The story is one of those great fabled moments in rock history that has endured amongst musicians and rock historians to this day!
In the late 60's the band Delaney & Bonnie and Friends supported Blind Faith on their US tour in the summer of 69. Blind Faith was already a band that Eric Clapton became a part of to get away from the mass success and pressure of being in Cream, but in the short time of finally getting to play in a band with his friend Steve Winwood, Blind Faith was already becoming a high pressure nightmare like Cream. Clapton was drawn to Delaney & Bonnie's sound and anonymity, and he would gravitate to them and away from Blind Faith. Clapton would go solo and use Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, and Jim Gordon from Delany & Bonnie to record with.
Clapton and Friends as they would call themselves would back George Harrison on "All Things Must Pass," and perform with him for a live performance at a charity concert in aid of the Dr Spock Civil Liberties Legal Defence Fund, and it was backstage that the band decided to name themselves Derek & The Dominoes.
After a failed attempt to record with Phil Spector and a slew of live performances the band flew to Miami and began recording with producer Tom Dowd, and the premise of the album was to be the story of Clapton's unrequited love for George Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd. After an unproductive few days of recording Dowd, took the Dominos to an Allman Brothers concert, as he was also producing for them. Clapton, already knew of Duane Allman's as a great blues guitarist, but their performance that night blew him away. Clapton and the Dominoes were invited backstage, and he and Allman instantly hit it off. By the end of that night Allman became a member of the Dominoes and the band were in full swing of recording the Layla album. Allman and Clapton's iconic work on the title track Layla, made it one of the most iconic love songs in music history and the work that Allman did with the band on the album is some of his most classic. Clapton would call Duane "the musical brother that I never had, but wished I did".
There have been many "One Night In Miami" stories that have been told over the years of great individuals meeting and doing great things, but the night that Clapton formally met Allman is without a doubt one of the most storied in rock history and appropriately so.