Allen Woody broke into music scene with Artimus Pyle Band, but made his name in The Allman Brothers Band and especially in Gov’t Mule. Allen was widely respected bass player among musicians and avid collector of bass guitars.
Allen Woody was born and raised in Nasville, Tennessee and majored in music at at Middle Tennessee University. Allen started as a guitar player, but later on switched to bass. After graduating, he worked at local Guitarshop in Nashville for eight years, where he met Artimus Pyle, ex-drummer of Lynyrd Skynyrd , who gave Allen his first big break by giving him a job as bass player for APB.
After short stint in The Artimus Pyle Band, Allen joined The Allman Brothers Band in 1989 and recorded five albums with them. In 1994 Allen Woody and Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes put together Gov’t Mule to release some of the songs they had wrote.
Gov’t Mule was a strongly southern rock influenced power-trio and jam-band that cathered a large cult following fron the very beginning. Woody and Warren Haynes finally left The Allman Brothers Band in 1997 to concentrate on Gov’t Mule full-time.
Allen was a enthusiastic bass collector with almost 500 different instruments and he was also widely known for his custom-made bass guitars, including double-necked combination of guitar and mandolin and a sitar-like bass.
Gov’t Mule recorded three albums with Allen Woody and they were enjoying growing success when disaster stroke in summer of 2000.
Death of Allen Woody
Allen Woody was found dead in a Marriott Courtyard motel in Queens, New York on Saturday Aug. 26th in 2000. He was 44 at the time of his death. The cause of his death has not been publicly confirmed, which has caused a lot of speculation among Gov’t Mule fans, but is widely believed to be drug related.
Allen Woody is survived by his wife Jenny and daughter Savannah.
