Warren Haynes recalled how he came to be part of the Allman Brothers Band when Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts staged a comeback with the 1990 album Seven Turns.

The co-founding pair had left the group behind in the ‘80s, during which time they both tapped Haynes as a songwriter. "All of a sudden I was writing for both camps,” he told Billboard in a new interview. "And when they decided to reform the Allman Brothers, they brought me in not just as a guitar player, but a songwriter and singer. ... I know it was very important to those guys to make a record that harkened back to the original band. And so that was a big part of the mission.”

Haynes explained that Allman and Betts both talked about their reasons for having “bowed out of the music business. ... They felt like that classic Allman Brothers sound they had invented was not really welcome in the music business at the time. It was like the music business had reached a point where they simply didn't fit in, and that was a big reason why they backed out, so to speak.

“Then when they began to see that classic-rock revival in the late '80s, not only did they realize they were fitting in again, but they were forever proven timeless at that point. I think when the band reformed for Seven Turns, what they discovered was that their music was timeless and from that point forward would always be looked at that way.”

Haynes noted that "they let me sing from the very beginning, which was really nice. But to be included in the songwriting process was a very special thing.”

 

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