Duane Allman
Jules Leyhe on the Duane Allman Slide Style
Duane Allman
Jules Leyhe is a San Francisco Bay Area musician, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, and a wicked slide player whose old-soul sensibilities, go-for-bust attitude, and deep understanding of the nuances of Duane Allman’s style earned him the nickname “Greasy.” Not surprisingly, Leyhe is also a member of my Allman Brothers tribute band, the Allmond Brothers.
—JIMMY LESLIE
The first slide player I tried to emulate was Muddy Waters, and it makes sense to start there, because he often played a Telecaster in standard tuning over a 12-bar blues form. Muddy used a metal slide on his pinky, and he didn’t do anything fancy, but he used fingerpicks to get a really gnarly sound. I went down that road for a while until I heard At Fillmore East. I remember hearing the announcer say, “Okay, the Allman Brothers Band,” and then Duane’s opening passage on “Statesboro Blues” changed my life.
YOUR PILOT’S GEAR
You need a thick glass slide to get that smooth tone, and even though Duane used his ring finger, I continued to use my pinky because my instructor at Berklee, David Tronzo (an incredible slide player himself), told me that if you can get comfortable with the pinky early on, then do it, because it makes playing chords and fretting behind the slide available further on down the road. Duane used Gibson guitars, and the sound of a thick glass slide on a Gibson with humbucking pickups is very specific and hard to mimic. That said, you don’t need to spend a bunch of money on a ’59 goldtop. I actually play a Jay Turser semi-hollowbody that I got for $100 at Flashback Guitars in Oakland, California.
You need thick