How An Accident Change Duane Allman’s Guitar Playing For Good

As one of the best guitarists of his generation, Duane Allman has left an everlasting impact despite his brief time with the Allman Brothers Band. While most groups would have folded after such a tragedy, the Allman Brothers continued to record and tour, eventually breaking into the rock charts with some of their songs. Nevertheless, the impact and legacy left by Duane remained, and even today, fans still love to talk about how incredible he was in being the band’s guitarist.

Duane was an incredibly talented guitarist, whose desire is to only fulfill his role as the band’s primary engine. Unfortunately, he was prone to accidents; and in the late 1960s, he had already suffered an accident that changed his way of guitar playing.

Gregg Allman, Duane’s younger brother, recalled in a 2016 interview how the accident happened. Gregg wanted to visit the location of the film, The Lone Ranger in L.A. as he had nothing else to do. He then invited his big bro to join him on his adventure. And as they went, safety precautions were not discussed, and there weren’t any people who are there to help them in case somebody would get hurt.

“The stable was up this hill and you had to ride your horse down the hill and cross this paved highway,” Gregg remembered. “I said, ‘Man, be careful because the horse is shod. If he falls, he’ll bust both of your a**es.’ Well, guess what happened. The horse got spooked and fell over on its side.”

As a result, Duane suffered from a hairline fracture, leaving him to quit playing the guitar for a few months. It didn’t help that Duane also had a cold at that time. The guitarist blamed Gregg for the accident, and so the two brothers weren’t on speaking terms until Duane’s birthday when the younger brother decided to gift him a copy of bluesman Taj Mahal’s debut album and a bottle of Coricidin pills for his cold. Gregg was all too careful – he left the gifts by Duane’s door and left. A few hours later, he received a call from his brother, who was in high spirits.

“He had his arm in a sling,” Gregg Allman said via The 11^th Hour. “He was listening to the album, and I saw all of these cold pills all over the coffee table. He told me he had washed the label off of the pill bottle. Then he said, ‘Listen to this.’ He was already pretty well burning it up.”

He used the empty Coricidin bottles to play slides on the guitar, which was pretty innovative during this time. Truly, there’s nothing that could stop Duane Allman’s greatness in guitar-playing, no matter how many obstacles he had to endure.