The composer and co-creator of the Allman Brothers’ guitar legacy dies at 80, leaving behind 55 years of recording, performing, and legendary tales.
Magic happened when Dickey Betts and Duane Allman played together. Their sinuous, twined, harmonized guitar lines—inspired in part by Western swing and Miles Davis—were like nothing else in rock when the Allman Brothers Band’s debut album was released in 1969. And their Les Paul and SG partnership led the way in creating the Band’s reputation as the finest rock ensemble players of their day. Although that partnership was short-lived, due to Duane’s fatal motorcycle accident in 1971, that transcendent dual-guitar sound, best captured in the heroic performances on the live At Fillmore East double-album, continued throughout the band’s career and became a hallmark of Southern rock, largely thanks to Betts. And it will endure as one of the most recognizable dialects of electrified guitar-based music.
Betts soldiered on with the Allman Brothers Band until 2000, living in the shadow of Duane, whose early death cemented his legendary status. But Betts’ playing was equally commanding—the yin to Duane’s fat-toned, slide-driven yang. As a composer, he minted melodies and riffs that endure. “Jessica,” “Blue Sky,” “Ramblin’ Man,” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” are Betts’ work. As a player, he was unerringly melodic, with a Gibson and Marshall tone that blended clarity and heft with the tang of distortion. He played loud. Really loud. But that volume fueled his expressive dynamic touch and his supremely articulate 6-string language was always worth hearing.
“The band was so good we thought we’d never make it. It was so amazing I don’t even know how to put it into words—even now.”
Dickey Betts died on April 18, reportedly from cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He’d been sidelined since 2018, when he had a mild stroke which was followed by an accident at his home, which necessitated surgery to relieve swelling of the brain. He was 80 years old.
Like the Allman Brothers over the decades, Betts’ own career had its hills and valleys, but his musical character and abilities remained intact until recent years. When I spoke with him a decade ago at Nashville’s Hutton Hotel, the then-70-year-old observed, “I’m amazed that at my age I’m still effective. I have a formidable band together and I write new songs, although mainly we just do renditions of things like ‘Jessica’ and other hits.
Those are fun to play and people enjoy those songs. I’ve got a full catalog of instrumentals that I could play all night if I wanted to. A rock ’n’ roll career is supposed to last about as long as a professional football player’s—five years and you’re done. But I’m still out there swinging, filling theaters, and playing festivals.”
Passing the torch: Betts onstage with his son, Duane Betts, who leads his own band today. Here, they recreate the dual-guitar sound first cast in bronze by Betts and Duane Allman in 1969.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Betts was in Music City on that occasion to celebrate the launch of the Gibson Custom Shop’s Southern Rock Tribute 1959 Les Paul, based on an instrument he owned, and was about to embark on one of his annual summer tours with his band Great Southern, which he’d been leading in various configurations since 1977. He also had his Dickey Betts Band, which he started in 1988 and included Warren Haynes, whom Betts drafted into the Allmans when the Brothers reformed in 1990 after a near-decade hiatus. I’d been warned by Betts’ handlers that he could be difficult, and Allman Brothers Band lore contains enough stories of his wicked temper and edge-of-violence outbursts to serve as warning. He was arrested for assaulting a police officer in 1993, and reportedly held a knife behind his back during a band argument shortly before he was dismissed from the Allmans. But, sipping a glass of wine while wearing a sleeveless white tee shirt, a straw cowboy hat, and a necklace of alligator’s teeth, he was cordial, funny, and thoughtful.
He reflected on his role in bringing jazz influences to the early Allman Brothers, which tapered well with Duane and Gregg Allman’s blues sensibilities. “I got that, initially, from Western swing,” he recalled. “My dad did play fiddle, but we didn’t call it bluegrass. It was called string music and he also played Irish reels and things. So, I think I got my sense of melody from Western swing and my dad.
“I also got my sense of tone from my dad. I saw how my dad would pay attention to his fiddle sound. He knew how to tune a fiddle by putting a tone post in, to push the top of the fiddle up. He would move that post around until he had just the right tone. So, I think that search for tone is just in my disposition. I always wanted my guitar to have a little edge on it, but with a clear sound. I experimented with different speaker combinations until I found it. Part of your tone is in your hand, too.”
After playing in a series of bands from his native Florida into the Midwest, including an outfit called the Jokers that Rick Derringer name-checked in his hit “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” Betts was recruited for the Allmans by Duane in 1969. “We didn’t do it consciously,” Betts said of their conflagrant dual-guitar sound. “We knew that when we started improvising, things fit, and we didn’t analyze it. Duane was more real militaristic into urban blues. And then I had a Western swing lilt to my rock playing, and it fit together beautifully. A lot of older folks said they thought we sounded like Benny Goodman, and it made sense to me later on when I listened to Goodman. He was pretty hip for his day, and would interweave his instruments together, too. We also listened to Miles Davis, who we thought was one of the greatest composers and bandleaders.
“Right from the beginning, we knew what we had,” Betts continued. “The band was so good we thought we’d never make it. It was so amazing I don’t even know how to put it into words—even now. With Duane, Berry Oakley, Greg and me as the songwriters, with everybody’s musicianship … it developed like a Polaroid picture. Nobody knew what it was going to be. They tried it at first as a trio, with Duane, Berry [Oakley, bass] and Jaimoe [Johnson, drums], and they cut some demos that were okay but they knew it wasn’t the Cream or Jimi Hendrix. And Berry told Duane the magic was happening when Betts was around, jamming, and from there we just grew into a six-piece naturally.
“We were elated with our sound, but every record company in the country turned us down. ‘All the songs sound the same.’ ‘They don’t have a frontman’… all this corny junk. So, we just started to travel around the country playing for free. In Boston, I remember we moved into a condemned building and ran an extension cord from the next building. We played in the park there. We’d get some hippies together and build a stage.”
While ’69’s The Allman Brothers Band sold poorly at first, it received critical acclaim, and the band’s grassroots mentality and love for playing—often relayed live via extended versions of their songs with plenty of improvisation—took hold in the potent American youth culture. The follow-up, Idlewild South, fared a bit better commercially, but At Fillmore East became their breakthrough. Sadly, Duane died just three months after its release.
“When we started getting killed off, well, there was nothing we could do about that,” Betts reflected. “It was tough times after we lost Duane and then we lost Berry. But then we had our biggest record [Eat a Peach, from 1972]. We figured. ‘Why quit when you’re losing?,’ and it worked out.
“And then, of course, the whole thing came apart,” Betts said of his 2000 ouster from the band. He was removed by the other charter members for the transgressions he was notorious for: drug and alcohol abuse, aggressive behavior. “But the Allman Brothers weren’t like the Rolling Stones, where we toured every five years. We were a working band. Thirty years is a long haul—especially when you’re doing something where your emotions are on your shirtsleeve all the time. The social dynamics just blew apart.”
Regarding the Southern rock mantle, Betts said, “We didn’t like it at first. It was kind of a reckless business label put on us by record companies. We thought of ourselves as progressive rock. We wanted to be more sophisticated than Southern rock sounds. We also didn’t think Southern bands sound that much alike, so why categorize them that way? As I get older I understand it was about record company marketing, but the difference between Marshall Tucker and the Allman Brothers Band is vast. They were more Western and we had a lot more jazz and blues, and improvising. My favorite was Molly Hatchet.”
Until his stroke and other illnesses waylaid him, Betts settled into his own music, seemingly content to be out of the heavy cycle of touring and recording required by a major band, settled into his life on Florida’s Gulf Coast. “I like fishing,” he said. “We live on the water and I’ve got a boat. I’m an archer. I can shoot stuff out of the air. We hunt wild hogs on the islands. It’s good to have something to do when you go home besides take dope [laughs]. I’d always get in trouble. On the road you’re busy; you go home and you don’t know what to do. Now I have some other good ways to apply myself.” Betts is survived by his wife, Donna, and four children: Kimberly, Christy, Jessica, and Duane, a skillful guitarist and bandleader in his own right.
Watch PG's John Bohlinger have a joyride on Skydog's 6-string—which was featured on "Layla," The Allman Brothers Band, and Idlewild South.
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One of the most revered Southern rock bands of all time combined grit and soul with blazing blues guitar. Learn how Duane Allman and Dickey Betts forged an unforgettable sound.
Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Beginner
Lesson Overview:
• Learn how to craft dual-guitar harmonies.
• Expand your slide guitar vocabulary.
• Combine major and minor pentatonic sounds.
Click here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.
When talking about Southern rock, there are really only a couple of names to consider when you look for bands that epitomize this style. The Allman Brothers Band were at the forefront of this musical movement from its inception, and with a career that spanned 40 years, ABB impacted the sound of the South like no other rock group.
Formed by brothers Gregg and Duane Allman, the band would have a definitive impact on music with the albums that were made before Duane’s untimely death in 1971. With a searing lead style and otherworldly chops on slide, Duane would influence generations of players. One of the other key aspects of the band’s guitar style was the wonderful dual-guitar harmonies made possible by the pairing of Duane with Dickey Betts, another excellent player in his own right who would stay with the band up until 2000.
Throughout the life of the band, which formally retired from touring and performing in 2014, several notable guitarists have passed through the ranks, including Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Dan Toler, Jack Pearson, and for a single tour, Jimmy Herring. For the purpose of this lesson, we’ll focus on the classic 1969-1971 period of Duane and Dickey.
I’ve composed three short solos for you this month, one looking at the lead style of Duane and Dickey, then another pass with two-part harmony, and finally an open-E slide solo à la Duane.
The most refreshing part of this track is that it’s mostly in the key of G major and therefore the G major pentatonic scale (G–A–B–D–E) is very useful. I often find that many guitarists have a strong sense of melody when using the minor pentatonic scale, but things fall apart when switching to the major form.
The first solo (Ex. 1) begins by approaching the 3 of G (B) and moving up to the root of the scale (G). The double-edged sword presented in the major pentatonic scale is that it’s an inversion of a minor pentatonic scale: G major has the same notes as E minor. This is a benefit because you only need to know one set of shapes to play this sound. But on the other hand, you’ll quickly learn that licks you think of as being minor often don’t sound quite right over a major chord because your resolutions are in the wrong place. Measures 2-5 demonstrate this well, playing up at the 15th fret and moving down to the 12th. When working out this example, it will probably be easier to think of E minor pentatonic (E–G–A–B–D), which teaches us that moving the root down three frets will connect the major and minor shapes.
The next lick mixes notes of G major pentatonic and G minor pentatonic (G–Bb–C–D–F) to create something a little grittier. The notable part is landing on F# when the D chord comes around.
In the final measures, I use some country-inspired bending, which entails holding a bend while moving the notes above it on the 1st string.
Click here for Ex. 1
The magic of the twin-guitar style ABB made so popular is that it’s far less calculated than what you might hear from a band like Racer X, who would opt for something a little more regimented. The Allman Brothers would have one guitarist play a melody, while the other played something similar, but higher up. This results in a more organic sound, as some intervals will be thirds and others may be fourths. This also goes hand in hand with limiting your phrasing to pentatonic ideas. Sometimes the two lines might not even line up perfectly, but that all adds to the charm.
In Ex. 2, try following the low part (Gtr. 2) and pay attention to getting the bends as in tune as possible.
Now have a look at the upper part (Gtr. 1). Notice how it often just sticks to the pentatonic scale, but a string higher. This part shouldn’t present too many problems if you’ve nailed the previous part.
Click here for Ex. 2
Finally, I’ve written a pass (Ex. 3) on the slide, this time tuned to open E (E–B–E–G#–B–E), which was Duane’s tuning of choice. Beginning with a smooth slide all the way up to the 22nd fret. Playing with the slide on the 3rd finger will help here (though I place it on my middle finger, so anything is possible).
The second half of the solo sticks to a common pattern around the 15th fret. The idea is that the 15th fret is your tonic chord (G) and around that you can play two frets below on each string and three frets above. This won’t give you a strict scale, but it will result in some cool major/minor sounds.
Click here for Ex. 3
Finally, there’s a backing track for you to play over as you try out some of these ideas. Just remember, during their amazingly long career ABB has generated thousands of ideas worth stealing, so check out any of their records and get to work!