Grant and Julius Caesar, who were obviously more challenging because you couldn’t interview people who knew them.

Without being able to speak to him, how were you able to sketch his personality?ĪP: I don’t think it presented a huge challenge. H81R: Duane is in some ways the central figure of the book. … My relationship with Kirk really opened up a lot of doors. In the course of doing that, I developed pretty good relationships with the members of the band, some of the management and Kirk West, who was their “tour mystic.” My friendship with him developed from our mutual appreciation for the music. It started as a regular journalist interviewing the band. What really happened over a long period of writing about the band for just about 25 years – my first piece was in 1990 – it just came organically piece by piece. H81R: Tell me a little bit about your history writing about the Allman Brothers and how you were able to get access to all of the surviving members of the book.ĪP: Well, probably if anyone had set out to write a book and start asking for permission they probably never would’ve gotten it, including me I guess. We chatted with Paul about the access he was able to secure with current and former band members, how he brought the late Duane Allman to life as a key character of the book and why the Allmans are calling it quits – and whether the band is going away for good this time. In advance of the annual Peach Festival, which was held in Scranton, Pa., in August, we spoke with longtime Allmans insider, journalist and author Alan Paul, whose 2014 New York Times bestseller “One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band” illuminates the ups and downs of the Southern rock and jam rock legends. The tumultuous history of the Allman Brothers Band – tragic deaths, bitter breakups, reunions and a controversial court case that turned Brother against Brother – will, supposedly, come to an end Wednesday night when the ABB wrap up what they’ve announced will be not only their last annual storied run of shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York, but also their last concert ever.

One Way Out by Alan Paul