Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band Singer-Guitarist, Dead
at 80
The co-founder of the Southern rock institution was known
for “Ramblin’ Man,” a countryfied guitar style all his own, and inspiring a
character in Almost Famous
The Rolling Stone
By David Browne
April 18, 2024
Dickey Betts, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist of
the Allman Brothers Band whose piercing solos, beloved songs and hell-raising
spirit defined the band and Southern rock in general, died Thursday morning at
the age of 80. The cause was cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
Betts’ manager David Spero confirmed to Rolling Stone.
“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that the
Betts family announce the peaceful passing of Forrest Richard ‘Dickey’ Betts
(December 12, 1943 – April 18, 2024) at the age of 80 years old,” Betts’ family
announced in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The legendary performer,
songwriter, bandleader, and family patriarch was at his home in Osprey,
Florida, surrounded by his family. Dickey was larger-than-life, and his loss
will be felt worldwide. At this difficult time, the family asks for prayers and
respect for their privacy in the coming days. More information will be
forthcoming at the appropriate time.”
Although he was often overshadowed by Gregg and Duane,
the brothers who gave the Allmans their name, Betts was equally vital to the
band. His sweetly sinuous guitar style introduced elements of Western swing and
jazz into the band’s music, especially when he was duetting with Duane. As a
singer and writer, Betts was responsible for the band’s biggest hit, 1973’s
“Ramblin’ Man,” as well as some of their most recognizable songs: the moody
instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the jubilant “Jessica,” and their
late-period comeback hit “Crazy Love.”
From his trademark mustache to his badass demeanor, Betts
was so iconic that he inspired the character of Russell (played by Billy
Crudup) in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. “Goddamn, that guy looks like me!”
Betts told Rolling Stone of his first reaction to the movie. “I didn’t do the
jumping off the roof or the ‘golden god,’ but I knew Cameron.”
Born Forrest Richard Betts in West Palm Beach, Florida,
on December 12, 1943, Betts began playing ukulele around age five, followed by
banjo and mandolin. “When I finally got to about seventh grade,” he told RS, “I
learned about girls and rock & roll and Chuck Berry.” As a teenager, he put
together his own band while earning a living as a house painter and mail
carrier.
I n the mid-Sixties, a member of a Midwestern band named
the Jokers heard Betts and recruited him for out-of-state tours. Back home in
Florida later that decade, Betts formed the Second Coming, a band that also
included bass player Berry Oakley. The two ended up meeting and jamming with
Duane Allman, who asked both to join the newly formed Allman Brothers Band in
1969. “It took a lot of talking and getting along,” Betts told Rolling Stone in
2017, “but we all knew this was something we had heard in our heads for a long
time. We had to talk Duane into calling Gregg because they were having a
brotherly fight, and Duane didn’t want Gregg. Oakley and I said, ‘Come on,
Duane, the band is too goddamn powerful. We need Gregg’s voice in there.’”
Although his initial role in the band was co-lead
guitarist along with Duane, Betts made his mark as a writer thanks to his
exuberant “Revival” on the band’s first album, 1969’s The Allman Brothers Band.
During the band’s first few years, he and Duane took rock-guitar improvisation
and two-guitar dueling to new heights, as heard on the 13-minute version of “In
Memory of Elizabeth Reed” on the band’s At Fillmore East live album from 1971.
Right before Duane Allman’s death, the band recorded Betts’ “Blue Sky,” a
country-influenced gallop inspired by his first wife, who is Native American;
the song that became one of the band’s signature songs.
After Duane Allman’s death in a motorcycle accident in
1971, Betts became the band’s de facto lead guitarist and frontman, a role he
wasn’t always comfortable with. Featuring both “Ramblin’ Man” and “Jessica” —
the latter named after Betts’ daughter — the band’s 1973 album, Brothers and
Sisters, album crossed over into pop. Betts’ 1974 solo album, Highway Call —
one of the best of the Allmans offshoot projects — incorporated country, jazz,
bluegrass, and gospel.
The bond between the Allmans and Jimmy Carter, whose 1976
presidential campaign they supported by way of benefit concerts, also applied
to Betts personally. “I remember going to a jazz concert at the White House
[1978],” Betts told Rolling Stone last year. “Of course, I got there and I left
my damn ID at home. But the Marines said, ‘Oh, go ahead in.’ They knew me very
well and knew I wasn’t going to do any harm. Jimmy was walking around the
premises and someone said to me, ‘Go over and talk to him,’ but I didn’t want
to bother him. Then I went to use the men’s room in the White House, and as I
was coming out, I ran into Jimmy with a group of people and he said, ‘Ladies
and gentlemen, this is Dickey Betts, one of the best songwriters around
nowadays.’ That just floored me.”
But after Gregg testified in a drug trial involving a
band employee, which infuriated Betts, the Allman Brothers Band fell apart for
the first time. Betts recorded two albums with his own band, Great Southern,
which didn’t replicate his Allmans success. In 1979, the Allman Brothers
regrouped, broke up again a few years later, and reunited again in 1989.
In the Nineties, the Allmans experienced a musical and
career rebirth, and Betts became its driving force especially after Gregg
relapsed in the middle of the decade. But Betts could also be moody and
volatile; in 1976, he was arrested for drinking and clashing with police. That
side of him resumed; in 1993, he was arrested in Saratoga Springs, New York,
after getting into a shoving match with cops, and his drinking led to fights
with band members and missed shows. In 2000, he parted ways with the Allmans. Betts
always insisted he was fired, while drummer John Lee “Jaimoe” Johnson told
Rolling Stone in 2017 that Betts quit. “Dickey was always sort of the guy who
was — I don’t want to say troubled, but was more of a loner,” Allmans manager
Bert Holman told RS in 2017. “More separate than the rest of the guys.”
Although his falling out with the Allmans left a bitter
taste in his mouth for years, Betts told RS that, in the end, he looked back
fondly on his decades with them. “I would’ve done something,” he said. “I would
have worked for somebody landscaping. I was very pragmatic and industrious. But
it wouldn’t have been as nice as what happened when I met up with that bunch of
guys.”
For much of the 2000s, Betts tried kick-starting his own
career and music, although he was overshadowed again by the Allman Brothers
Band, who continued without him (with guitarist Warren Haynes and Derek
Trucks). In 2014, Betts quietly announced his retirement and told Rolling Stone
in 2017 that he decided to stop recording music.
Despite the turbulence inside the Allman Brothers Band,
Betts said he and Gregg had spoken right before Allman’s death, in 2017. After
Allman’s death — and after Betts talked about retirement — he was coaxed into
returning to the road in 2018, with his own son (also named Duane) joining his
band. In August of that year, though, Betts suffered and then recovered from a
mild stroke. Last December, Betts attended an 80th-birthday concert in his
honor by the Allman Betts Family Revival band, near Betts’ longtime Florida
home.
In 2017, Betts looked back at his life with no regrets,
telling Rolling Stone: “I’ve had a great life and I don’t have any complaints,”
he says. “If I could do it again, I don’t know what I could do to make it
different. There are lawsuits I probably could have dealt with better. But so
what? You have to get in there and fight and do the best with your amount of
time.”
BETTS, Dickey (Forest Richard Betts)
Born: 12/12/1943, West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
Died: 4/18/2024, Osprey, Florida, U.S.A.
Dickey Betts’ western – song writer, performer:
The Cowboy Way – 1994 [writer “No One to Run With”]
[performer]
