There’s Life After the Allmans for Dickey Betts

When the Allman Brothers Band took founding member Dickey Betts out of the lineup this summer, the guitarist was furious and heartbroken.

But he also wanted to go out and prove his playing is as good as ever.

Over the phone from Fort Wayne, Ind., 56-year-old Betts said he had “no idea” what caused his ouster from the band after 30 years, although Gregg Allman has hinted it had to do with substance abuse and denial.

“They’re accusing me of being strung out on drugs, which I was not and am not,” Betts said. “The Allman Brothers Band deserved a better ending than this. We’ve done so many great things, stuck together through all these things.”

The Allmans, which grew to be one of America’s greatest bands in the early ‘70s, overcame the deaths of Duane Allman in 1971 and bassist Berry Oakley in 1972. After a hiatus from 1981 to 1989, the band reemerged with a slightly shifting lineup in the ‘90s to become a popular perennial on the concert circuit, drawing bigger audiences than ever.

Its latest tragedy occurred Aug. 26, when former bassist Allen Woody was found dead in New York at age 44. Woody played bass in the Allmans from 1989 until 1997, when he left with guitarist Warren Haynes to form Gov’t Mule.

Betts said he forced a meeting with the band in New York and was surprised to find the degree of their enmity. “They were pretty bitter with me. They seemed to think they didn’t need me in the band. They didn’t like the way I was playing.”

He was replaced on the summer tour by Jimmy Herring, making young guitarist Derek Trucks, Butch’s nephew, the guitarist with the most tenure.

“I love Derek,” Betts said. “He is the sweetest kid. He’s the Tiger Woods of rock ‘n’ roll. He’s young, but put a guitar in his hands and he’s 35 years old.”

“Derek was a lot of fun playing with,” he said. “And we were just getting settled in together as players. We were understanding each other.”

Out on tour, Betts said, he’s heard from fans about what they think of the Allmans’ rift. “I’ve got a lot of support out of this,” he said. “People realize that I didn’t instigate this.”

And like the protagonist of the Allmans’ biggest hit, which he wrote, Betts is “tryin’ to make a living and doing the best I can.”

“I can’t sit around and let these guys decide what to do with my life,” Betts said. That’s why he put together a band to go out and play.

Betts wrote several of the Allmans’ classics, from “Ramblin’ Man” to the smoky instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the breezy “Blue Skies,” and newer things such as “Back Where It All Begins” and “Nobody Left to Run With.”

“I’m doing a lot of stuff I wrote over the years,” he said, but he has also added a few new things.

The band was put together quickly, he said, “but by no means is it a thrown-together band.” He recruited his friend Mark May of Texas, who has three of his own CDs out. His vocals give a different flavor to the band.

David Stoltz, a veteran bassist, first came to Betts’ attention through tapes of jams he did with Allmans drummer Jaimoe.

Stoltz was a finalist for the Allmans when Woody left the band. But when Otiel Burbridge took the slot, Betts didn’t forget about Stoltz. “He was always impressive to me, so when I needed a bassist, I called him.”

Stoltz, who released his own album this year, said, “It was great timing. I had been working really hard, doing a lot of gigs, but wasn’t getting a tremendous return on it. To get an opportunity for a great gig like this that pays real money plus a real future has tremendous potential.”

Stoltz had a role in enlisting a lot of the other players in the band, including Roomful of Blues drummer Mark Greenberg, keyboardist Matt Zeiner, who is the son of Wildweeds keyboardist Ray Zeiner, and percussionist Junior Ortiz, as well as horn man Kris Jensen, whom Betts called “the key to the band: the horn blended with the twin guitars.”

And, with no Allmans reconciliation in sight, there’s no reason not to think of this lineup as a permanent one for Betts, with some recording likely next year.