Gregg Allman, the singer, musician and songwriter and member of the Allman Brothers band, the quintessential 70’s southern rock band, has died at the age of 69.

The news was announced via statement on the singer’s website:

From the Rolling Stone obit:

Although Allman claimed the term was redundant, the singer-keyboardist helped create the first great “Southern-rock” group as co-founder of the legendary Allman Brothers Band alongside his older brother, famed guitarist Duane Allman. The Allmans fused country blues with San Francisco-style extended improvisation, with their sound creating a template for countless subsequent jam bands. Gregg Allman was blessed with one of blues-rock’s great growling voices and, along with his Hammond B-3 organ playing (beholden to Booker T. Jones), had a deep emotional power. Writing in Rolling Stone, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons said that Allman’s singing and keyboard playing displayed “a dark richness, a soulfulness that added one more color to the Allmans’ rainbow.”

As he recounted in his 2012 memoir My Cross to Bear, Allman also experienced a quintessential, and essentially tragic, rock-star trajectory that included too-sudden fame, admittedly excessive drug use, a high-profile celebrity romance, multiple marriages and a late-life liver transplant.

Also, Allman’s father was shot to death by a drinking acquaintance shortly after the family moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 1949. His brother Duane tragically died in a motorcycle accident at the height of the band’s career in the early 70’s. Allman was married to Cher for a brief time in the 70’s. The couple had a son, Elijah Blue, who is also a musician.

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