Remembering the great Dickey Betts, discovering our parents’ music and the future of melody in Macon

Editor’s note: Berklee College of Music in Boston created a scholarship fund in Dickey Betts’ honor. You can donate to it here.

I was not one of the lucky 2,500 or so folks who managed to score a ticket to the memorial concert for founding Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts — who died last April at 80 — at the city auditorium Friday night. I heard from those who did attend, however, that it was quite the show. 

I knew it was going to be a major event, and that feeling was reinforced when I drove by H&H around 1 p.m. Friday and saw a line of Allman Brothers Band faithful waiting to feast at the same restaurant that often fueled the band. 

Alan Paul, whose books “One Way Out” and “Brothers and Sisters” I consider to be the definitive ABB works along with Gregg Allman’s biography “My Cross to Bear,” was in town for the event. He published a riveting play-by-play on his substack “Low Down and Dirty” that’s well worth reading.

The concert, he writes “brought together most of the last incarnation of Dickey Betts and Great Southern, the band he led after splitting with the ABB in 2000, who formed the core of a backing group, supporting former ABB members Chuck Leavell, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks and Oteil Burbridge, as well as Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr, Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall, singer Lamar Williams Jr and Gregg’s son Devon.”

I agree with Mayor Lester Miller, who posted on Facebook that it would be great to hold a similar memorial concert at the amphitheater, which seats four-to-five times more folks than the auditorium.

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Some 53 years ago, the Allman Brothers Band played at that same city auditorium and recorded a live album. Live albums were the band’s bread and butter: their most famous is “At Fillmore East,” an album that my friend and fellow journalist James Bright remembers listening to with his dad, James Bright III.

Other than genes (and perhaps generational trauma), I can’t think of anything our parents do a better job of passing on to us than music. You can, of course, “discover” music on your own, finding used records at your local record shop (shoutout, Fresh Produce Records on Cherry Street!) or using Spotify’s weekly “Discover” playlist. 

But music that’s shared is more powerful, it allows us to build deeper connections. When your high school best friend says “You’ve got to check out this song!” odds are that song becomes a part of your history, a track on your own personal life playlist, if you will.

When Dad comes to town, we listen to a lot of music. He loves metal bands like Judas Priest and Disturbed, prog rock stuff like Rush and Triumph and Southern rock like ABB and Molly Hatchet. He wants to know the history behind the music, too: the YouTube channel “Professor of Rock” is one of his favorites.

Mom turned me onto Pink Floyd — I used to listen to “The Wall” in its entirety while studying for finals in college — and in return she absorbed my teenage taste for Breaking Benjamin and Three Doors Down.

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Macon is proud of its musical history, and we should be. Most towns our size can’t boast of influential musicians like Little Richard, Otis Redding and The Allman Brothers Band, or labels like Capricorn Records. And that history feels alive. You can still tour Capricorn Records, thanks to Mercer University, or see concerts at the city auditorium or drive down Little Richard Penniman Boulevard or visit Duane and Gregg Allman and Berry Oakley and Butch Trucks’ graves at Rose Hill Cemetery. Soon, you’ll be able to celebrate Otis Redding at the brand new Otis Redding Center for the Arts downtown. 

Music isn’t just history in Macon, though. There are local bands and artists doing great things (like Tier Blue, Dalton Love and Shy Company), venues big and small bringing in acts from across the country and new albums being cut by Mercer Music at Capricorn Records, which features its own house band. 

As Paul finished his column:

“I closed out the weekend by sitting in with a terrific band, The Core, at The Society Garden, a wonderful outdoor venue that was new to me. The Core plays the music of the HORDE Festival, which is a cool concept. They went a little heavy on the Allman Brothers Band in honor of me. I sat in for ‘Soulshine,’ ‘Melissa,’ ‘One Way Out’ and ‘Southbound.’ It was a gas. Thanks to Bill Taylor for inviting me and all the fellas for a very fun sit in”

There’s still plenty of great music to discover in Macon.

Caleb Slinkard is the managing editor of The Macon Melody. Email him at caleb@maconmelody.com.