After the passing of Gregg Allman this past weekend, Jai “Jaimoe” Johanson is now one of only two remaining founding members of the Allman Brothers Band, along with guitarist Dickey Betts. The drummer, who along with the recently deceased Butch Trucks formed half of the rhythmic backbone that powered the Allmans’ signature sound, has shared some thoughts about his late friend and bandmate, which were told to ABB biographer Alan Paul and published today over at Rolling Stone. In it, Jaimoe discusses Allman’s start in the band, their long history together and more.

The drummer begins by explaining how Allman entered the band, being the last of the original members to be invited by founding guitarist Duane Allman. “‘There’s only one person who can sing in the band I’m putting together,’” Duane said, according to Jaimoe. “‘And that’s my baby brother.’” The drummer also mentions how Duane discovered his talent through a demo from a third party musician.

“My friend Charles ‘Honeyboy’ Otis had told me, ‘If you want to make some money, go play with those white boys,’” Jaimoe explains. “And truthfully that’s what I was thinking of when I went to Muscle Shoals, because I had been playing on the rhythm and blues circuit and they did business ‘old school.’ In other words, we weren’t paid jack shit.”

Though he was headed to New York to become a jazz drummer (“I figured if I was going to starve to death, it might as well be doing something I love.”), Jaimoe says once he began playing with Duane, “that all went away. It became about the music; only the music. It was the greatest music I ever played and I knew this was it. I wasn’t going anywhere without him.”

Jaimoe goes on to discuss meeting the rest of the band, sans Gregg, and setting up a rhythmic rapport with Trucks (“Everything I’ve ever played that someone said was great was because Butch set me up.”). Gregg eventually joined the fray, and Jaimoe says his first impression was that he “looked like a television star. He was so handsome.”

“When the six of us got together, we became what we were looking for and who we were looking for and it was clear as a bell,” Jaimoe says. “It was just a great bunch of guys playing and it was just so natural. We never talked about what we were doing or told each other what to do. Everyone just played.”

The drummer also praises Gregg’s voice and originality, even from the get-go, saying that even though he’d played with legends like Otis Redding and Percy Sledge and saw Ray Charles and B.B. King, “there’s not anybody I ever heard who sang with more truth and passion than Gregory. He was at the very top of whatever what was going on with singers. And that shit about him being ‘one of the great white blues singer’ is straight bullshit. He’s a great blues singer. A great singer, period – and those lyrics he would write were incredible.”

Jaimoe then touches on Gregg’s organ playing and superior songwriting, then finishes with a tribute to the late bandleader’s impactful lyrics: “I will really miss playing with Gregg and hearing Gregg’s music, and I must say, those words, man. The words were as much a part of his life as the voice and they came from his life. Where else could they come from? We’re all reflections of the lives we lead. For years, I didn’t pay that much attention to his lyrics and then they hit me! So powerful. But I’ll miss the person more than anything. Yes, I’ll miss the person the most. I’ll miss Gregory very much.”

Read the full piece here.