Gregg Allman’s Southern Blood Really has Blood in It…Well, Sort of

The cover shot to the album was taken in Allman’s backyard looking out towards the river. *Southern Blood* is out now. ©2017 Gregg Allman

Gregg Allman passed away in May of this year. The singer-songwriter was diagnosed with a recurrence of liver cancer back in 2012. He was given 12-18 months to live and began work on a new album. That album, titled Southern Blood, turned out to be the artist’s last and it was going to feature a painting of Allman by New York artist Vincent Castiglia.

Castiglia is known for painting in blood and Allman sent two vials of his blood over to the artist to create a portrait of him for the album cover, however, Allman decided to go in a different direction choosing instead to use a picture of his property in Savannah, Georgia. Allman’s manager Michael Lehman said of the decision, “…the reason that we chose that image is it just looks out towards the beyond where Gregg was and that’s where Gregg is, somewhere out there.” But, after Allman’s passing his family decided to have the portrait created anyway.

Gregg Allman portrait painted by artist Vincent Castiglia contains both Allman’s and his children’s blood. ©2017 Vincent Castiglia

Since Castiglia still had the vials of Allman’s blood, he went to work on a portrait of the late musician. According to Lehman, they (both family and Lehman) looked at many different images and finally selected a Neil Preston photo from the early ’70s. What’s interesting about the portrait is that it includes both Allman’s blood and some of his kids’ blood. The two vials Allman gave to Castiglia weren’t enough to finish the portrait, so his children donated some of their own.Copies of the portrait are available in the deluxe edition of Southern Blood. The original portrait will tour the country as part of celebrations related to the album, and will eventually be a part of Allman exhibition, which is currently in the planning stages.

Watch a time-lapse video of Castiglia creating the portrait HERE

The album was released on September 8, 2017 and is available on vinyl and CD, as a download, and in a deluxe edition. All are available through the musician’s website.