Word-for-word with Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers: the complete interview, July 10, 1992

By Steve Newton

I’ve interviewed hundreds of musicians over the years, but Dickey Betts stands out as one of my fave rock legends to chat with.

I’ve interviewed him four times, this being the third time, when he was back with the Allman Brothers and they’d just released the live album An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: First Set.

The woman who answered the phone, Dickey’s wife I guess, initially claimed that he wasn’t there. I’m glad she changed her mind about that.

Phone rings

Hello?

Hello, is Dickey Betts there?

He’s not here right now, may I take a message?

Yeah, it’s Steve Newton calling from Vancouver. I was supposed to do an interview with him right now.

Oh, okay–yes, actually, to tell you the truth he is here, but (laughs), we’ve been very hectic here this morning, so I was going to take messages. Yeah, I can go get him. Hold on a second, okay?

Sure, okay.

Hello.

Hi Dickey.

Yeah.

How you doin’ dude?

Okay.

Alright, yeah, it’s Steve calling from Vancouver.

Steve, yeah, how you doing? I’ve talked to you before, haven’t I?

Oh yeah. You did actually. I think you guys were happy with the last interview I did.

Yeah, you did a real nice article, I remember that now.

Alright. Congratulations on the new live album, there, Dickey.

Thank you.

It’s been a long time comin’, I guess.

Uh, yeah. We have to earn the right to do those, I guess. That’s our favorite kinda thing, just being recorded live. Of course, when the tape starts rolling, it takes quite a little bit to get over being conscious of tryin’ to play to that tape recorder instead of playing to the people.

Mmm.

You know, that’s why we recorded so many different nights, just trying to catch a good relaxed night, when we could forget about that tape rollin’.

Yeah, gotcha.

Yeah, we played like three nights in Macon, and we played three nights in Boston, and we recorded three or four nights in New York.

Yeah.

Actually we played that little theater in New York, ten nights straight run, and I felt like I was back in the club circuit, you know, playing a six-nighter.

Are those three of your best cities would you say, or did it just work out that way?

Well, I don’t know, they’re kinda significant, you know, all three, ‘cause the Fillmore was in New York, and the Fillmore East record came outta New York, and we’ve always had great fans in New York City.

And then Boston is kinda where we got started, you know. When we first left Atlanta we went out and played the Don Law’s Tea Party there, and he would just let us play there for free, so we’d play free all the time, tryin’ to get started. So we spent about two months in Boston just tryin’ to get some recognition.

Ah.

And in the process we built up a lot of, you know, hardcore home-base kind of fans there, you know, which has kind of lasted throughout all these years. And then, of course, Atlanta and Macon, that’s where we’ve all got out. So that’s the story on that.

Yeah. I was wondering, do you think that An Evening with the Allman Brothers captured the band as well At Fillmore East did?

Well, see, it’s just hard to… I‘m the worst person in the world to ask those kinds of questions, especially when you like compare me with me, you know what I mean? It’s like comparing our band with our band. It’s real hard for me to be that objective. The Fillmore East, see, was to me light years away. I mean, it was like it was another world almost.

Yeah.

It was so long ago. And it was a wonderful time, you know–it’s years I’ll never forget–but I kinda like to think that we all are better than that now. You know, jeez, it’s 20 years later and we’ve been playing all this time. We should be better, or we shouldn’t be doing it, you know? But the Fillmore had a certain kind of magic, and a certain kind of…the way the times were, and the way the people felt about their music, and..

Exactly.

…and even though that feeling is coming back a lot with bands like us and the Grateful Dead and Santana, and a lot of those kind of bands, you know, there’s just something magical about the old Fillmore days. And so it is hard to say that something is better than that.

But I think strictly, as far as a product and just a good strong musical performance, the Fillmore aside, you know, this new live album, I couldn’t be happier with. I mean I think we did some things on there that really surprised me that it came off that well.

Yeah.  I see..

There’s one thing on there, the Willie McTell/Dickey Betts tune, that was just a jam. I mean, nobody had even heard that before, and I just threw it in one night, because I was tired of doin’ the same song every night, in that place, and I just started jammin’ with the thing. And I thought it was a Willie McTell tune, and it turns out it was just kind of an influence from his “Mama Taint Long Fo’ Day” song.

Yeah.

So about half the words I’d made up, and the melody I’d half made up, you know, so I split [the credits] with Willie McTell because I was thinkin’ of his tune the whole time. And so that was a real interesting thing. We didn’t even know we were gonna play that song that night.

Was it tough to pick the tunes for the live album?

Well, it’ll be tougher for…you know, there’ll probably be a second set coming out.

Yeah, I noticed that it said “first set” on this one.

Yeah, ‘cause we recorded a lot of material, and our show is about three hours long.

Yeah, I know, I enjoyed it.

But what we really didn’t want to do–and it’ll be very obvious now ’cause you and I just went through it–all the comparisons that’s drawn between the Fillmore East record and this one, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put any of those tunes that are on the Fillmore East record on this one.

Ah.

You know, it could just look like an old nostalgic kind of repeat of what we did. We wanted to make damn sure we used–not especially new tunes, do old tunes, but just stuff that we hadn’t recorded live before or that we surely hadn’t put on the Fillmore East record.

So in that respect it made the choosing of the tunes easier. I think the hard part comes when you figure we recorded about eight nights, you know, eight to 10 nights all told, so you got the same tune recorded on about eight different nights. I mean a lot of them we played every night, so pickin’ the right one of those was a big ordeal.

I was a little surprised “One Way Out” didn’t make it on the First Set.

Well, you see, “One Way Out” was such a great live performance with Duane Allman on the Eat A Peach album, that we just didn’t want to touch that, you know. I mean, we’re doin’ a lotta things like “Statesboro Blues”, but I don’t know, we wanted to stay away from re-recording things that were already recorded live one time before.  We didn’t do “Jessica”, and we purposely didn’t put “Whippin’ Post” on there.

Ah.

You know, we just kinda stayed away from a lot of the things. We did “Blue Sky”, and we did “Revival”, ’cause we’d never recorded those live, you know, there’s just studio cuts of those.

“Blue Sky” is one of my favorite tunes.

Yeah, and “Southbound”, we hadn’t done that live, plus when we did record it, Gregg sang it, if you’ll remember.

Ah.

See, and I wrote the song, so I’m singing it, you know.

You’re doing it live.

Yeah, I’m singing it live, I have been really ever since we cut it. But Gregg sang it on the record (laughs). And, ah, so I started singing it shortly after that. So that’s an interesting little thing there.

You’re not playing “Ramblin’ Man” live?

Yeah, kinda, you know, it still gets so much airplay. I love the song and, uh, it pays the rent around here (laughs), but we don’t do it much because everybody is so used to it, including the audience, you know. They’ve heard it so many times that, we’d rather do a song that they don’t get to hear very much, you know, like an acoustic “Melissa” or something like that.

What percentage of your current crowd would you say are new fans, Dickey?

Oh God, that’s hard to say. I think it’s runnin’ about 50/50 now. God, we got a lot of young men and young ladies out there, from the looks of it from about the age of 17 right on up, you know, to my age–45, 50 years old (laughs). A lot of the guys that were in college when we first came out are still comin’.

You know, the younger people get right up front of the stage, so you see them, they’re more obvious to us. But if you get to looking back about 20 rows you can start seeing a lot of the old fans. You know, the music sounds so much better if you get back about 20 rows, ‘cause you can appreciate the PA set and all that.

It must make you feel pretty good inside, when you see people that just hung on to the band ever since the beginning.

Yes, it does. And I’ll tell ya, it makes you feel just as good–or maybe, well a different kind of thing– to see the young people, a whole new generation comin’ out. And there’s just a very few bands that are doing that, you know. The Rolling Stones, of course, and the Grateful Dead. And I’m proud to be of that fraternity, to say, you know, that we’ve transcended a generation. It’s difficult to do in rock music, especially as trendy as this kinda music tends to be.

What’s the Orpheum Theater that you have on the cover there, is that…

The what now?

The Orpheum Theater?

Yeah.

Is that the one in Macon, Georgia?

No, that’s the one we recorded at in Boston.

In Boston?

Mm-hmm.

Nice lookin’ place.

And that is the actual front entrance in which we were actually standing. I mean, that’s not a painting or anything behind us.

Oh, that’s nice.

It’s an actual photograph of the lettering up there just as it was.

Excellent.

And if you notice–have you noticed out tour bus on the front?

Yeah, I see that.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t see that. They say “where’s the tour bus, I don’t see no tour bus.”(laughs).

I didn’t notice it at first.

Yeah, but you can kinda see it sideways with all the reflections over it. I thought that was a cool idea.

Does the whole band get on that one bus there?

No, we’ve got three of ’em. We got one for half the band, and one for the other half of the band, and one for the road crew.

Oh, I see.

And they’re all just like that one.

You don’t mind riding the bus after all these years?

Ahh, I love it, man. We used to charter planes, and we used to fly commercial flights, and…see those buses? So you know when you take a bus, it’s not like upright seats. They’re like a camper inside, there’s couches and a table and chairs and, you know, like a booth.

Like a traveling home, I guess.

Yeah, and we got a television, we got a VCR, we got all kinds of movies on there. We have coffee, and we have a refrigerator, and, you know, we can cook in the microwave. And there’s nine bunks in the middle, like on a train bus, you know. And so, you can get in there in the middle section. And then in the rear of the bus there’s another lounge back there.

So it’s really comfortable. You can lay around and put your sweats on and watch a movie, and kinda… So I love traveling that way. Plus, you get to see the country you’re traveling through.

Yeah.

So many years I traveled all over the United States and I talked to a truck driver or somebody about travelin’, and I realized, I hadn’t really been anywhere–I just kinda hopped from one Holiday Inn to the other, you know. And so, you get out on the road like that, and you can see the countryside goin’ by, and it’s just real nice.

Have you had any accidents doin’ all those miles?

No, no. We make sure…we use a lot of close scrutiny when it comes to choosing a bus driver.  We’ve had a lot of guys that’s only driven a few days and we’d send ‘em home, you know, ‘cause of drinking, and speeding, and what we felt was uncomfortable.

Uh huh. Looks like you got quite a line-up of guys, you got eight guys on the cover. Is that how many actual members there are?

(Laughs) Yeah, there’s seven of us.

Seven, yeah.

Yeah, no, that’s Thom Doucette over there in the black hat standing by the bus. He played harmonica on the Fillmore stuff.

Oh, did he?

Yeah, so he’s one of our ol’ brothers that go way back, he just never worked with the band. We offered him a job with the band and he said, “No, wouldn’t be any fun, then I’d have to show up every night.” He’s kind of a kick-around dude, you know.

Yeah.

And so, uh, we asked him if he wanted to play on this and he jumped on a flight and got out to New York.

I guess the newest member is Marc Queenownes?.

Quinones.

He’s from Spyro Gyra?

Yeah. He plays percussion, you know, Latin percussion.

Yeah.

And he really fires the band up back there, you know, with his real fire-cracker kind of percussion he’s playing.

You’ve got three percussionists now.

Yeah.

I guess it’s always been a pretty important part of the Allman Brothers sound.

Yeah, you know, we tried to have a third drummer two or three times during the history of our band, and we never could all come to an agreement on a particular guy.

Huh.

You know, like the guitar players would come up with a guy they thought was a great drummer, and the drummers would veto it, you know (laughs). And then vice versa–the drummers would come up with a guy they wanted and we wouldn’t like ‘em. So this is the first guy we all agreed on, you know, that would fit into the organization. And he is–he is a great, great fellow to have in the band.

Yeah, he’s in the touning band, but Thom isn’t touring with you, is he?

No, no. Thom is a guest on the album.

Yeah. I see in your bio here that An Evening with the Allman Brothers is your first “official” live album since ’71. Have there been any unofficial ones, bootlegs?

Well, you see, you have to have a little bit of understanding about how this music business can work. See, I’m not in the music business, I’m a musician, you know. But we have signed with different record companies over the years, and when we leave a record company, whatever we recorded with their company–even though they have to pay us if they put it out–they still don’t have to have our permission, you understand? So whatever they had on tape while we were signed to them, they can just make a record out of it and put it out without asking us, or getting our approval–or disapproval. Doesn’t matter.

Right.

All they’re obligated to do is pay us for what they sell, know what I’m saying?

Uh huh.

So that’s why we get a lot of stuff out that’s not really our records, and thank God PolyGram has been puttin’ out a lot of ’em, and they’ve done a damn good job, I mean that Live at Ludlow Garage?

I haven’t heard that on.

Well, that’s one, that’s a helluva nice record. You know, it’s an old one with the original band, Duane Allman, and we used to play in Cincinnati this place called Ludlow Garage, and it was like a psychedelic dungeon, you know.

I’ll have to look for that one.

And it’s a damn good record, you know. And it scares you to death when they come out with these ‘cause you got no control over it at all. And the same thing with, believe it or not, the Dreams package.

Yeah.

We had no control, nothing to do with that at all. I mean, they did call me and ask me what did I think of the selection of tunes, and I had my negatives and I had my positives, and they changed a coupla things and left a few things the way it was. But that was nice of them to do that; they didn’t have to even do that much, you know.

So we’ve been pretty fortunate, really, in that respect. Another one was Wash the Windows, Check the Oil. That was one that was out of our control, which again was a pretty good album, you know.

Alright.

So, you know, they did a lotta stuff with Jimi Hendrix, and some of it was embarrassing, you know, if you remember. So we’ve been very fortunate that all the stuff that’s come out has been a damn good record.

Alright. Just, uh, my last question for you, I was wondering what the Blues Travelers are like. They’re supposed to be quite the jamming band, I understand.

Yeah, they’re a good band, and a good young kind of a band reminiscent of the way bands came up in the late ’60s and early ’70s. You know, they’re like–well I don’t think it would be flattering to them if I said they were like proteges of bands like the Dead and the Allman Brothers–but they come from that influence, you know.

Alright.

And I like them a whole lot. I mean, my band likes them obviously or we wouldn’t be doing so many shows with them. And you should tell your people there in town not to come late, to come early and see them. ‘Cause, you know, they’re worth the ticket price just to come see them.

I’ll pass the word.

Yeah, they’re a very interesting band, you’ll like ’em.

Alright. I look forward to seeing you up here July 31st, Dickey.

Alright.

I appreciate your time again.

Sure thing, we’ll see you then, okay.

Take care, Dickey.

Bye.

Interview transcribed by hardcore Allman Brothers fan Lee Morse, 2024.

To hear the full audio of my interviews with Allman Brothers Band members Dickey Betts, Warren Haynes, Gregg Alllman, and Derek Trucks subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with musicians since 1982.