Co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, drummer Butch Trucks dead at 69

The man who helped set the Southern Rock beat for the Allman Brothers Band has died.

Rolling Stone confirmed Butch Trucks, one of the band’s founding drummers, died Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida, at age 69.

Trucks’ representative issued a statement published by Rolling Stone:

"The Trucks and Allman Brothers Band families request all of Butch's friends and fans to please respect our privacy at this time of sadness for our loss. Butch will play on in our hearts forever."

Trucks’ cause of death was not immediately released.

In a statement released Wednesday, Gregg Allman mourned the loss of his longtime friend and partner.

“I’m heartbroken. I’ve lost another brother and it hurts beyond words. Butch and I knew each other since we were teenagers and we were bandmates for over 45 years. He was a great man and a great drummer and I’m going to miss him forever. Rest In Peace Brother Butch,” Allman said.

In recent years, Trucks was touring with his own band, Butch Trucks and the Freight Train.

“He was a good man,” said Kirk West, who traveled with the Allman Brothers and has known Trucks for about 40 years. “They called him freight train because he propelled that band.”West was on the road with Trucks and his Les Brers band in October.

The group’s moniker hails from the Dickey Betts’ instrumental “Les Brers in A minor” on the Allmans’ “Eat a Peach” album.

West, who used the Les Brers title for his commemorative Allman Brothers photography book, said it’s bad french for “The Brothers.”

Trucks, who West called the hardest worker in the Allman Brothers, played 3-hour concerts for six straight days on the tour last fall.

The entire rhythm section of the old Allman Brothers Band was with them, West said.

“It was a good, solid band. They played amazing,” he said.

Many may be familiar with Trucks’ music, but not everyone knew of his great mind.

“He was one of the most intelligent, well-rounded and inquisitive people I’d ever been around,” West said.

Jessica Walden, whose father and uncle co-founded Capricorn Records which launched the Allman Brothers to fame from Macon, sent her condolences to the Trucks family on Facebook.

“If there is anything I learned in this crazy world of music history is that it’s full of freakin’ anomalies of creative, outer-worldy, brilliant minds, which all too often fight an internal battle against the most tender of hearts,” posted Walden, who runs an Macon music tour company with her husband.

Walden credited Trucks with nurturing young talent in Macon and other communities.

“He was just an amazing mentor to so many musicians,” Walden said Wednesday. “I love what he was doing now. ... It’s heartbreaking to lose him so young.”

Trucks grew up in Jacksonville in north Florida playing classical music, piano and the tympani in high school.

The Byrds lured him into rock, he told a Telegraph reporter during a 1976 interview at his double-wide mobile home in Juliette.

One of his first bands, The Vikings, cut one 7-inch record in 1964.

Another of his groups, The 31st of February, formed in 1968 and included Duane and Gregg Allman.

They formed the Allman Brothers Band in 1969 with Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley and drummer Jaimoe Johanson.

The pair of percussionists developed the “rhythmic drive” that would prove crucial to its sound, Trucks’ blog stated.

After Trucks’ death, Gregg Allman, Betts and Johanson are the only survivors of the original band.

Duane Allman and BerryOakley died in separate motorcycle accidents in Macon in 1971 and 1972.

In 1984, Trucks told The Telegraph of his fondness for the late Duane Allman: "Duane put that fire and that confidence into everybody. And, after he was gone, that was the one thing that stayed, that kept us vital and kept us strong. He kind of started the religion and left us as the apostles. I really miss him."

In 1995, The Allman Brothers Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Trucks also helped encourage a family lineage of musicians. One nephew, guitarist Derek Trucks, is the frontman of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and also joined The Allman Brothers band in 1999. Another nephew, Duane Trucks, is the drummer for Widespread Panic.

Trucks continued to record and perform with the Allman Brothers through their farewell concert in 2014.

For him it was not about the fame or the money, but the music.

“I know what it’s like to live like a millionaire, and it ain’t no big deal,” Trucks told The Telegraph in 1984.

He continued to play clubs and small theatres, West said.

“Butch played music because that was his life.”

Trucks is survived by his wife and four children.

This story was originally published January 25, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, drummer Butch Trucks dead at 69."