Dickey Betts, a co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band and one of the most influential and colourful figures in the realm of music known loosely as southern rock, died on April 18, 2024, following a period of declining health. His passing at 80 years old left just co-drummer Jai Johanny Johanson, aka Jaimo, as the last surviving member of the original line-up of the group.
A statement on behalf of the band recalled how Betts’s “extraordinary” guitar playing, alongside that of Duane Allman, “created a unique dual-guitar sound that became the signature sound”. Until that point it had been traditional for two-guitar bands to have defined roles for soloists and rhythm players.
The statement remembered Betts as being “passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing”, adding: “Dickey was all-in on and excelled at anything that caught his attention.”
It concluded: “Betts joins his brothers, Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks and Gregg Allman, as well as ABB crew members Twiggs Lyndon, Joe Dan Petty, Red Dog, Kim Payne and Mike Callahan in that old Winnebago in the sky touring the world, taking their music to all who will listen.”
The Allman Brothers Band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969, their freeform style fusing together elements of country, rock, blues and jazz. While brothers Duane (guitar) and Gregg Allman (keyboards, vocals) were the band’s leaders, Betts was a significant member, writing many of the band’s quintessential songs including Blue Sky and Ramblin’ Man, and also the instrumentals In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed and Jessica, the latter of which became the theme tune to the British TV show Top Gear.
On stage and in the studio, the band became known for their improvisational skills. Their tune Mountain Jam (based on the 1967 Donovan song There Is a Mountain), which appeared on 1972’s part-live double album Eat A Peach, would serve as an extended instrumental jamming vehicle for the Allman Brothers Band throughout their long and distinguished history.
Also recognised for his unpredictable, hellraising rock-star behaviour, Betts was the inspiration for the character played by Billy Crudup in the 2000 film Almost Famous. During Betts’s youth, trashed hotel rooms, arrests and fights with band members and authority figures were just a little too commonplace.
Forrest Richard Betts was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. At five years old he played the ukulele, and progressed to performing in several local bands before meeting future ABB member bassist Berry Oakley III and forming the group Second Coming. After the pair jammed with Duane Allman, Duane invited them to team up together.
With his connection to Eric Clapton, Duane brought pedigree to the Allman Brothers Band, although the ex-session star admitted: “I’m the famous guitar player, but Dickey is the good one.”
When Duane died in a motorcycle crash in October 1971, with the group poised for a commercial breakthrough via their double live set At Fillmore East, Betts stepped up to take a bigger role. When just a year later Berry Oakley died in remarkably similar circumstances, crashing his motorbike into a bus just three blocks from where Duane had been killed, a lesser band would have combusted. But somehow the Allmans continued to reinvent themselves, with Betts acting as unofficial leader for their fourth album, 1973’s Brothers And Sisters.
Although the ABB became superstars, drug usage began to spiral, and the band members grew apart. When Gregg Allman reluctantly testified against his personal road manager John ‘Scooter’ Herring in a 1976 federal drugs case, the Brothers were torn asunder. After a split in 1976, Betts released a solo album, Highway Call, before forming Dickey Betts & Great Southern.
A reunion ensued for the Allmans’ 1979 album Enlightened Rogues, but despite selling half a million copies the spark was missing, and three years later, having misfired with Reach For The Sky and Brothers Of The Road, the band broke up again.
In 1989 a new line-up celebrated ABB’s twentieth anniversary, with guitarist Warren Haynes, previously of Dickey Betts’s solo group, helping them to rediscover their form with the back-tobasics, Tom Dowd-produced 1990 album Seven Turns.
“I wound up spending twenty-five years of my life as a member of my favourite band,” Haynes stated, as the terrible news of Betts’s death broke. “It did not take long to realise, standing next to Dickie with that beautiful tone, that I had a lot to work to do on both with my tone and with my style. He threw me in the lake and I had to learn to swim. I’m forever grateful for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
With Gregg Allman and Betts at loggerheads, for what was described as “personal reasons” – the band had insisted that Dickey go into rehab – he was suspended prior to a tour in 1990. The move was meant to be temporary. “Ain’t no way we can fire Dickey,” founding member Butch Trucks said at the time. However, the first of several police reports for claims by his long-suffering wife Donna of domestic assault muddied the waters. Betts insists he was sacked for demanding an audit of the band’s money from the band’s management.
“[Dickey] was just crazy as a bat, y’know,” Gregg Allman explained at the time. “But the main thing is that it wasn’t working musically any more.”
After Betts filed a lawsuit, there was little realistic chance of him making a return to the Allman Brothers, so he resumed a solo career. In later years his son Duane (named after Duane Allman) joined him on lead guitar in Dickey Betts & Great Southern.
Betts and Gregg Allman reconciled before the latter’s death in 2017. Betts’s daughter Christie is married to Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon. A road dog to the end, Betts remained on the road even after brain surgery as a result of a fall at his Florida home in what was described as a “freak accident”. He also suffered a minor stroke.
Betts was inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with the rest of the Allman Brothers Band in 1995. Still without him, the group wrapped their career in October 2014 upon completion of what had become an annual run of shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre. They continue to be hailed as an influence by Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, The Black Crowes and Kid Rock, among others
Despite having become poster boys for the genre, Betts “hated” the label ‘southern rock’, commenting: “I think it’s limiting. I’d rather just be known as a progressive rock band from the South. Calling us that pigeonholed us, forcing people to expect certain types of music from us that I don’t think are fair.”
In 2020, Betts was name-checked in Bob Dylan’s song Murder Most Foul, which included the line: ‘Play Oscar Peterson, play Stan Getz, play Blue Sky, play Dickey Betts’. While Betts was thrilled by that, he was modest enough to say: “Well, he [Dylan] just used me because [my name] rhymes with Getz.’”
