By Steve Newton
Just heard some fantastic news: that a stretch of highway in Florida is going to be named after Dickey Betts, the legendary Allman Brothers guitarist who passed away last year at the age of 80.
According to news reports, Sarasota County commissioners are sending a request to the Florida Department of Transportation to rename part of U.S. Highway 41 after Betts, who has lived in the Sarasota area for decades.
The tribute would be particularly deserving since Betts resided near the roadway he immortalized in the 1973 Allman Brothers hit “Ramblin’ Man” when he sang “And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus, rollin’ down Highway 41.”
Dedicated Allman Brothers fans may already know that Betts’ former coguitarist Duane Allman also had a stretch of road named after him. Back in September of 2014 a portion of Vineville Avenue in Macon, Georgia–the city where Allman died in a 1971 motorcycle accident when he was just 24–was named Duane Allman Memorial Boulevard.
I think it’s awesome when local politicians get together to pay tribute to amazing musicians with street names after they’ve passed. It would be totally cool for me, as a Canadian, to motor down Gord Downie Drive or Jeff Healey Avenue. Or even take the Neil Young Expressway.
Not in any rush to cruise down that last one, though.
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.