RIP Johnny Sandlin-ABB Brother

Tough year for the ABB family.  Time waits for no one.

Johnny Sandlin, a record producer, engineer and session musician best known for his work with the Allman Brothers Band, died on Tuesday in Decatur, Ala. He was 72.

His death was announced by Ridout’s Brown-Service Funeral Home in Decatur. No cause was specified, but Variety reported that Mr. Sandlin had cancer.

John Everett Sandlin was born in Decatur on April 16, 1945. His association with the guitarist Duane Allman and his brother Gregg, who sang and played keyboards, began in 1967, when they worked together in the band the Hour Glass, which made two albums for Liberty Records. Mr. Sandlin played drums in that band and also played guitar and bass on various artists’ records over the years.

The brothers later formed their own band and signed with the newly established Capricorn label, based in Macon, Ga. Mr. Sandlin joined the label as an engineer and producer around the same time.

After working as an engineer on the Allman Brothers Band’s hit albums “Live at Filmore East” (1971) and “Eat a Peach” (1972), he produced “Brothers and Sisters” (1973), the group’s first album entirely recorded after Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. He went on to produce a number of the band’s later albums.

“The brothers were not an easy band to work with,” Mr. Sandlin told The Decatur Daily last year, when he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. “They were very dramatic.” He nonetheless continued to work over the years with individual members of the band, including Gregg Allman and the guitarist Dickey Betts.

While at Capricorn, Mr. Sandlin also produced albums by the band Wet Willie, the guitarist Elvin Bishop and others. The label went bankrupt in 1979 but was revived in the early 1990s; Mr. Sandlin rejoined Capricorn then and worked with the Southern bands Widespread Panic and the Dixie Dregs.

He had his own studio in Decatur, Duck Tape Music, for many years.

Mr. Sandlin is survived by his wife, Anathalee Gray Sandlin; three daughters, Leigh Ellen Cauthen, Kristin Ann Spain and Heidie Anathalee Barger; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Mr. Sandlin was the third musician associated with the Allman Brothers Band to die this year. Butch Trucks, one of the group’s two original drummers, died in January. Gregg Allman died in May.