Quotes from Dickey Betts

Anytime I'm playing music or getting ready to record, Duane Allman will enter my thoughts, and so will Berry Oakley. It's part of my musical makeup and mental process when it comes to music. We learned to play together and taught each other a lot.

Sometimes arguments get publicized so much that it gets blown all the hell out of proportion.

Blues players are around for 50 years, and that's just fine.

I wouldn't call myself a jazz player or a blues player.

You can't play music and be mad at anybody. It'll show in your heart!

Our main thing we'd have to entertain us: All my uncles would come over, and we'd sit around the living room on a weekend night, and we'd play. That was a big event for me, getting to play. We never did have any percussion.

I like to play acoustic slide. I like that. I just... I can do it, you know. But it ain't my cup of tea.

I'm sure you have arguments with your friends, but they don't get printed up and magnified in the papers.

I grew up in South Florida, and my family was pretty poor. We weren't your upper-class whites by any means.

When I was a kid, my dad was in construction and used to move the family back and forth between central Florida's east and west coasts.

Some people take me as being a rowdy, honky-tonk hero type. Some people see me as a quiet person. I guess I can be either one, you know, at any moment.

The thing with Berry and Duane and the rest of us in the original Allman Brothers seemed to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. When Duane was killed, we knew we lost a great part of that, but we still managed to play some great music.

My guitar has, like, become part of me, you know.

If you've got a corporation, and you throw out one of the founding partners that is responsible in part for making the organization what it is today, you have to compensate that person. You have to come to a settlement.

In 1969, I was playing guitar in several rock bands that toured central Florida.

I really feel like I've written my most effective music in the instrumental realms.

It's hard for people to understand that when five or six guys are together working intensely, they can really get into some duels.

I'm influenced by Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelly, Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, B.B. King, and then by bluegrass. But when I was 16, bluegrass wasn't cool. We was rock n' rollers then: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis.

I've learned to climb a tree pretty fast.

I kind of question whether to say this or not, but it's almost like the Allman Brothers turned into an Allman Brothers tribute band.

As far as the music goes, I like melody.

I have so many great memories of the Allman Brothers early days. It was an incredible time.

I've written some songs that are pretty scary, but 'Jessica,' 'Ramblin' Man,' and 'Blue Sky' are happy songs. That's the way I wrote them: have-fun tunes to make you feel good.

Our tunes aren't just sing-along tunes: they're very complex. After a few days of that, you gotta take a break.