The Allman Brothers Big House At 40 (Travel)

I spent a week preparing myself for Macon, listening to the Allman Brothers every chance I got. So it was with a head full of guitar riffs and the soaring vocals of  “Midnight Rider” that I climbed the stairs of The Big House exactly 40 years after their first concert performance.

It was here that Duane and Gregg Allman, Berry Oakley and their families lived from 1970-72. The Allman Brothers whiled away hot summer days here, writing and performing their distinctive Southern rock, partying into the night and cranking up the volume when neighbors complained.

Rooms that must once have reeked of stale smoke now smell of fresh paint, and the sounds of jam sessions are replaced by the drones of power tools as workmen create a museum commemorating the music that propelled the Baby Boomers into adulthood.

Kirsten West, Managing Director of The Big House Foundation, once lived in the house herself. She and husband Kirk aimed to convert the building into a rock ‘n’ roll B&B. When that didn’t materialize they began laying the groundwork for an Allman Brothers museum.

“This will be a place where fans can see Allman Brothers memorabilia,” says Kirsten, who describes her husband as a “nut case” with a monster collection of photographs, clothing, even the families’ pool table. “But it will also be a state-of-the-art music museum, with touch-screen displays, listening stations and a research center.”

Plans call for more museum than should be expected by the average rocker, oversized ego notwithstanding. But those who grew up with the Allman Brothers Band believe this was no average rock band.

The Big House museum won’t be complete until December 2009, but fans have been making the pilgrimage to Macon for decades. Their itineraries include H&H Restaurant, a typical meat-and-three diner owned by “Mama Louise” Hudson. The elderly restaurateur still cooks at age 84 (although her true age is anybody’s guess) and she tells how she fed the Allmans when they were “all skinny and scrawny.”  The walls at H&H are covered with their own Allman Brothers memorabilia, and the restaurant’s sign sports a mushroom, in honor of the Allmans’ love for “magic mushrooms.”

Down the street sits the former offices of Capricorn Records, which signed the Allman Brothers as well as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band. Fans can also visit Grant’s Lounge downtown, which drew fans from as far as Europe in the early 1970s. Back then $2 would buy you an impromptu concert by the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or maybe all of them.

A fan’s final stop is Rose Hill Cemetery. Band members liked to spend time in this idyllic cemetery, drinking, smoking, picking mushrooms and making love until separate motorcycle accidents transformed their favorite hollow into the final resting places of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley in 1971 and ‘72.

Kirsten West wonders publicly what the walls of The Big House would say–or sing–if they could speak. The Allman Brothers’ music has become larger than life, but she expresses no doubt that the Allman Brothers museum will communicate the energy of their work.

As to whether she is wistful about giving up her family home for the museum, she shows no sign of sentimentality.

“This house was never mine,” she says. “It’s always been the Allman Brothers’.”

–Amy S. Eckert, Red Editorial Staff
–Photo by Amy S. Eckert