A new lease on life has made Gregg Allman appreciate every new day in a way that maybe only someone with a near death experience can fully appreciate.  On this date a year ago the Allman Brothers Band veteran was still awaiting word on whether he would receive a live saving  liver transplant.  That trans-formative procedure came in June (story).  Since then, Allman has put out an excellent album, Low Country Blues, anchored the Allman Brothers Band's annual New York City series of dates and done a bunch of co-headline shows with Steve Miller.  He fully appreciates not only how fortunate he is that a donor spared his life recently, but that he survived indulgences of his younger years that claimed the lives of many of his contemporaries.  His auto-biography, which will be published by William Morrow next year, promises to be a candid account of the life-long tangent Allman got on after planning to play music for a year or two before starting Med school.  Along the Way the keyboard player spent countless hours in the studio and on the road, performed thousands of sets with one of the greatest bands in Rock history, had a brief, tumultuous marriage to Cher, ingested massive quantities of all sorts of substances, and testified against a band associate in a drug trial, an action that led to the end of the band.  His candor on these subjects in his last Rolling Stone interview make it likely that his book will be a revealing read.
NYTimes.com

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