A tribute set to guitarist/singer/songwriter Dickey Betts of The Allmans Brothers Band fame, who died last Thursday, April 18, at age 80. All songs written and/or sung by Betts, credited as Richard Betts on his first solo album, 1974’s Highway Call. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Dickey Betts Band, Rock Bottom
2. The Allman Brothers Band, Nobody Knows
3. The Allman Brothers Band, Blue Sky
4. The Allman Brothers Band, Revival
5. Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Bougainvillea
6. The Allman Brothers Band, Pony Boy
7. The Allman Brothers Band, Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John
8. The Allman Brothers Band, Les Brers In A Minor
9. The Allman Brothers Band, Pegasus
10. The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns
11. Richard Betts, Hand Picked
12. The Allman Brothers Band, No One To Run With
13. The Allman Brothers Band, Southbound
14. The Allman Brothers Band, High Falls
15. Richard Betts, Long Time Gone
16. The Allman Brothers Band, Can’t Take It With You
17. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (from Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992)

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Dickey Betts Band, Rock Bottom . . . Appropriately titled rocker from Betts’ 1988 album Pattern Disruptive which brought Warren Haynes, Betts’ guitar foil on the record, into The Allman Brothers Band family. Haynes later joined the Allmans, with Betts quoted in a book on the band, One Way Out, as saying that with Haynes, he achieved a level of guitar interplay he had once shared with Duane Allman in the early days of the Brothers. Speaking of Duane Allman, the ace axeman was once quoted as saying about Betts: “I’m the famous guitarist, but Dickey’s the good one.” They were both amazing, of course. Drummer Matt Abts, part of the Betts band on Pattern Disruptive, later co-founded Gov’t Mule with Haynes and that Allmans offshoot continues to this day.

2. The Allman Brothers Band, Nobody Knows . . . From the latter-day version of the Allmans, featuring Haynes. A 10-minute piece from 1991’s Shades Of Two Worlds album, it’s yet another example of the Allmans’ magic – they can go on for 10, 20 minutes (just wait until later in the set) or more and it’s never boring. As their longtime producer Tom Dowd was once quoted as saying, and it really applied to all versions of the band: “Here was a rock and roll band playing blues in the jazz vernacular.” Perfectly put.

3. The Allman Brothers Band, Blue Sky . . . From 1972’s Eat A Peach, Betts’ love song to his Indigenous Canadian girlfriend, Sandy “Bluesky” Wabegijig, whom he would later marry, on of his five marriages. It was Betts’ first lead vocal performance on an Allman Brothers Band record. He originally wanted Gregg Allman, who had handled all lead vocals to that point, to sing it but was encouraged by Duane Allman to do the honors. Duane Allman’s playing on the song was one of his last performances with the band before he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Betts, well known for his many instrumental compositions with the Allmans, went on to sing many of their songs including of course Ramblin’ Man and latter day classics like Seven Turns, which I get to later in the set.

4. The Allman Brothers Band, Revival . . . The first solo songwriting credit for Betts on an Allmans album, their second studio effort, Idlewild South, released in November, 1970. It’s got that typical country-esque boogie beat inherent in many of Betts’ songs. It was also the first Allmans song to chart, albeit only making No. 92 on Billboard’s top 100.

5. Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Bougainvillea . . . Beautiful ballad/jam from Betts’ second solo album and first one co-credited to his band Great Southern. Among the players on the record are ‘Dangerous Dan’ Toler, who later joined the Allman Brothers Band for the 1979-82 period albums Enlightened Rogues, Reach For The Sky and Brothers of the Road as well as playing on Gregg Allman’s solo albums I’m No Angel and Just Before The Bullets Fly. At the top of the set, I mentioned Warren Haynes coming into the Allmans’ family via his association with Betts starting with Betts’ Pattern Disruptive album and Toler is another example typical of the Allman Brothers through their various breakups and reunions and configurations: new seeds were often planted and the branches from the parent band continued to interact and collaborate in one way or another, throughout.

6. The Allman Brothers Band, Pony Boy . . . Funky, acoustic country blues from the Brothers and Sisters album which featured Betts’ signature Allmans’ tune, Ramblin’ Man. The album was part of a period where, following the deaths of founding guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley, Betts assumed a huge leadership role in the band alongside Gregg Allman. He became a major songwriting contributor and, for Brothers and Sisters and its followup studio album Win, Lose or Draw – aside from occasional session players before Toler was recruited for Enlightened Rogues – Betts was the Allmans’ lone guitarist.

7. The Allman Brothers Band, Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John . . . A jaunty Betts-penned tune from the critically-panned 1975 album Win, Lose or Draw which even the band members themselves didn’t much like, as the band was in tatters by that point, before its first breakup. To quote drummer Butch Trucks: “Everyone was into getting f*cked up and f*cking. We were into being rock stars and the music became secondary. When we heard the finished music, we were all embarrassed.”

Gregg Allman: “Win, Lose or Draw was a perfect reflection of our situation in 1975. It was basically all over with the Allman Brothers Band.”

Yet . . . as with all great bands, the album wasn’t nearly as bad as reviewed, even by the players who made it. My opinion. It’s just that it may have not measured up to previous higher standards as determined by, who, exactly, given that any and every assessment in art is subjective. I maintain that quality bands don’t do bad albums. They do great ones, and less great ones or, at worst, average ones that lesser bands would consider their best work. The Rolling Stones and Dirty Work, for example. But that’s just me. Anyway, Win, Lose or Draw has its gems like the Muddy Waters cover Can’t Lose What You Never Had, the title cut written by Gregg Allman and this one, nice piano by Chuck Leveall coupled with Betts’ typically lyrical guitar, plus a long Betts instrumental, High Falls, that’s often overlooked among the great Betts instrumentals but I get to later in the set.

8. The Allman Brothers Band, Les Brers In A Minor . . Another epic Betts instrumental, this one from the studio portions of the half live, half studio 1972 album Eat A Peach, the last Allmans album on which Duane Allman played, although not on this track, before his death.

9. The Allman Brothers Band, Pegasus . . . Another Betts composition where words aren’t necessary. From Enlightened Rogues.

10. The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns . . . Title cut from the reunion album issued in 1990 and one of my all-time favorite Allmans tunes. Beautifully sung and played by Betts but what ‘makes’ it for me, and others in the band, and this is the magic of a band of brothers, is when Gregg Allman comes in on backup vocals with the “somebody’s callin’ your name’ refrain. From the book One Way Out, guitarist Warren Haynes describes how it came about, by happy accident: “Dickey, Johnny Neel (piano, keyboards, synthesizer) and I were working on the three-part harmony stuff for Seven Turns in the studio hallway and Gregg was in the lounge shooting pool. As we rehearsed the ‘somebody’s calling your name’ part, I heard Gregg answer it. I don’t even know if he did it on purpose. It wasn’t like he said “hey, check this out.” He was just singing along to what he heard us doing as he shot pool. And I said, ‘hey, listen to that. This is what we need.’ It was all very coincidental and it became one of the pinnacles of the tune, when Gregg comes in on the anwer vocal at the end of the song.”

11. Richard Betts, Hand Picked . . . Hand pickin’ indeed. Fourteen minutes of western swing, toe-tapping rockabilly instrumental from Betts’ first solo album, Highway Call, 1974, featuring fiddle player legend Vassar Clements.

12. The Allman Brothers Band, No One To Run With . . . Bo Diddley beat tune sung by Gregg Allman, originally written for a Betts solo project but shelved until polished and released on the Allmans’ 1994 studio album Where It All Begins.

13. The Allman Brothers Band, Southbound . . . Up-tempo, swinging tune from Brothers and Sisters.

14. The Allman Brothers Band, High Falls . . . Seemingly almost forgotten, or overlooked, among the band’s acclaimed instrumentals it’s nevertheless a quality composition and a centerpiece of the Win, Lose or Draw album.

15. Richard Betts, Long Time Gone . . . A Ramblin’ Man-like tune from his first solo album, Highway Call.

16. The Allman Brothers Band, Can’t Take It With You . . . Co-written by Betts and actor/sometime musician Don Johnson of Miami Vice TV show fame. From 1979’s Enlightened Rogues album. Could have been a Lynyrd Skynyrd track as it’s very much, to my ears anyway, in that style.

17. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (from Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992) . . . Elizabeth Reed was the name on a tombstone Betts used to disguise a song to a girlfriend of his who was cheating on her man at the time. The original studio version appeard on the second Allmans studio album, Idlewild South, 1970, and became more well known via the live interpretation on the band’s breakthrough album At Fillmore East. But while it may seem sacrilegious in that I’ve played nothing from that seminal live album in this set, anyone who knows the Allmans knows that album and that version. Instead, I’m going with this mind-blowing 21-minute take on the tune from the latter day Warren Haynes version of the band, proving Betts’ contention that he and Haynes approached the levels of Betts and Duane Allman. The rest of the band ain’t bad, either. Only one original member left now, given Betts’ passing, that being Jai Johanny Johanson, born John Lee Johnson but best known as Jaimoe, drummer and percussionist, age 79 at this writing.