about eclectic Southern rock pioneers the Allman Brothers Band for over two decades, recounts the notoriously dysfunctional group's nearly 50-year-long saga in this extensive collection of interviews with past and present band members, collaborators, managers, producers, roadies, and even a few fans. This chronologically linear oral history offers an impressively candid, in-depth, and balanced look at the various intraband feuds, radical lineup changes, legal problems, drug abuse, and tragic deaths that have threatened to derail the band from the very beginning. The book's emotional core is the death of 27-year-old guitar genius and band cofounder Duane Allman, who perished in a 1971 motorcycle accident just as the group was becoming a commercial and creative force. Duane's spirit pervades the entire book, and he is mentioned in many of the conversations. Dan John Miller narrates with a heavy Southern drawl that hardly varies in tone from one contributor to another. This is a minor complaint about an overall satisfying audiobook.