Dickey Betts talking about an incident in 1993, when Betts, along with Bob Dylan, the Band, Stephen Stills and others, had been invited to play at a Bill Clinton inauguration event. Betts’ performance was shaky – the house band was so inept, he says, it could barely get through “Southbound,” a song from his years with the Allman Brothers Band. Backstage, Betts recalls, he met “a real smartass in a three-piece suit” who told him, “ ’You got to do some woodshedding to play with the big boys.’ ” Betts became enraged, slugging the guy and knocking him onto Dylan, who was napping on a couch. Betts was afraid he had hit a congressman, but it turned out he was another act’s drug dealer. “It was really a relief,” Betts says. “I was worried about the police comin’ to arrest me.”
The Allman Brothers Band were among rock’s hardest-living groups, and Betts more than lived up to his side of that deal – from taking swings at two cops in 1976 to instigating an Allmans band brawl 20 years later. Trashed hotel rooms and arrests are as much a part of his legend as signature songs like “Ramblin’ Man” and “Jessica.” With his horseshoe mustache and moody-cowboy image, Betts was so charismatic that Cameron Crowe based one of the central characters in Almost Famous – Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond, played by Billy Crudup – on Betts. “Cru-dup’s look, and much more, is a tribute to Dickey,” Crowe says. “Dickey seemed like a quiet guy with a huge amount of soul, possible danger and playful recklessness behind his eyes. He was a huge presence.”
In 1976, the Allmans broke up, Betts telling Rolling Stone, “There is no way we can work with Gregg again. Ever.” Gregg had testified in court against his drug dealer and road manager, which the bandmates saw as a betrayal. After a three-year reunion that ended in 1982, they re-formed in 1989, and Betts soon became the driving force again, especially after Allman relapsed. “I have all the respect for Gregg Allman,” says Betts. “He was a leader when it came to talent. Duh! But he was never the leader-type personality.” But Betts wasn’t easy to work with either. Tired of dealing with his bossiness, drinking issues and unpredictability, the three other founders – Allman, Jaimoe and Trucks – wrote him a letter after a series of rocky shows in 2000, saying he was out of the band until he sobered up. “He would say, ‘I need to go get myself straight,’ and that’s what he would do,” Jaimoe says. “This time he didn’t do it. He didn’t get fired. He quit.”
Betts disagrees, saying he was kicked out thanks to “a whole clandestine business thing” that stemmed from the moment he asked manager Bert Holman for an audit of their finances. “Big fuckin’ mistake on my part,” Betts says. (Holman says he has no recollection of that request.) Whatever the case, Betts was awarded an undisclosed financial settlement and his walking papers. Betts neglects to discuss that period in detail (“I don’t want to say anything bad about Gregg”), but he speculates that without all the dysfunction, the Allmans might have gotten even more popular – as revered as the Grateful Dead. “After Jerry [Garcia] passed away, we were right in the position to move into that next-step thing,” he says. “But everyone was fucking my band up. Gregg wanted horns. And it was just so crazy.”
- David Browne / Rolling Stone
Photo: John Atashian
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