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New Allmans Live Album Features Departed Dickey Betts
10/28/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen
(10/28/00, 10 a.m. ET) - A live Allman Brothers Band album, Peakin' At the Beacon, is due out November 14. Recorded during their annual run at the Beacon Theatre in New York City this past March, it features Dickey Betts, the band's former singer-songwriter, who was ousted from the group shortly thereafter following a long period of animosity.
The track list for Peakin' At The Beacon, the Allmans' sixth live collection, is: "Don't Want You No More," "It's Not My Cross To Bear," "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," "Every Hungry Woman," "Please Call Home," "Stand Back," "Black Hearted Woman," "Leave My Blues At Home," "Seven Turns," and "High Falls."
Betts described to LAUNCH the problems leading up to his departure from the band. "There's a lot of hostility and resentment that seems to have built up over the years that I think just got too much to handle," he said. "We had really been fantastic at not lettin' these jealousies and what have you get the best of the band, because that's what breaks bands up. But from me witnessing what's going on in front of me with that group of guys, it got too much and just came apart."
Betts maintains that his playing is better than ever and that his health is fine, despite accusations of drug abuse by some of his former bandmates. He tells LAUNCH those accusations are unfounded. "The one thing that bothers me is that they're saying that I'm strung out on drugs and abusing alcohol to the point that I can't play anymore. And it's just a weak justification for what they did to me. I wish they'd stop doing that."
However, drummer Butch Trucks told LAUNCH that the stress related to the Betts situation almost brought things to a halt for the entire band. "We finished the run in May, and I was not going to go back out. I talked to Gregg [Allman] and he said the same thing. And the funny thing is, I spoke to [drummer] Jaimoe the week before and he was going to ask for the year off. He just. . .physical problems. And I don't think he even realized what it was." Trucks summed up the consensus to let Betts go this way: "The decision was one or the other: Either the band was splitting up or Dickey was going to have to deal with his problems."
-- Bruce Simon and Darren Davis, New York
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