Founding Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks passed away Tuesday in Florida at the age of 69, Rolling Stone has confirmed. "I'm heartbroken," surviving bandleader Gregg Allman, whose brother and Allman Brothers guitarist Duane died in a motorcycle crash in 1971 at the age of 24, said in a statement. "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." During the group's latest incarnation, which lasted from 1999 to 2014, they enlisted Trucks' nephew Derek--now the co-leader of the Tedeschi Trucks Band--to play guitar.
Source: Rolling Stone