How far can you see? That’s how far you can play.
Dickey Betts
Happy birthday Forrest Richard Betts, born December 12, 1943, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Of Duane’s myriad musical partners, Dickey Betts was one of the most important. Their work together in the band’s early days in Jacksonville inspired Duane to expand the band he had in mind.
Lots of people talk about Dickey being underrated, and it’s true to a certain extent. Like the Allman Brothers Band in general, he sometimes seems like a poorly kept secret, but a secret nonetheless.
But many more of us hold Dickey in extremely high regard.
(cheaper, but evil)
I spent a lot of time thinking about Betts over the decades as I developed what became Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East.
I’ve been most pleased with the response I’ve gotten on how I highlighted Dickey’s importance in the book, and the countless times I’ve written/posted about him in the last three years.
Here’s a bit from chapter 1, “Duane’s Musical Ethos.”
While it was not unprecedented for a band to have two lead guitarists, most two-guitar bands of the era featured one player on rhythm, the other on lead.
The Allman Brothers’ dual lead guitar approach was an outgrowth of each guitarist’s virtuosity and the equal time they afforded one another as soloists. Indeed, each played lead guitar on nearly every Allman Brothers Band song, often in tandem.
Duane and Dickey shared a profound “musical love,” longtime collaborator Thom Doucette recalled. “They were very tight and they had a lot of unspoken communication.”
Duane held Dickey in thrall. “Duane played music the same way that he rode his motorcycle and drove his car. He was a daredevil, just triple-Scorpio, God’s-on-my-side wide open. That was part of the romance. And I loved Duane.”
It was a collaboration the guitarists honed on stage, in rehearsals, and in private conversation. “What struck me when I first heard them playing together was how they didn’t try to outdo each other, but instead supported one another,” Doucette remembered. “I had worked with the Butterfield Blues Band in Chicago and all Butterfield and Bloomfield thought about was wasting one another.”
Some of this dynamic was built on mutual esteem, some on self-confidence, and much on approach. “Duane and I had an immense amount of respect for each other,” Betts recalled. “We talked about being jealous of each other and how dangerous it was to think that way—that we had to fight that feeling when we were on stage. He’d say, ‘When I listen to you play, I have to try hard to keep the jealousy thing at bay and not try to outdo you when I play my solo. But I still want to play my best!’ We laughed about what a thin line that was.”
There was jealousy, Betts acknowledged, “but it was so honest that it was healthy; and it just fired the energies that we did have. We just fired each other off.”
The competition was by design, Duane said. “We can make each other better and then do something deep.”
“He was probably the most honest player I’ve ever played with,” reflected Betts. “Man, he could get what was in his heart to come off the neck of his guitar!”
The connection between the two guitarists transcended music, Dickey said:
“There are very few times two musicians come together who understand each other in that fashion, the same as two people having a real conversation, and truly understanding each other, the same as a man and a woman making love. This is the kind of thing that me and Duane had. I knew the dude. I knew him all the way through. I admired him. I learned from him. He learned from me. To experience that with a musician the caliber of Duane Allman is one of the greatest gifts that I’ve received and been able to share.”1
Betts has been a major presence here at longlivetheabb.com:
a sampling:
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Put together a little photo essay with quotes from/images of Dickey just for y’all, as a little thank you for your support. Appreciate you more than you know.
Dickey Betts in his own words
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