Dickey Betts, guitarist, singer and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, dies at 80

The musician Dickey Betts, guitarist, singer and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, died this Thursday at the age of 80. This has been confirmed by his family through a statement. His representative, David Spero, said he suffered from cancer and chronic lung disease. He was hospitalized in 2018 for a brain injury after falling in the yard of his house. “The legendary performer, songwriter 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 around the world,” can be read in the text published on the group's official website.

Betts was the author and performer of one of the group's most important songs:

Ramblin' Man

. The song was the only one from the band that was in the top 10 of the United States sales chart. The lyrics, accompanied by a happy and upbeat country melody, expressed the nostalgia of a man “born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rolling down Highway 41.” His other important compositions were

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

,

Jessica

and

Crazy Love

, to name a few. All marked by his particular guitar style, which

Rolling Stone

magazine

defined as “sweetly sinuous that introduces elements of swing and jazz to country.”

Betts' importance in the Allman Brothers is often equated with that of its founders, brothers Duane and Gregg; The first died in 1971 and the second in 2017. He played the guitar with virtuosity and feeling. His guitar intertwining with Duane Allman in the group's early years has been studied for years by lovers and learners of southern rock. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, Betts started playing the ukulele when he was five years old, then moved on to bass and mandolin. “When I finally got to seventh grade, I learned about girls, rock & roll and Chuck Berry,” he said in an interview. He formed his own band at age 16 and interspersed his musical career with that of a house painter and postman.

In the late sixties he formed the group Second Coming, along with bassist Berry Oakley. At that time they met Duane Allman, who asked them in 1969 to join the newly formed Allman Brothers Band. “We had a hard time talking and getting along, but we all knew we were creating something we had heard in our heads for a long time. “We had to convince Duane to reconcile with his brother Gregg, because they always had brother fights,” he told the

Washington Post

.

Betts debuted as the band's songwriter with

Revival

, a song from the group's first self-titled album in 1969. But his first success as a songwriter was

Blue Sky

, recorded just before Duane Allman's death. The lyrics were inspired by his first wife, a Native American. After the leader's death, the Allman Brothers Band experimented with fusion between other genres. Their fourth album,

Brothers and Sisters

, brought them closer to pop and Betts' solo album,

Highway Call

, incorporated elements of jazz, bluegrass and gospel.

The group's next album,

Win, Lose or Draw

(1975), did not receive a good reception from critics. That same year, Gregg Allman married singer Cher and moved to Beverly Hills. The band finally disbanded when Allman became involved in a drug case in 1976 and testified against one of the band's stage technicians. But Betts stayed busy, as he recorded for other country artists, such as Hank Williams Jr., Billy Joe Shaver and Gary Stewart.

The Allman Brothers reunited in 1978 with new members, such as young guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks. They would go on to record seven more studio albums and another six live albums. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. The following year, there were rumors, according to the

Washington Post

, of a further rift in the band after Betts allegedly put a gun to his wife's head during an argument about her drug abuse. He had to leave the group to enter rehabilitation. In 2000, Allman founding members Butch Trucks, who committed suicide in 2017 with a gunshot wound to the head, and Gregg Allman fired Betts, citing a decline in his playing. He threatened to sue them, but in the end they reached an out-of-court settlement.

The guitarist returned to the group and played often with his son, also a guitarist and whom he named after his old friend Duane. With the 2017 deaths of Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks, Betts moved to the outskirts of Osprey, Florida. Problems did not stop pursuing him even in that idyllic landscape. His wife, Donna Betts, was arrested for pointing a rifle at her neighbors while they were rowing on the lake in front of her house. Dickey Betts told

Rolling Stone

in 2018: “They have 300 teenagers who come there and they are very arrogant. They drive down the road and don't get out of your way. You work your whole life to get a place like this and they rent it out!”

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