Drummer Claude "Butch" Trucks, one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band, has died. He was 69.
Organizers of the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival announced Trucks' death Wednesday morning in a Facebook post. Trucks was scheduled to perform at the festival in May with The Freight Train Band.
Trucks' booking agent, Page Stalling, confirmed to Rolling Stone magazine that Trucks died Tuesday. His cause of death was not immediately known.
Trucks was born May 11, 1947, in Jacksonville, Florida. He founded the Allman Brothers Band in 1969 with lead guitarist Dickey Betts, bassist Berry Oakley, fellow drummer Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson and brothers Duane and Gregg Allman.
Trucks and Johanson were listed among Rolling Stone magazine's 100 greatest drummers of all time.
"When Butch came along, he had that freight train, meat-and-potatoes kind of thing that set Jaimoe up perfectly," Betts said in a 2007 interview with Guitar World. "He had the power thing we needed."
