Was Butch ever really committed to the Brotherhood??? That is a question for the ages..... If you define what "the Brotherhood" was-or is-within the Allman Brothers Band, its inner circle, or its fan base there would be similar lines of thought. In the core id, the Brotherhood is a oneness of experiencing and savoring the emotional and sensual messages within the music. Its that engagement and exchange of collective soul, coming together and with unison, reaching out into the spiritual world...being drawn back in...and collectively reaching out higher and with more passion and energy, back and forth in musical love almost in intercoursal fashion until the collective has put it all out there. Baring their musical reach until naked. Reaching out and savoring more until the body cannot give, and the mind cannot understand what actually took place. But the heart remembers. And the Brother (Sister-one in the same here) remembers. His heart is full, and at the same time, he accepts what he experienced and wants to repeat that experience. Not in the way a addict craves a high, but in the way a broken heart found safety and refuge. In the case of the addict, you have to give nothing and selfishly take. In the Brotherhood experience you realize you have to expose your heart, experience, and in return give of yourself in order to remain in the sweet spot. So, a Brother learns the path. He understands and focuses on what he craves, and what he must give in order to fully experience the ultimate...what Duane referred to as Hitting the Note...a place ALL people have the capability to experience, but truly in this culture few have actually experienced. That place where music is the vehicle...and the payload is the emotional footprint of that collective musical convergence. An emotional tuning fork perfectly balanced with Duane/Gregg/Berry/JJ/Butch, combined with the collective soul of music lovers, and lovers in general, who boarded that ship. The Brotherhood therefore is a place you never wanted to leave. You would want, as a musician, to pleade and do your part to recreate that payload every time you performed. Who was going to begin that night? When would the first emotional tuning fork be raised, begging for others to see it, feel it, and join?. And in the crowd...could you spot the tuning forks on stage? Could you also contribute your own? Your friends around you never got it, did they? You would be in a stupor, not from drugs, but from the music, and your friend was clueless......that is because Brothers and Sisters...the Brotherhood, read the spiritual aspect of the musicians on stage, and carried that experience...remaining in that sweet spot....to their core. Others see it as good quality music. They never then, nor now, understand. Given the above, a person moves in and out of that sweet spot place. In particular a musician who becomes sad and frustrated he can no longer expect those tuning forks to be raised. You cannot find it with your bandmates. You cannot drivea guitar player to speak directly from his most inner sanctum to his fingers. You cannot hold that moment and leverage it. So, you simply play. You simply perform. And at that moment, your perspective changes. Music becomes work. When the music becomes work, all you have then is a series of frustrating memories for what was. The id does not exist onstage. Those fans, and those replacing musicians, who never got it are still happy...the music itself sounds the same. But the Brotherhood knows its not the same. Because the Brotherhood is comprised of music player, bandmates, and lovers all alike, the collective then can keep the hope and desire alive. That has been the case here with the wanderers for years. Year after year, night after night, the collective has kept the dream alive. The Beacon potential reunion was an excellent example; it was not to hear Dickey play Ramblin Man. It was the collective trying to open the door to see if those musicians would go back to the sweet spot, hold up their emotional tuning forks, and experience it again. With that, the question becomes who wants to remain in that zone called the Brotherhood? Many have left from sheer frustration...but they wander nevertheless. Some hold true to the core and contend its still possible. And some want nothing more than to live by what they were taught and experienced first hand. They never want to wander away from that core. When road tired brothers and sisters meet up, from the first hug, kiss or handshake, you know its for real in them. They are dedicated and wear their emotional trip counters with love. And most importantly, they encourage and nuture that experience with their Brothers and Sisters. Because they understand what a Brother or Sister had to lay on the table in order to become the collective. In this world and society, the hardest thing a human can do is to mentally and emotionally let go. In a crowd of Allman Brother fans, you can literally visualize those that can and have from those who are too frightned to go there, or too angry to allow it.