As a lead up to the Peach Music Festival, which will host a number of tribute performances to late bandmates Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks, we present a series of memories from Allman’s life pulled from the newest issue of Relix which honors the midnight rider. To get the issue, subscribe here using promo code GREGG. $5 from all subscriptions will be donated to The Big House Museum in Macon, GA.

Early on in my career at Hittin’ the Note magazine, I learned that Gregg Allman was a man who kept to himself. Guarded and reserved, it took Gregory a while to put down the barriers he put up to almost all journalists. Over the years and the many miles spent on the road with the Allman Brothers Band, he slowly but surely warmed up to Hittin’ the Note and to me. G.A. would see us and the HTN booth tour after tour, Beacon run after Beacon run, and he came to recognize that our magazine and merchandise served the best interests of the ABB. Subsequently, our interviews became a little looser, a little more open, a bit longer and more revealing.

Every interview with Gregg Allman was an adventure; you basically had to introduce yourself to whoever Gregg was going to be on the phone with that day. He could take the direct, minimalist approach in his answers; you’d be waiting for more, but it just wasn’t happening. God help you if your interview was the first one of the day—you knew it was going to be a tough session. Then there were the occasions when he decided he wanted to talk about something that interested him, which was fine, of course, and always entertaining, yet it might have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the stated objective of the piece.

On the other hand, he could be absolutely hilarious because G.A. possessed a quick wit, a wonderfully deadpan sense of humor and perfect timing. He had the most wonderful, deep-throated laugh and it was contagious. There were moments when we were both laughing so hard that we forgot what we were talking about. Gregory never liked to talk about himself; he much preferred talking about how proud he was of his band, the art of songwriting, how much he was influenced by Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley and Neil Young, or his love of dogs, motorcycles and deepsea fishing. He would heap praise and credit on people like his brother, his mother, Bill Graham and Tom Dowd or extol the legacy of the Allmans, but he would deftly steer the conversation away from anything that was too personal. Gregory rarely shared in the truest sense, and that’s OK; it added to his mystique of the weary blues singer, journeying from crossroad to crossroad.

The greatest dichotomy to Gregg Allman was that he, at his essence, was a truly shy person. The terms “shy person” and “rock star” generally do not go together, but that was the case with Gregory. He could perch behind his B-3 and sing in front of thousands of people with no problem, but he would be very uneasy with a small gathering of people in a room. He just didn’t have much to say sometimes, but you could tell there was something lurking behind those radiant blue eyes.

When his handpicked team went to work on My Cross to Bear, Gregory made it very clear that he trusted me to handle all the details and minutiae of the past. “You’re the historian, man,” he told me early on during the research process. “I know you’ll make sure all them dates and stuff are right. You know where we played and when we played there, and who did what when, so I’m not gonna worry about it.” That trust made my job easy, and, obviously, we were all very pleased with how the book turned out.

The absolute best time I ever had with Gregg Allman was at the My Cross to Bear book release party, held at the Allman Brothers Band Museum in Macon, Ga. in June 2012. I served as Gregory’s escort before the event and as we walked through the halls of the Big House, the band’s communal residence in the early ‘70s, we eventually found ourselves in his brother Duane’s bedroom. With a faraway look on his face, he shared his memories. Gregory talked about helping Duane pick out tapestries and various tchotchkes for the room, and how cold the house got in the winter. He recounted tales of the sumptuous feasts the band would hold to celebrate their return home from yet another long, grinding road trip, and how no matter what time of day or night, there would always be music playing in the house. Clearly lost in thought, G.A. was quiet for a few moments as he looked out the window toward Vineville Avenue. Then, he turned to me, offered his hand and said, “Brotha, you made that book sound like me, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.”

Rest easy, Gregory; the road went on forever, and now forever has come to an end, but you and your timeless music made all those miles worth traveling