Talk:Dickey Betts

After 1976
What exactly does this mean:

"After the Allmans fell apart in 1976..."

That implies that the band ceased to exist at that point, which is not true. I think that needs clarification.

72.77.26.241 15:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The band went inactive at the end of 1976 amid much personal dissension and some vows never to work together again. "Fell apart" is as good a description as any for the situation at the time, despite the fact they wound up getting back together less than three years later.VAMark (talk) 22:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Needs better focus
This article needs more focus on Betts, and less on general ABB stuff. For example, I don't think it needs a whole paragraph on the founding of Gov't Mule. I don't think it needs to explain who replaced Haynes and Woody in ABB, because that's information about ABB, not Betts. On the other hand, I think it needs a lot more information about the songs he's written (with or without ABB), especially the big hits, and the albums he's released, and things like that. It also, of course, needs more citations, more facts, less opinions, less subjective observations. And, before anyone says sofixit, let me say, I'm willing to take a stab at it, but I'm not sure how soon I'll have enough time. So, if anyone else wants to try a little cleanup and rewriting, they should feel free. Xtifr tälk 09:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Needs better research
"Betts was the band's second lead guitarist, behind Duane Allman..." This is not the case at all, Betts was the lead guitarist and Duane was the slide/2nd guitar player. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.152.246.102 (talk) 13:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC) This is also inaccurate. Allman and Betts were considered co-lead guitarists by each other and the rest of the band. Trying to identify either as "lead" or "second" misstates the structure of the band.VAMark (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Additional early history
Betts was active at least as early as 1960 in Bradenton, Florida. That fall he toured with the Swingin' Saints, playing carnivals up and down the East Coast, probably having dropped out of high school to do so. The Saints were led by bassist E.J. Stewart (or Stuart). In December, after they had returned from the tour, I joined as drummer and my first job with them was the New Year's Eve dance at Bradenton Teen Club.

Dickie lived with his mother in Oneco (just southeast of Bradenton) and the band sometimes rehearsed at his house. Betts had learned some of his first guitar licks from a friend named Jimmy Parramore, who came by one or two of those rehearsals. I believe Dickie did one of Parramore’s songs on a later LP.

The Swingin’ Saints played various teen dances, and in the summer of '61, we got a regular weekend gig at a teen hangout called the Phoenix (formerly a coffee shop called the Screaming Phoenix) on highway 301, between Bradenton and Sarasota. The second rhythm guitarist was Alton Gill (I’ve forgotten the name of the first one). We played for half the door and, on a packed weekend, we made about $15 each, total for both nights.

We did at least four Ventures tunes, some Chuck Berry songs (including an instrumental version of “Johnny B. Goode” that Betts & Stewart had titled “Johnny Be Bad”), Alton sang some Elvis things; we played “Honky Tonk”, “I’m Gonna Knock On Your Door”, “A Thousand Stars”, etc. Dickie did not sing at all at that time. He had originally also been interested in playing drums, and once told me that he had first started playing on a banjo - apparently one that had been in the family - and that he would sometimes remove the strings and play the banjo head as a drum.

At the beginning of September I left the Swingin' Saints for my first 6-nighter at a club in St. Petersburg. Shortly after that Betts got his first club gig, a three-nighter in Sarasota, with the Fabulous Flambeaus, a trio led by singer/drummer Eric Daniels (E.J. Stewart also played that job).

In December Dickie moved into the motel cabin where I was living. He didn't have a car and often, after I got home from the St. Pete job, he and I would head back out to a coffee shop, sometimes running into other musician friends. I went on the road with another band in January. Sometime after that (around 1964) Dickie worked with local country singer Bill Floyd (who also has a website).

Gem777 (talk) 17:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC) Gary Myers Gem777 (talk) 03:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC) Gary Myers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gem777 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC) Gem777 (talk) 17:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC) Gary Myers

One interesting thing to note that is not mentioned in the text is that future ABB guitarist/singer/songwriter Warren Haynes was a member of the Dickey Betts Group before being a member of the Brothers. Warren shares guitar as well as song writing duties on Pattern Disruptive by the Dickey Betts group. This album also features future Govt Muler Matt Abts on drums. It was through this work with the Dickey Betts Group that Warren found his way into the Allman Bros and first worked with drummer Matt Abts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.122.32.238 (talk) 06:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Article tags
I'm removing a Cleanup tag from this article ("This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards...."), and also a Section OR tag from the "Attendance issues and temporary bandmates" section ("This section may contain original research...."). I believe the article is in reasonably good shape from a cleanup perspective, and that the "Attendance issues" section does not contain original research. If any editor disagrees, please explain why in this section, or better yet just fix the article. Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 13:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

And how about you don't denigrate this article without using sources in the first place, instead of asking for explainations or fixing ? Good to see that this unsourced original research called "Attendance issues and temporary bandmates" is at least not a section of its own anymore... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tifetondu (talk • contribs) 09:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Poor articles
This article is very limited as is Greg Allman's. Even The Allman Brothers Band is shorter than what it should be given their long and eventful history. There seems to be vew few people who want to make good articles on the Allman Brothers Band and their current and former members. I've seen fly by night groups have better write ups than any of these! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.108.231 (talk) 12:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"As his hands got bigger"
I laughed when I read this, because when I met Dickey in 1987, the one thing that always struck me (and I'm 6' 5") is the size of his hands. They were absolutely gianourmous.  Whoever wrote that sentence must have know Dickey.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.112.184.20 (talk) 18:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Dickey Betts..earlier years
Bold textI don't see any mention of Dickey's earlier years in Celina, Ohio, where he played at a large dance hall called Edgewater Park. He played with a group called The Jokers. I danced many a Saturday night there in the 60's. The group was led by Harold Miracle.70.196.110.224 (talk) 14:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Media appearances
Dickey made an extended cameo appearance in Valiant Comics' Shadowman Issue 1, cover date May 1991.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Dickey Betts. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100202053024/http://www.guitarworld.com:80/article/the_allman_brothers_band_the_road_goes_on_forever? to http://www.guitarworld.com/article/the_allman_brothers_band_the_road_goes_on_forever
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141108154840/http://nfmhof.com/2008/08/13/betts-dickey/ to http://nfmhof.com/2008/08/13/betts-dickey/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:47, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Dickey Betts. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100126202416/http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Come%20and%20Go%20Blues_%20The%20Incredi/ to http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Come%20and%20Go%20Blues_%20The%20Incredi/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:29, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Summary section
Hello! About this edit, where you re-added the "Summary" section header... Generally the lead section of a Wikipedia article should serve as a summary of the rest of the article, which is why most WP articles don't have a Summary section. (For a lot more on this topic, see MOS:LEAD.) And the first paragraph of the lead section should serve as a general introduction (see MOS:BEGIN). That's why I think it would be better to take the Summary section header back out. If we do that, then the lead section of the article will be pretty long, but still not too long, in my view. That said, it would probably be best to (1) remove the Summary section header and also (2) carefully move some of the material from the then-longer lead section to the "Life and career" section. I might actually try doing that myself if I get a chance, or you and/or other editors could do it. Thoughts? — Mudwater (Talk) 01:15, 30 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Greetings Mudwater. Yes, I see your point. The 'Summary' heading was only meant to be a temporary fix to enable the intro to be shortened. I felt the original version was too long and unnecessarily detailed, and I think it is now about the right length. But the 'Summary' heading could be removed and the original version restored and condensed as you suggest, if you think that would be better, with surplus material moved to "Life and career".  Atlanquetzl (talk) 13:17, 30 April 2024 (UTC)