Claude "Butch" Trucks was founding member and drummer of the Allman Brothers Band, alongside fellow drummer Jai Johanny Johanson.



Butch Trucks was born as Claude Hudson Trucks on May 11, 1947 in Jacksonville, Florida.He started playing drums in the eighth grade and joined Jacksonville's Englewood High School band, according to Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. His parents were strict Baptists and refused to buy him a drum kit of his own until 11th grade when he promised never to play in an establishment that served liquor.



Before graduating high school, he played in two bands – the Vikings (who made one 45" record in 1964) and the Echoes – as well as the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and Jacksonville Symphonette, where he played tympani.



Butch helped form The Allman Brothers Band in 1969, along with Duane Allman (guitar), Gregg Allman (vocals and organ), Dickey Betts (guitar), Berry Oakley (bass), and fellow drummer Jai Johanny Johanson.



Trucks continues to record and perform with the Allman Brothers Band today. In a band not known for its onstage charisma, Trucks is often the focal point, leading the rhythm section while keeping a determined visual lock on certain members while playing.



Butch Trucks' had a long interest in philosophy and literature; in 2005 he published a letter in the New York Times Book Review criticizing a review of a decades-old article about the band in which the members were made to look like uneducated characters from a William Faulkner novel.



Butch Trucks' nephew, guitarist Derek Trucks, fronts the Derek Trucks Band and joined the Allman Brothers Band in 1999.