19 Facts About Butch Trucks

Claude Hudson "Butch" Trucks was an American drummer.

Butch Trucks was best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Butch Trucks died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on January 24,2017.

Butch Trucks was born on May 11,1947, in Jacksonville, Florida.

Butch Trucks first discovered his talent at drumming when prompted by a band director at Ribault Junior High: "The band director gave three of us sticks and said, 'Play me something,'" he recalled.

Butch Trucks then attended Jean Ribault High School, where he was made first chair as a freshman.

Butch Trucks was in two bands before later graduating from Englewood High School in 1965: The Vikings, who released one 7-inch in 1964, and the Echoes, which mainly played Beatles covers.

Tired of his then-middling music career, Butch Trucks pondered going back to school to study mathematics.

Butch Trucks laid down a powerful conventional beat while the jazz-influenced Johanson added a second layer of percussion and ad libitum cymbal flourishes, seamlessly melded into one syncopated sound.

Butch Trucks continued to record and perform with the Allman Brothers Band until they disbanded in 2014.

From 1982 to 1984, during one of the periods in which the Allmans were broken up, Butch Trucks was part of the group Betts, Hall, Leavell and Butch Trucks.

Butch Trucks saw the license given to users for downloads as legally unsound.

Butch Trucks embraced Internet technology for the group and planned to use Moogis.

In 2005, The New York Times Book Review published a letter from Butch Trucks criticizing writer Roy Blount, Jr.

The letter further criticized Grover Lewis for his 1971 Rolling Stone article about the band, which Butch Trucks wrote made the members look like uneducated characters who spoke in dialogue "taken directly from Faulkner".

On January 24,2017, Butch Trucks died by suicide by gunshot in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 69.

Butch Trucks had reportedly been struggling with financial problems in the years leading up to his death.

Butch Trucks was married for 25 years to Melinda Butch Trucks, with whom he had two children.

Butch Trucks had two children from a previous marriage and four grandchildren.