IN: Gregory LeNoir Allman was born at Saint Thomas Hospital on December 8, 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Willis Turner Allman (1918-1949) and Geraldine Robbins Allman (1917-2015). The couple had met during World War II in Raleigh, North Carolina, when Allman was on leave from the U.S. Army, and were later married. Their first child, Duane Allman, was born in Nashville in 1946. On December 26, 1949, Willis offered a hitchhiker a ride home and was subsequently shot and killed in Norfolk, Virginia.

Allman moved to Richmond Hill, Georgia, in 2000, purchasing five acres on the Belfast River. The last incarnation of the Allman Brothers Band was well-regarded among fans and the general public, and remained stable and productive. The band released their final studio album, Hittin' the Note (2003), to critical acclaim. Allman co-wrote many songs on the record with Haynes, and he regarded it as his favorite album by the group since their earliest days. The band continued to tour throughout the 2000s, remaining a top touring act, regularly attracting more than 20,000 fans. The decade closed with a successful fortieth anniversary celebration at the Beacon Theater, where the band would hold residencies most years during their reunion. In 2014, the Allman Brothers Band performed their final concerts, as Haynes and Derek Trucks desired to depart the group.  Allman struggled with health problems during the last years of his life. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2007, which he attributed to a dirty tattoo needle. By the next year, they had discovered three tumors within his liver. He went on a waiting list and after five months, he underwent a successful liver transplant in 2010.  In 2011, Allman went public about his battle with hepatitis C. He headlined Merck and the American Liver Foundation's "Tune In to Hep C Campaign" to raise awareness and urge baby boomers to get tested and treated. As part of Tune In to Hep C, The Allman Brothers Band headlined a hepatitis C fundraiser and awareness concert at the Beacon Theater in New York. The concert raised $250,000 to benefit the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable and the American Liver Foundation for education and awareness efforts. The National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable in October 2017 created the Gregg Allman Hepatitis C Leadership Award - an annual award to posthumously honor Allman and others who work on behalf of people living with hepatitis C. Michael Lehman, Allman's longtime manager, accepted the award on his behalf.  Allman's seventh album, Low Country Blues, was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Upon its release in January 2011, it represented Allman's highest-ever chart peak in the U.S., debuting at number five. He promoted the album heavily in Europe, until he had to cancel the rest of the trip due to an upper respiratory infection. This led to lung surgery later in 2011, and rehab in 2012 for addiction following his treatments. That year, Allman released his memoir, My Cross to Bear, which was thirty years in the making. In 2014, a tribute concert was held celebrating his career; it was later released as All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman.

How was the memoir received

OUT: In 2014, a tribute concert was held celebrating his career; it was later released as All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman.


IN: The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated to FSOL) is a British electronic music group composed of Garry Cobain (sometimes stylised as Gaz Cobain) and Brian Dougans. The duo are often credited with pushing the boundaries of electronic music experimentation and of pioneering a new era of dance music. Although often associated with ambient music, Cobain and Dougans usually resist being typecast into any one particular genre. Their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as ambient techno, house music, trip hop, ambient dub, acid techno.

"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. The album itself featured epic, ambient soundscapes, with tracks flowing from one to the next with no pauses in between. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrete feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.  We wanted to release a very immersive, mind-blowing piece of music that was long and would deeply drench you in it...Lifeforms was redefining 'classical ambient electronic experimental' - that was the phrase we used.  That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.

Was the album successful?

OUT: