RIP Forrest Richard Betts

[Gitfiddlemann]

Dickey and Duane, finally back together again.

[ghostnote]

Originally Posted by Gitfiddlemann

Dickey and Duane, finally back together again.

Great pic, Andre!
Love Dickey’s early tone better than almost everyone else. Great, fat sustain without pedals, and smoking hot but melodic licks - and he never ran out of them. It wasn’t really rock music at all. On the first couple of Allmans records, he and Duane redefined the whole Les Paul/Marshall sound. Killer.

[RP]

https://www.aol.com/dickey-betts-all...161630905.html

[Bob Womack]

Originally written for Duane and Barry.




Bob

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by ghostnote

Great pic, Andre!
Love Dickey’s early tone better than almost everyone else. Great, fat sustain without pedals, and smoking hot but melodic licks - and he never ran out of them. It wasn’t really rock music at all. On the first couple of Allmans records, he and Duane redefined the whole Les Paul/Marshall sound. Killer.

Hey Jim,
Totally agree. He had lots to tell, just with his fingers, on the fly, both tonally and melodically. Both of them. They were quite the pairing together. You could tell them apart instantly, but when they wanted to, like on Blue Sky and Little Martha, they weaved together seamlessly.
I was lucky to catch them at an outdoor concert in Boston (on the Common, I'm pretty sure) in late summer of '71. It must have been close to when Duane was tragically killed.

[edcmat-l1]

One of my all-time favorites. RIP sir!!

[tinnitus]

Taking time off for life events, vacations, etc., I was finally able to jam with my acoustic duo partner today after a month of inactivity. We rehearsed several new covers and my fingertips were more or less shredded (I play a lot of leads). Normally, at that point, I'd blow off our weekly Melissa because of all those full-step bends above the octave. But we powered through anyway - twice - because it felt right to play it. OUCH!!!

[raysachs]

I'd never heard this before - a fully acoustic version of "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", my favorite Dickie Betts composition. I learned the slow pretty part of the intro a few years back, but I never had the chops for the faster parts. I figured this was worth a share since this is an acoustic forum, but as nice as this is, this is a tune that really sounds better with the sustain and volume swells of a Les Paul played through a Marshall stack. I listened to it back to back with the electric version from Fillmore East and, as good as this is, the electric one is way better. Maybe partly because Duane is on it, but Dickey's parts sound better too IMHO. Still, worth checking out:

-Ray

[/YOUTUBE]

[ghostnote]

Originally Posted by Gitfiddlemann

Hey Jim,
Totally agree. He had lots to tell, just with his fingers, on the fly, both tonally and melodically. Both of them. They were quite the pairing together. You could tell them apart instantly, but when they wanted to, like on Blue Sky and Little Martha, they weaved together seamlessly.
I was lucky to catch them at an outdoor concert in Boston (on the Common, I'm pretty sure) in late summer of '71. It must have been close to when Duane was tragically killed.

Hey Andre, you are correct about that show. It was in August of ‘71, and I was also there! It was part of the old Concerts on the Common program the city used to put on for years. My buddies and I sat outside the chain link fence - no tickets - we could see and hear perfectly and about halfway through we just walked in. I’ve seen the Allmans many times since then in most of their iterations. Not sure if you know this, but you can get a CD of that ‘71 show on the Allman Brothers website. They have an extensive archive of shows available for sale.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by ghostnote

Hey Andre, you are correct about that show. It was in August of ‘71, and I was also there! It was part of the old Concerts on the Common program the city used to put on for years. My buddies and I sat outside the chain link fence - no tickets - we could see and hear perfectly and about halfway through we just walked in. I’ve seen the Allmans many times since then in most of their iterations. Not sure if you know this, but you can get a CD of that ‘71 show on the Allman Brothers website. They have an extensive archive of shows available for sale.

Hi Jim, that’s wild. We were on the same side of that fence! Had no tickets either. We drove in to Boston and parked on Tremont near the Combat Zone and just walked over to the Common. We might have even crossed paths, but it sure would have been hard to predict we’d meet up again at a horse barn some 50 years later!
I didn’t know about the Allman’s site, but found the concert and its set list. Thanks for the heads up!

[tinnitus]

Originally Posted by raysachs

I'd never heard this before - a fully acoustic version of "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", my favorite Dickie Betts composition. I learned the slow pretty part of the intro a few years back, but I never had the chops for the faster parts. I figured this was worth a share since this is an acoustic forum, but as nice as this is, this is a tune that really sounds better with the sustain and volume swells of a Les Paul played through a Marshall stack. I listened to it back to back with the electric version from Fillmore East and, as good as this is, the electric one is way better. Maybe partly because Duane is on it, but Dickey's parts sound better too IMHO. Still, worth checking out:

-Ray

[/YOUTUBE]

Thanks for sharing this. As a former loud bar band player, I'm always on the lookout for classic electric tunes that translate well to acoustic. It's a masterpiece.

[Glennwillow]

I was sorry to hear about his loss to us. He left us quite a legacy.

- Glenn

[Jim Owen]

I wore the grooves off the Fillmore LPs. I loved Betts’s melodic exploration of the pentatonic scale. In a way, he brought a classic country twang to Southern rock. Tunes like Rambling Man and Highway Call sounded fresh in the early 70s. Farewell, Dickie.

[Murphy Slaw]

I loved his voice for the music he played, too.

Down home.

[J Patrick]

When I was 16 my band from Fayetteville NC, Rockfish, got to play a 4 band outdoor rock concert. It took place at the Martinsville Speedway when it was just a small local drag strip. The Allman Brothers were the headliners. They had recently recorded Live at the Fillmore East but it hadn’t been released yet and they were at the top of their game.

It was a rainy day and the concert was very poorly attended, maybe a couple hundred people…probably less. The Brothers rolled up in a big black Cadillac and just stayed in it drinking and getting high while their roadies set up their rigs. When they got out to play they were so stoned they were stumbling around. Dickie got mad at their roadie Red Dog for letting his guitar case get wet and started kicking him.

I have many memories of that day but the most vivid and lasting is when they took the stage, counted off the first number and proceeded to play their set as though it was the biggest gig of their life. A couple hundred soaking wet spectators in the middle of nowhere were witness to a level of musical greatness that in my mind has never been achieved since. They didn’t care at all about where they were, they just played for the love of playing.

Dickie and Duane are best two guitar players that I have ever seen play together. Lightning in a bottle….we ain’t never going to hear that again.