The difference between Duane Allman and Dickey Betts was never lead guitar and rhythm guitar, it was blues improvisation and melodic invention and 40 years later those lines have kinda narrowed and during the second set at the Concert Hall on Friday night, the lines disappeared entirely owing less to either. Earlier during the first set, Dickey and his band played a form of Southern country blues, with highlights “Blue Sky” and “Mountain Jam” just the way you might expect but by the second set, Dickey ascended in rhythmic jams not on melody but on beats, Dickey on the 2 – 4 and bassist Pedro Arevalo on the 1 – 3 and because it was the bassist it sounded less like you’d expect the Allman Brothers to sound and more like Betts own thing.
It has taken Betts since 2000 to forge a future without constantly looking at the review mirror but during the second set, it didn’t feel like the Allman’s without Duane plus an inferior backing band: but rather from a straightforward till the end Billy Joe Shaver cover through extended on the beat jams which sometimes sounded like post-punk walls of white noise, the Great South went in another direction.
This was actually my first time seeing Betts solo and I assumed it would be a cut up ABB scene which it was to a degree but Betts can not be overrated as a precision pleasure who can do with a melody what a Coltrane can do with it, it is like he cuts it into little pieces and throws it to the rest of the band and they scatter it up. Watching closely during the first set, Betts was so central to the sound, he wasn’t really playing harmonies at all, the band were just backing his flights of fancy. And here he reminds me of another Southern Florida lad Tom Petty, he was really into highlighting his melodic gift, during the second set the Great Southern had their moment.
The band are a real good one, Keyboardist Mike Kach with impossible shoes to fill does just find and though Duane Betts and Andy Aledort are anonymous in ways ABB never allowed their guitarists to be, they are fine. Bassist Pedro Arevalo is the one player who was larger than the sum of his parts and Betts real foil for the evening.
In the second set he highlighted his harmolodic gifts and the set spun wild and wild, although there wasn’t a person (except for my buddy Justine) under 50 in the audience, it sounded very fresh and youthful. As though Betts at 69 years of age still had places he wanted to take us.
With the first set lasting an hour and the second set 90 minutes including a useless jam from the drums and tom tom proving they are proficient without in any way causing Jai Johanny Johanson and Marc Quiñones any sleepless nights, it was a healthy set but not the towering thing I’d been hoping for. With the end of the Allman Brothers Band almost upon us, there is no doubt Dickey is better with Greg and the rest of the band and there is no doubt Dickey is better than Warren and Derek. The magic Dickey and Duane shared, while at the time Duane simply overpowered everything around him, will withstand constant listening, and the closest thing Greg can get to it is by inviting Derek back for the Beacon last stand in October. Last September Dickey play with the Tedeshi Trucks Band at Beacon, and in January Derek said this about a possible reunion (to Relix) “I think not only for the band and the legacy but for the audience too it would be something nice to tie it up. The whole story of the band is this dysfunctional crazy family and it has been from the beginning. I think that’s one of things that draws people to that music, there’s a humanity about it and I think for it not to go out right would be a shame especially when it’s still tangible. I just think it’s the right sentiment but we’ll see…”
The thing is, Betts is such a great guitarist he can get the best musicians imaginable and they still won’t quite cut it. Though my friend and freelance journalist Kevin Ransom (and Betts fan) mentioned there is rumors Betts is drinking heavily it was absolutely not visible to the eye or ear. Betts was a concentrated powerhouse on his Gibson, using the entire body of the guitar but at his best at the neck, it was the supple sound we’ve come to admire so much. Always, even when the rest of the band are going elsewhere, he sounds more country than blues. While his band, including his son Duane, seemed to reach their heights with rhythmic interplay, Betts isn’t about that, he does it because it suits his mood but he is in his element on a song like evening ender (no “Jessica” tonight) “Ramblin’ Man”, a song Dylan once said he wished he had written. This is not blue, this isn’t even country rock, you can imagine Hank Williams writing this sort of a song. And it is a fitting close to the show. Betts didn’t play his song particularly better or worse than any other time, but it sounded the way Betts sounds: the melodic line kept on fracturing and Betts kept putting it together.
In a sense that is what Duane Allman and Betts did all those years ago, Duane fractured the songs with the blues and Betts backed him up the way you’d think a rhythm guitarist would but without playing rhythm. He needs to return to the Allman Brothers this October. He needs to say goodbye and then continue to move forward.
Grade: B+
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