Dickey Betts releasing new live album Friday

Editor's note: A version of this article appears as the liner notes to the new Dickey Betts Band release "Ramblin' Man Live at the St. George Theatre" (BMG). It's available Friday as a CD/DVD package and on vinyl as a double LP.

Dickey Betts has been a ramblin’ man since quitting high school to play rock ’n’ roll in a traveling circus called World of Mirth. He would do about a dozen shows a day on the Teen Beat stage at fairgrounds from Canada all the way down the eastern seaboard. On stages from city to city, this is where Betts has always thrived and cemented his reputation as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. 

An original member of the Allman Brothers Band, he first found fame and fortune with the release of their 1971 live album “At Fillmore East.” Betts played a key role in making the Allman Brothers stadium-filling stars in the mid-’70s then returned the band to prominence in 1989, keeping the group among rock’s vanguard through the ’90s. As leader of his Great Southern group during the 2000s, Betts continued to play stages around the world, elating fans from Chicago to Tokyo. 

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Betts headlined a celebratory 2014 charity concert held a few miles from his longtime Florida home and then, with no announcement before or during the show, he retired. For about four years, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee remained at the ranch house he shares with wife Donna on Little Sarasota Bay, spending his time playing golf rather than guitar. It appeared the Ramblin’ Man had finally settled. On his 74th birthday, though, Betts made the announcement we all hoped to hear: “Everywhere I go fans keep saying they want me to get out and play again,” he said. “I think the time is right.” 

The new Dickey Betts Band debuted in May (2018) and now we have a CD/DVD and double vinyl LP capturing a special performance from July 21, 2018, at the historic St. George Theatre in New York City. Fittingly, it’s titled “Ramblin’ Man,” and, damn, it’s wonderful to have the maestro back up there commanding the stage. 

Wearing a cowboy hat and matching boots with blue jeans and a flannel shirt, a white-bearded Betts takes the stage backed by his former Great Southern band mates: his son Duane Betts (lead guitar), Frankie Lombardi (drums, backup vocals), Mike Kach (keyboards and lead vocals) and Pedro Arevalo (bass); as well as equally talented new additions Damon Fowler (lead/slide guitar and vocals) and Steve Camilleri (drums). 

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The set opens with a staggering rendition of the propulsive instrumental “Hot ’Lanta,” which has never before appeared on a Betts album. Based on a Betts melody line, it’s the rare Allman Brothers Band song with the writing credited to all of the band’s original lineup. Opening with some tasty riffs from the Grateful Dead favorite “Franklin’s Tower,” the band segues into a beautiful performance of Betts’ “Blue Sky,” followed by an explosive “Statesboro Blues.” Betts then pays tribute to his longtime bandmate Gregg Allman, who passed in 2017, by bringing his son Devon Allman on stage with the band to sing lead vocal on a chilling “Midnight Rider.” 

Kach takes the spotlight next to sing his self-penned ballad “My Getaway,” with sweet solos and fills by all three guitarists on stage. Betts returns to lead vocals on “Nothing You Can Do,” a fun, upbeat song from his 1977 solo album “Dickey Betts & Great Southern” that perfectly sums up unrequited love: “There ain’t nothing you can do to love somebody and they don’t love you.” Betts’ masterful instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” runs about 20 minutes without ever meandering, the highlight of this rendition being the emotive manner in which father and son simultaneously make their guitars sound like violins. 

When Arevalo plays the signature bass riff to the Gregg Allman-composed “Whipping Post” the room erupts. Like “Hot ’Lanta” and “Midnight Rider,” “Whipping Post” has never before appeared on a Betts album. It’s a real treat to hear Betts, with Kach delivering potent vocals, revisit this classic he helped shape on stage, night after night, with the Allman Brothers starting in 1969 as the song morphed from a five-minute studio track to a live epic running over twice that length here.

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The Allman Brothers had one Top 10 single, and it came in 1973 with the Betts country-rock anthem “Ramblin’ Man” that he wrote and sang. Here, Betts gives it an unhurried, soulful makeover with ample room for his twangy guitar riffs to shine through like rays of Florida sunshine. The show concludes with Betts’ composition “Jessica,” the rare instrumental to be a radio hit in the 1970s, with a live version of it from the 1990s winning a Grammy. On this recording, the song sounds positively joyous. Betts’ guitar playing pours through the speakers as fluid, formidable and exhilarating as it has at any time during the past five decades.

Yes, the Ramblin’ Man has returned.