Forrest Richard “Dickey” Betts (1943-2024) by J. Michael Hill

Duane Allman, founder and leader of The Allman Brothers Band, from 1969 until his tragic death in a motorcycle crash in October 1971, called Dickey Betts the best player in the band. And that was saying something indeed. The original Allman Brothers Band (Duane and Dickey on guitars and vocals, Gregg Allman on keyboards and lead vocals, Berry Oakley on bass, and J. Johnny "Jaimoe" Johnson and Butch Trucks on drums) was undoubtedly the best live band I had ever seen, then and now. They are credited with founding "Southern rock," but their music could not be contained in such strict confinements. It crossed the spectrum from blues and jazz influences, to rock, to country, and some other genres that defy description. You have to hear it, over and over, to really understand the depth and magnificence of it all. Sometimes it's like a symphony, just with different instruments.

Fundamentally, the Allman Brothers were a "guitar band." And Dickey Betts was one of the most accomplished of his generation. His best known composition and performance is "Ramblin' Man," the band's highest charting single, but Betts really shone in the complex instrumentals he composed, the most intriguing being "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." Their fiery performance of this jazz-based tune on their best-selling album, Live at the Fillmore East (1971), is among the best of the band's efforts. Both Duane (second guitar solo) and Dickey (first solo) play as men possessed by some sort of renegade muse, laying down licks that defy precedent in the world of rock & roll. Just go listen . . . loud.

But Betts had a gentler, country side to him as well. His "Blue Sky" off the band's Eat a Peach album (1972) is country-rock the way it ought to be played. He was the master of the major-scale solo, hitting those sweet notes that indeed make you think you're on your way back to Carolina, a sweet woman anxiously awaiting your arrival. When the band fell apart in the mid-1970s, Betts produced his best solo effort in "Highway Call," an album of country-tinged originals, almost autobiographical in their stories of "long gone and lonesome." Dickey was the original, tough ramblin' man. Never in one place for too long.

As with many who live this way, Betts suffered from too much alcohol and too many drugs. He was forced out of the reconstituted band in 2000 and never played with them again, though invited to join their farewell tour a decade or so ago. His last years as a working musician were solo or with his band, Great Southern.

I met Dickey Betts at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia, in July 1970. It was bigger than Woodstock, and The Allman Brothers Band both opened and closed the show. He reminded me of a man of the Old West, a hard hombre you wouldn't want to play poker with. Indeed, he had a reputation in the band as being the resident "badass." I remember during the opening set sitting by a kid from New Mexico. Amid the haze of smoke, he asked me about the band who was about to start things off. I told him they were a "local" band and then waited to see his reaction when they hit the first note. After a couple of songs and Dickey's and Duane's scorching guitars, he looked at me for an explanation. My response was "Well, everyone's got to be from somewhere, and they happen to be from around here." He left a big fan of Dickey Betts and this "local" band.

I was fortunate to have had a two-hour conversation with Duane Allman that day, and he spoke of something called "hittin' the note." That's when things are just right and the music is coming from some place you've never been before. That's what Duane and Dickey could do with their guitar interplay that was unmatched anywhere else in the popular music world. I'd like to think that the Lord is enjoying Himself a good live concert, now that these two are finally reunited after all these years. Play all night, brother.--Michael Hill