Duane Allman was born on this day in 1946. He died at the age of 24 in 1971 in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia. He was best known as a founder of the Allman Brothers Band, but was equally influential as a session guitarist. Here’s Duane on the recording of Wilson Pickett’s cover of “Hey Jude,” of all things, that Eric Clapton called his favorite guitar solo ever , leading to Duane’s famous guest gig with Derek & the Dominoes).

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Ed Kilgore, a contributing editor of the Washington Monthly, is a columnist for New York.