The instrumentals of Dickey Betts part 1
Some thoughts on Dickey's legacy as a composer
Anyone reading Long Live the ABB finds Dickey Betts at the crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture. Dickey is where it all comes together, not only with his co-founding of the Allman Brothers Band, but also the myriad ways those talents shaped the culture of the South.
Southern rock exploded in the wake of Dickey’s masterpiece, Brothers and Sisters.1
Many fans abhor the term, as did the Allman Brothers Band themselves. But you cannot separate the band from that label—the ABB’s success as a band is at least partially attributable to the fact that they were southerners who stayed in the South making music.
And Dickey Betts led that charge.
Dickey stepped into a MASSIVE VOID following Duane’s death. From the time he took over as the ABB’s sole guitarist in 1972 until a bitter divorce with his bandmates in 2000, Dickey was the band’s creative and musical director. He was also their primary songwriter.
As I wrote last week, Play All Night!2 is the best source for my understanding of Dickey’s IMMENSE importance to the Allman Brothers Band. Rather than rehash those points, I decided to do a deep dive into Dickey’s instrumentals. (I imagine this is going to be a multi-part post, but we’ll see how far I get on this one.)
Instrumentals and the Allman Brothers Band
I’ve never tracked down the ABB’s inspiration to play instrumentals. I suspect it came from their jam-oriented origins. The guys loved to play and they loved to play together. Their music reflected that.
Add to that Duane’s own frustration with the tightly controlled music environment while in Los Angeles with Hour Glass.2 He had an idea in his mind, manager Bill McEuen said, “of getting that guitar up front, but we didn’t know what kind of music to do it with because there weren’t many guitar instrumentals that were making it, and Duane didn’t sing very much.”
The first instrumental the band recorded was the Spencer Davis Group’s “Don’t Want You No More,” which Dickey and Berry played with Second Coming. The Allman Brothers Band worked up a shortened, instrumental version and tacked it to Gregg’s “It’s Not My Cross to Bear”—the one-two punch that began their debut album.3
Early on, the band also worked up “Mountain Jam” from riff they derived from the melody of Donovan’s “There is a Mountain.” It appears on a May 1969 bootleg recording from Macon, about a month after the band relocated there.
And of course there’s Duane’s acoustic instrumental “Little Martha,” his only composition. The final song on Eat a Peach, the band played it over the P.A. after every concert beginning in the 1990s.4
Dickey comes into his own
Dickey brought two songs to Idlewild South, “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” They were both fully complete when he presented them to the band. As Jaimoe noted,
“Dickey wasn’t secure enough about what he was doing, which worked to his advantage, because he’d have something almost perfect before he’d bring it in.”
Here’s Dickey on the subject, talking years later.
“In writing…you have to decide what you are trying to do, and then see if you can make it happen.
These are the mental tools I use to help guide me through, to find the proper direction for whatever piece of music I am working on. I used this approach for songs like ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,’ ‘High Falls’ and ‘Revival.’ Just like the use of words in the telling of a story, every note is of essential importance in crafting a successful instrumental.”
“Revival” started as an instrumental. Dickey said:
“We would refer to that first instrumental section of the song as ‘The Gypsy Dance. When I wrote it, I had the image of gypsies dancing around a fire in my mind, and I tried to conjure that spirit in the music.”
Betts called the tune a pure expression of his spiritual commitment to music:
When I write something that I'm proud of, like "Elizabeth Reed," where does that melody come from? Do you think I write one note after another saying, 'Oh boy, this is catchy'? No, that Melody is given to me because I've dedicated myself so much that guitar. Where it comes from I do know, although I will not say.
I spelled out the full history of the song title's origin a few months back: “Who is Elizabeth Reed?”5
Dickey said Benny Goodman inspired the melody. The song’s Latin feel comes directly from Dickey’s inspiration: Carmella Scaggs.
“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” was the Allman Brothers Band’s first original, fully formed instrumental. It remained in the set list until the band’s very last show October 28, 2014.
“Les Brers in A Minor” is the second song on Eat a Peach. It follows Gregg’s determined, more upbeat “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More.” It carries deep grief and determined anger. The song can sound like it’s missing something, and it is—Duane’s not there. The band isn’t covering for him per se, they are reinventing themselves as a one-guitar band.
Dickey said “We called each other ‘brer’ the way others did ‘bro.’” The A minor is the song’s key. I hear a lot of classical influence in “Les Brers” and dearly love Dickey’s scorching guitar.
Dickey quoted the melody during his “Whipping Post” solo in spring 1971, first at the Capital Theatre 1/23/71 and more famously on At Fillmore East. (I have it queued up to 11:08-ish below.)
The group played “Les Brers” until their first breakup in 1976. They didn’t revive it for the 1979 Enlightened Rogues reunion but they did for the the 1989 Dreams tour. They shelved it until 1999, though they also tacked a brief “Les Brers” intro onto “Statesboro Blues” in the 1990s.
Skipping ahead…
Here’s the playlist I’m working from, which includes instrumentals from the entirety of Dickey’s career
When I realized the next song chronologically was “Jessica,” I abandoned that approach. I need more time to think about “Jessica” and to consider it in context with “Hand Picked” from Highway Call and “High Falls” from Win, Lose, or Draw.6
Instead I’m going to skip ahead to two of Dickey’s later-period instrumentals: “True Gravity” and “Kind of Bird.” Appearing on Seven Turns (1990)and Shades of Two Worlds (1992), respectively, both instrumentals are co-writes with Warren Haynes.
Both off them offer an example of what Dickey referenced above: “mental tools I use to help guide me through, to find the proper direction for whatever piece of music I am working on.”
“True Gravity” I read once where Dickey said it was partially inspired by watching a golf ball fly, which is as good a reason as any to inspire a song. For whatever reason “True Gravity” has always made me think of outer-space.
The version on Seven Turns is good, but by summer 1996, the Allman Brothers Band turned it into a “Mountain Jam”-esque thing of beauty. Seriously y’all, they just COOKED on this one, with Dickey, Warren, & Woody having a killer conversation on stage.7 Those versions also carry a bit of the weightlessness-in-space but tethered-to-the-earth feel that “True Gravity” (the song and the title) bring to mind.
“True Gravity” stayed in the setlist every year from 1990-2000, except 1995. The band revived it in 2014 for 8 shows.
There’s a lot of versions out there, here’s the 25th anniversary of the final Fillmore East public show.
“Kind of Bird” This is another co-write with Haynes. The bebop feel was evident even before I learned that “Bird” was the great jazz saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker.8
The song proved very difficult to play for Dickey, and after appearing 53 times in the setlist in 1991, the group played it only once the following year. The band revived it 10 times between 2010-2012. It’s remained in Gov’t Mule’s setlists for years.9
One of the things about Dickey’s instrumentals is how adaptable they are to different forms of music. “True Gravity” and “Kind of Bird” are two such examples.
Here’s the Allman Brothers Band with Doc Severinsen and the Johnny Carson-era Tonight Show band sitting in on these two cuts:
True Gravity
Kind of Bird
Lagniappe
Warren Haynes I make no secret of my love for the Reverend Brother Warren Haynes. There’s a million reasons for that, but at the root of it is this: he is a good, thoughtful soul who sees music as a gift, his gift, one that he shares with the world. Rick Beato is one of the best interviewers out there, and this one with Haynes is no different. And, of course, he gives a lot of love to Dickey—as he should.
More tributes to Dickey
Last week’s post contained several tributes to Dickey Betts I had collected. The outpouring of love has been pretty awesome to see. Dickey has earned it for sure. Here are a few more that I’ve saved to share with you.
Official obituary Dickey Betts DECEMBER 12, 1943 – APRIL 18, 2024
Two beautiful tributes from friends on Instagram: Lost in the Grooves and Geoffrey Bonham. Click on the links, they are both well worth the read.
Thanks for being here y’all, until next time.
Sidenote: The first solo on “Don’t Want You No More” isn’t Duane or Dickey, it’s Gregg. Yes, the first solo on the debut album of arguably the greatest guitar band in history is a Hammond B3 organ.
Here’s a little from me on the “Little Martha” myth.
Included the link here too in case you missed the URL above
I will also cover “Pegasus” “From the Madness of the West” the Dickey Betts Band’s “Duane’s Tune” and “One-Stop Be-Bop” and “Beyond the Pale.”
The musical conversation is despite troubles off-stage that resulted in Warren & Woody leaving the band in March 1997.
Origins of the nickname “Yardbird,” which also gave the British Invasion group—known for blues and not jazz—their moniker.
Here’s the Mule’s version from Live at Roseland Ballroom.