So, now it’s February 12, 1972. The winter has seemed a little colder since Duane Allman, virtuoso guitarist for the Southern rock group the Allman Brothers Band, was killed in a motorcycle crash in Macon, GA, on October 29, 1971. There’s been talk that some of the group has been in rehab – true, starting even before the accident, and that they might just be finished without Duane, their spiritual leader and positive energy source. Damn, we’ve lost so many in the past few years. And, we’ve really just gotten to know and love the Allman Brothers. Their first two studio albums were okay, but live – live they were something else – a force of nature. Their 3rd album, At Fillmore East, was a masterpiece, Southern rock Scripture. It ended with “Whipping Post” and at the fade out there was the tantalizing beginning of another jam. There had to be more great music to come!

But, now, who knew? Who knew if the Allman Brothers Band would survive – and, if it did, what it would sound like without both brothers.

Eat A Peach was and is much more than just a great rock album. It gave Allman Brothers fans one last chance to hear Duane’s guitar slipping and sliding, swooping and soaring. Duane played 3 of the 4 sides of the double album. Best understood, it’s helpful to reorganize the album chronologically. Sides 2 and 4 are “Mountain Jam”, based on Donovan’s “First There Is A Mountain”. Recorded at the Fillmore concerts on 2 nights in March, 1971, this is the continuation of the jam promised to us by those notes at the end of “Whipping Post”. Nearly 34 minutes of classic Allman Brothers jamming – know how far you could drive in that time? Sure, you do.

Side 3 starts with 2 tunes recorded at the Allman's last Fillmore show in June, 1971, and Duane lives, smoking it on “One Way Out” and “Trouble No More”. The side ends with Duane's last 3 studio tracks recorded a month before he died: “Stand Back”, “Blue Sky”, and a rare acoustic duet with Betts called “Little Martha”.

Side 1 of Eat A Peach is chronologically last, recorded after Duane’s death by the remaining members of the band. “Ain’t Wasting Time No More” is Gregg’s ode to the fleeting nature of life; “Les Brers In A Minor” Dickey’s instrumental opus; and finally “Melissa”, written by Gregg in 1967, but only recorded back then for an incomplete album by an earlier Duane/Gregg/Butch band. It was a tribute to Duane who said it was his favorite song ever written by his brother.

Those 3 tracks told us that the Allman Brothers Band would not only survive, but thrive – that the spirit of the brothers imbued not only Gregg, linked by blood, but also those linked by surviving the fire of Duane’s passing: Dickey Betts, Barry Oakley, Butch Trucks, and Jai Johanny Johanson. Completing the recording of Eat A Peach resurrected the band’s spirit. "The music brought life back to us all, and it was simultaneously realized by every one of us. We found strength, vitality, newness, reason, and belonging as we worked on finishing Eat A Peach," said Gregg Allman "Those last three songs ... just kinda floated right on out of us ... The music was still good, it was still rich, and it still had that energy—it was still the Allman Brothers Band."

And, it was as sweet and juicy as a Georgia peach. The album was named after a line from Duane in an interview in which he was asked what he was doing to further the revolution taking place in America. “I'm hitting a lick for peace — and every time I'm in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace.” Some maintain that Duane made it clear he was referring to the two-legged variety. The title had nothing to do with Duane’s motorcycle crash, in which he supposedly “ate it” hitting a peach truck. It was a lumber truck.