Last month, we asked Guitar World readers to name the best guitar duo of all time.
It didn’t come as a massive surprise to see the Allman Brothers Band’s original six-string tandem of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts come up over and over again.
In the all-too-short time between the band’s formation in 1969 and 1971, when the Allman’s life was cut tragically short in a motorcycle accident, the pair left an indelible mark on rock guitar. The two both had an incredibly melodic touch – with Allman always having an answer to Betts’ sweet statements on slide.
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According to Betts, Allman wasn’t a fiery character, per sé, but he had an incredible drive, a firm belief in himself and his vision. Betts was no shrinking violet himself, though.
Once the Allman Brothers kicked into gear, the two clicked – musically and personally. But, as Betts told it, their first couple of interactions didn’t exactly foretell a history-making partnership…
Recounting his relationship with Allman in a 2007 interview with Guitar World, Betts vividly remembered the first time he saw the slide great play.
“It was around ‘65, ‘66. I kept hearing from different people about this hot guitar player named Duane Allman over in Daytona [Florida],” Betts told GW.
I thought they were stuck-up, and they thought I was some hillbilly hayseed
Dickey Betts
“I started going out with a girl that had dated Gregg [Allman], and she told me about the brothers. I had a pretty good band at the time [the Jokers]. We had the biggest crowds in Sarasota. So my girlfriend took me over to Daytona to see Duane and Gregg’s band, the Allman Joys, and introduced me to them.”
“I thought they were real good, but to tell you the truth, we didn’t get along right away,” Betts explained, adding, with a laugh, “I thought they were stuck-up, and they thought I was some hillbilly hayseed.”
A couple years later, the brothers rocked up to a Florida club where Betts was playing, and jammed with him for the first time. Unfortunately, that didn’t go particularly well, either – though this was due more to a misunderstanding than anything.
“Duane came up onstage to play and I showed him the amp to plug into, which was on the dark corner of the stage,” Betts recalled to Guitar World. “It was hard to see, so as he was plugging in, I tried to help him, saying, ‘This here is the bass and treble, and here’s the volume,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Man, I know how to run an amp by now, I think!’
“I was just trying to be nice! So I said, ‘Okay, well, fucking have at it then.’ So we didn’t get along that time either.”
Ironically, once Betts and Allman began to play together more over the coming couple of years – overcoming their earlier bad impressions of one another – and the nucleus of the band that would make them famous began to form, the Allman brothers themselves had to get over some bad blood before all could finally come together.
Encouraged to contact his brother to round out what would become a six-piece band, Duane was hesitant.
“At that point, Gregg was out in LA and [he and Duane] were mad at each other,” Betts told GW in 2007. “It was just a brotherly thing; they fought all of the time. Duane said, ‘Oh, he ain’t coming,’ but we knew Gregg was going to have to come.”
Early tension and brotherly spats aside, once the Allman Brothers Band hit their stride, Duane – aside from laying down the mind-boggling slide work that helped establish the band as one of the most groundbreaking in rock – did much to help keep the band’s eye on the ball in their early days.
“Duane was such a great guy for keeping things positive,” Betts explained. “He would talk about all of the things that we all had been thinking about and gave us what were, essentially, pep talks.
“He’d often say, ‘I’m not the leader of this band, but if and when we need one, I’m a damn good one!’ And he was.”
