You never know where you'll learn something new! How I met the designer of the Allman Brothers logo at the New York Times' publisher's house.

PLUS: The story of Enlightened Rogues, released this month, 1979.

I’ve spent decades researching, reporting and writing about the Allman Brothers Band, so it was a surprise to learn an interesting new fact about the band randomly at a lawn party thrown at the home of the publisher of the New York Times. And I learned it from Emily Kehe, a neighbor I was friendly with but didn’t know all that well. We lived a half a block away for years, and now found ourselves chatting at this party, where we were both accompanying our wives, who worked at the Times.

”Hey,” she said. “You have something to do with the Allman Brothers, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve written a book on them and am working on another. It’s been a huge part of my life.”

”My father designed their logo.”

”Huh? Which one.”

”The one with the big loopy letters in a stained glass.”

Well, I’ll be damned! That led me to an email exchange with Emily’s father, John Kehe, who explained:

“I am also an admirer of the band, and was involved with them as a designer via Capricorn Records back in the 70s. In the fall of 1978, I was tasked to design an album cover for their Enlightened Rogues record. They were undergoing some personnel changes and didn’t want a band photo on the cover, so taking my cue from the title they wanted, I designed a somewhat upscale saloon window, imagining it as their hangout.

“There was a stained glass studio near me in L.A., so I chose the glass and had them build my window design. The window needed some complementary typography, so I designed some lettering which they’ve used as their band logo for the past 44 years!”

I never knew the now-famous logo was made out of actual stained glass, or that the daughter of its creator lives 5 or 6 houses away from me! More on the Enlightened Rogues album, released in February, 1979, below.

The story of Enlightened Rogues - a One Way Out Excerpt. Jaimoe’s summary is just beautiful and perfect.

After two reunion performances – Butch, Jaimoe and Gregg joining Dickey Betts and Great Southern in Central Park’s Wollman Rink on August 16 1978 and then at the Capricorn Picnic in Macon two weeks later– the band went to work on a new album. They returned to Miami’s Criteria Studio to work with Dowd on what became Enlightened Rogues, a term Duane used to describe the band. The album was released six months after the Central Park show, and the band promptly returned to the road. .

TOM DOWD: We tried very hard to reach the classic sound on Enlightened Rogues. We worked our fingers to the bone, but it was laborious.

BUTCH TRUCKS: That band just didn’t work. The chemistry wasn’t there. The only reason the first album was half successful was that Tom Dowd produced it and worked so hard.

DICKEY BETTS: Some of the groups we had around that time just could not measure up to the original band. We did not have a slide guitarist, so I had to do it. Not only did I not enjoy this, but it altered the sound of the band, which needs to have my sound and the slide working together. Even when we had some great players, there was a pull, a tension — the unity was lacking. We used to say it was like having two trios on stage. 

Dickey and Rook. Photo by Kirk West

GOLDFLIES: What I saw many times, especially towards the beginning, was a real effort from both Gregg and Dickey to be really gracious to each other. I sensed there was a real effort to make it work. They tried to make it happen. 

I think the “two trios” thing became more apparent towards the end of this stint. Then it did often feel like there was a Gregg band and a Dickey band on stage at the same time. Danny Toler, a wonderful guy and guitarist, came in as Dickey’s right hand man and ended up being Gregg’s guy. I was considered “Dickey’s guy” and I never really got in Gregg’s boat.

In his book, Gregg said that I played too many notes. But I never once remember Gregg asking me to play any specific way. I would have loved some feedback from a musician of his caliber! Conversely, Dickey and I spoke all the time about music and he was like, “Jazz it up… rip it out.” I was playing the way Dickey wanted me to, and he was very patient and gracious with his time showing me what he wanted. We spent a lot of time on buses and in hotel rooms playing together and working things out. It became a mentor/mentee relationship. 

JAIMOE: I’d like to say I was optimistic heading into this reunion. Since this band began, I’ve been excited to go back on the road after a break. It might fade very quickly at times, but the initial excitement is always there – but it wasn’t then.  Sometimes I’d be walking off stage and see Rook or one of the guys and it was almost like I had forgotten they were there. It was like seeing your neighbor pull into his driveway and thinking, “Oh, that guy still lives here?” It’s a not a good way for a band to operate.

There’s a lot of things I’ve learned in life and it’s not gonna be that you don’t know what you need to do. We would have known if we would have been looking. 

Excerpted from One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, copyright Alan Paul, 2014.

Gregg only wrote one song on Enlightened Rogues, but it’s a real winner, -“Just Ain’t Easy,” an aching look at his Los Angeles life. This live version was recorded a couple of months after the album's release. The Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ, 4/20/1979.

My fourth book, Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, was published July 25, 2023, by St. Martin’s Press. It was the third consecutive one to debut in the New York Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List, following Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and  One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. My first book, Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about my experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band, was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions.  I am also a guitarist and singer with two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.