After Duane died, the Allman Brothers played ninety shows as a quintet and then Chuck Leavell, a twenty-year-old kid, sat down at the keys—and became the band's valve. “I was barely twenty when that went down so those songs like “Queen of Hearts” and “Multicolored Lady” were great vehicles to express myself. After hours there were these jam sessions that would occur and often times the rest of the Allman Brothers would come too. We might play a blues song or an Allman song or just pick a key and go. ⁠

These things started to feel very interesting. To contrast what used to be a twin-guitar band with now a twin-keyboard and a great guitar player started to take the music in a different direction. I would like to think that it came as a relief to the band because you can imagine how mentally and physically exhausted they were at that time. When Duane died they had something like ninety shows that they did as a five-piece band in order to fulfill obligations. ⁠

⁠There was a lot of pressure on Dickey to do those slide parts, because he had never really played slide up to that point. So I think what happened by accident was that by me being there and taking things in a slightly different direction it kind of became a release valve for those guys.”