photo by Chris Marden

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers Band this week, guitarist and founding member Dickey Betts sat down with Sarasota, FL’s Herald-Tribune for a discussion on a variety of topics, including some memories of the early days of the ABB, his return to the stage after years of retirement, health issues that almost derailed that comeback and his thoughts on the Allman Betts Band, which features his son and fellow guitarist, Duane.

“It’s good to see those guys together,” Betts says of the modern ABB, who will kick off their inaugural tour this week at Brooklyn Bowl. The band also includes Devon Allman, son of Betts’ late bandmate Gregg Allman. “I suggested they get together years ago but they wanted to do individual things and I think they sound wonderful together. Berry Oakley Jr. [son of the Allman Brothers Band’s founding bassist] is fantastic with them. It’s important to have strong partners and I think they’re going to do very well.”

Betts also mentions the health scares he suffered while attempting his onstage comeback, including a “mild stroke” two weeks before he was set to go on the road that caused doctors to put him into an induced coma (and caused some damage to the guitarist’s right hand), followed by a head injury from a home accident while he was bathing his dog that ultimately required brain surgery.

“I was washing my Labrador and she yanked me into the steps trying to get back in the house,” Betts explains. “I had to have brain surgery so I had to cancel my remaining dates. I don’t know if I’m even going to go back out this year. It’s not very exciting but it’s the truth.”

On the current state of his live band, Betts admits, “I want to do it because I miss what I call my friends, my fans, but on the other hand, I don’t think I put on the show I used to. I’m told no one expects you to do what you did when you were younger but I don’t know. I guess there’s always a chance I’ll go back out.”

While reminiscing about his days with the Allman Brothers, the losses the band faced over the years, and his memories of playing with his son and Devon Allman, Betts remembers the final weeks of Gregg Allman’s life, when Betts and Allman seemed to put past differences behind them. “I was trying to make him feel good and tell him how much he was loved and respected,” Betts says. “I would just call and try to make his day a little better.”

Thinking back to when Gregg initially joined ABB (against his brother and guitarist Duane’s wishes, according to Betts), the 75-year-old musician recounts, “Yeah, Duane and his brother were having an argument and Duane didn’t want Gregg. We had five of us, and Duane was singing and there was me singing and Berry Oakley singing but we were guitar players; we weren’t really singers. We knew Gregg and we kept trying to get Duane to call him. We finally talked Duane into calling Gregg one night and when he came down I think we were in the middle of ‘Don’t Want You No More,’ the instrumental version we did of the Spencer Davis Group song. Gregg walked in on that and he was saying, ‘God, what a band!’ He was just really blown away, which made us all proud. We were real glad to see Gregg.”

Read the full piece, which also features thoughts from Duane, Devon and Oakley Jr., here.