Howard Duane Allman November 20, โ October 29, was an American rock and blues guitarist and the founder and original leader of the Allman Brothers Band , for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Born in Nashville, Tennessee , Allman began playing the guitar at age Allman is best remembered for his brief but influential tenure in the band and in particular for his expressive slide guitar playing and inventive improvisational skills.
In , he was ranked number 2 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the greatest guitarists of all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix. Duane Allman was born on November 20, , in Nashville, Tennessee. His brother, Gregg , was born on December 8, On December 26, , when the family was living near Norfolk, Virginia , where he was stationed, Willis Allman was murdered during an armed robbery by Michael Robert "Buddy" Green โ , an Army veteran that Allman and another recruiting officer had befriended earlier that day.
Green was captured, convicted, sentenced and paroled in The boys returned to Nashville to spend summers with their grandmother, and there Gregg learned guitar basics from a neighbor. In , he had saved enough money to buy his first guitar, a Japanese-made Teisco Silvertone, while Duane acquired a Harley motorbike.
Despite Duane being left-handed, he played the guitar right-handed. Duane began to take an interest in the guitar, and the boys would sometimes fight over it, until Duane wrecked the motorbike and traded it for a Silvertone of his own. It was also in Nashville that the boys became musically inspired by a rhythm-and-blues concert where they saw blues guitarist B. King perform. Duane told Gregg, "We got to get into this.
The brothers started playing publicly in , joining or forming a number of local groups. Around this time, Duane left school to focus on his guitar playing.
