Duane69. Dickey DID get a fax informing him that his services would not be needed for the upcoming summer tour, that his playing of late had been a disappointment to the fans and the band and that they would meet in the fall to see if he was better and had gotten help for his problems. Dickey said he got the impression they were telling him he had a substance abuse problem. The reason I stated it is a lie is because Gregg and Butch Trucks were going to quit the band and after they found out each was leaving, they contacted Jaimoe to get his vote to FIRE Dickey. But Jaimoe would ONLY go alone with a temporary layoff for the summer tour. ONLY Dickey, Gregg, Butch and Jaimoe had votes and if Jaimoe didn't vote with Gregg and Butch, then Dickey would not be removed. But Butch and Gregg put the squeeze on Jaimoe by telling him that they would not do the summer tour IF Dickey was on it. So it was ALL up to Jaimoe. Would he fire Dickey and save the band from collapse? His choice was to go down the middle and vote with Gregg and Butch ONLY if Dickey was given the summer off and a chance to get his act together. But Dickey refused and hired a lawyer and wanted to be paid for his contributions to the band over the years. When the arbitrator ruled on the case and Dickey got what ever deal he got, Jaimoe then said "Well I guess Dickey quit". THAT is the opening that Butch and Gregg then took to claim that Dickey quit. But the truth is Butch and Gregg wanted Dickey FIRED. But I would guess in the true technical sense of the word, Dickey DID quit. He hasn't spoken to any of them as far as I know since. Gregg said several years ago the reason he sent Dickey a fax was he wasn't going all the way down to Dickey's house just to tell him that they have voted him off the summer tour. Dickey was steamed at the way it was handled and Dickey was president of The Allman Brothers Band Company and could easily find out from their manager and support people including Red Dog what was going on and no doubt he knew Butch and Gregg wanted him out or they were going to quit. The band handled it badly. They should of had a meeting with Bert Holman and their support people with Dickey invited and put the cards on the table. Dickey took it as a firing and the band has always denied it and claims Dickey quit. But at times when Gregg and Butch are really sore about Dickey, they will call it a firing in interviews. Gregg is quoted in an interview I have "we sound much better with the young blood in the band. We had to fire our original guitar player". And another time "I just didn't hear anything coming from our old guitar player musically or with his writing that was any good anymore so we fired him". Butch Trucks: "It came down to either Dickey was let go or there wouldn't be anymore Allman Brothers as Gregg and me were leaving". I read a review of Gregg's new book tonight and the author said that Gregg goes in detail about his long standing fuss with original guitar player Dickey Betts who wrote many of their most famous songs and while he clearly is relieved that he no longer has to deal with Betts and play with him, the relationship seems unresolved, as if somebody needs to do something. And Gregg was quoted as saying after his liver surgery: "I figured I would hear from Dickey while I was in the hospital but so far not a word". As strange as this may seem, Gregg and Dickey almost seem like two family members who can't stand each other but at the sametime, they want to make up because deep down they care about each other and/or miss each other. Dickey said in a recent interview" The Allman Brothers was my life man. Everything that I do now or will ever do with orbit around the Allman Brothers Band". On the other hand, I think Dickey and Butch Trucks really dislike each other and Butch has disliked Dickey for years and found Gregg to be unreliable. I have an interview with Butch from 1976: "You can't count on Gregg Allman for anything". From 1978: "I was real skeptical about doing it again especially after all we went though from Gregg Allman. But after Dickey played Crazy Love to me and told me that Gregg was in good shape and he would make sure Gregg would cut the gig, I decided to do it". Clearly Butch never really liked Dickey but had to jump on Dickey's coat tails because Dickey was the one who could put his foot down with Gregg, write songs that would be good and help sell an album. Butch Trucks even went with Dickey after they decided the ABB should be shelved and they should go back to smaller clubs with solo bands due to lack of interest in blues based rock and roll in the early 80's. Butch was in Betts, Hall, Leavell & Trucks for a couple of years then quit. But we found out from Warren Haynes when he tried to help straighten things out in the early 2000s that some of what Gregg and Butch are upset about is stuff that happened almost 30 years ago!! Butch was a drummer who couldn't write or sing and Gregg was a slacker, on booze and drugs, who couldn't be counted on to take any responsibility and needed to use others to keep his career going until he sobered up in the late 90's. Gregg was shy and introverted, lonely and used people. Musicans, women, roadies, managers etc to keep a gig for income, get high and get laid. Dickey was a hot head (Gregg said in the book that Dickey was even a hot head when Duane was alive but it didn't cause too much trouble because Dickey yielded to Duane as leader) and also a drinker and Butch was jealous that he couldn't make as much money as Gregg and Dickey because he didn't have the gift of song writing. Jaimoe just wanted to play music and he really wanted it to be jazz. Oakley couldn't deal living in a world that didn't include Duane Allman and Butch has said several times that he was for letting Berry go in 1972. Gregg says in the book that they were wondering if they could continue carry Berry Oakley due to being so broken over Duane's death. So we had a real Motley Crew trying to move the band beyond the loss of Duane Allman. Move forward to the late 90's and Gregg as supposedly sobered up but I understand was still smoking pot until just a year or so ago. Gregg then began to want more control over the ABB and was pissed when Dickey didn't use any of his songs which resulted in him doing the solo"Searching For Simplicity". But what songs on the album would have been good ABB songs? I can think of maybe two but it's been a long, long time since Gregg has come up with a classic for the ABB. He did co-write Firing Line and Good Clear Fun but Dickey co-wrote that one too. Dickey has come up with Tombstone Eyes for Gregg to sing and Gregg finally refused to sing it anymore. Did Dickey drop it? No he just started singing it himself. Gregg said he never liked that song & just would not sing it anymore. But Dickey did have a great instrumental in the late 90's called J J's Ally. But apparently Gregg didn't like it either. It was really Gregg's jealously because the last songs he wrote, he had to put on a solo album to get them recorded. With Butch Trucks, what happened was jealously and money. Butch Trucks was jealous of Dickey's control of the band and making a lot more money off the band than Butch and when Butch tried to find a way to increase his income with Flying Frog Records, Moogis etc as lables and music outlets for the Allman Brothers he would own and control, Dickey was opposed and would not allow Butch Trucks business to mix with Allman Brothers business. That did it with Butch. It now was at the point he couldn't stand Dickey so much that he wasn't speaking to Dickey on the last couple of tours. How do I know that? Dickey claimed in 2001 he was blindsided by the fax & removal from the summer tour & really wasn't aware of any serious problems in the band OTHER THAN BUTCH TRUCKS WASN'T SPEAKING TO HIM ANYMORE! Gregg sobered up and became jealous Dickey's new songs were being played and his wasn't. That Dickey wouldn't allow some of the covers he wanted to do in the band. While Gregg was a drunk, he probably didn't like Dickey's heavy handed way of running the band and he says so much in the book, but when you are a drunk you just can't do anything about it most of the time. It is easier to just put up with it. So to me, it all came to a head when Gregg became mostly sober and Butch got jealous of Gregg and Dickey making, as Butch put it, millions off of their records and Butch didn't get anything..so Butch comes up with a way he can make more than just his cut of the gigs and Dickey kicks it down and says NO! It is true that after absolutely great playing in 1999 during the first year Derek Trucks was in the band and Dickey was playing his old 56 Fender Strat for some reason, but it didn't matter, when Dickey is playing real good, it sounds just as good even if he isn't using a Les Paul, Dickey began to have some off nights apparently due to too much drink in early 2000. On Peakin' At the Beacon, I hear some real good playing from Dickey but there are some places where he and Derek are not together and others where Dickey is not hitting the note. On Every Hungry Woman, did Derek got off or was it Dickey when they are trying to do that twin guitar thing that Dickey and Duane use to do perfectly? I don't know. But Gregg Allman jumped on those problems and made a deal out of it. That was disappointing to me after seeing so many shows, especially after Duane died, when Gregg was SO awful or nowhere close to being in shape to play. And Gregg admits that he had those kind of shows but Dickey needs to sit down when he gets out of kilter a bit? That was odd to me. It had to be something else. When one reads ALL the interviews, the picture emerges which never can be completely accurate because you or me are not actually there, but the picture I got shows this situation came to a head over jealously & being rubbed the wrong way while sober for Gregg and jealously and money for Butch Trucks. I'm done!

I'm on pins and needles waiting for that explanation myself.

Duane 69. My credentials are this. I've kept up with this band as carefully as I have my own ***** and what and where it's been during the last 40 years!! I've read every interview, saw every interview, bought every album etc since I first saw the ABB in 1970 a few months before Idlewild South came out. Gregg Allman MAY have not made more money off the ABB touring that Dickey has made but NOT off the records. Dickey has made far more money off of the ABB record catalog that Gregg and Butch Trucks complained about that on the "blue site" just after Dickey was FAXED out. Butch even complained that he (Butch) wrote the drum parts for Elizabeth Reed & Madness Out of the West and Dickey refused to give him a writing credit on either one claiming that what Butch did was ONLY part of the arrangement of the song and NOT part of the composition of the song. Dickey pointed out that when Gregg brought "Whipping Post" to the band, it was a slow ballad type song and it is mostly Berry Oakley who gave it the arrangement and came up with the bass guitar opening for that song but it was Gregg's song. There is a song that Oakley came up with in it's beginning stage and turned over to Gregg and Gregg finished it with lyrics and it is credited to both Gregg and Oakley and that is Standback on Eat A Peach. As to money, Dickey Betts does not need to work or play. When Dickey was faxed out, Dickey was a multimillionaire. Dickey and Gregg both made well over a million dollars off the 1991 best hits CD 1969-1979 A Decade of Hits which has sold over 2 million copies. Far more than any album the ABB has recorded since Brothers and Sisters sold over 2 million copies in 1973. Hitting the Note, the first ABB album WITHOUT Dickey, for example, sold only 200,000 copies which is not bad but certainly not a mega success. The ONLY other band member to write something on 1969-1979 A Decade of Hits was Duane Allman's Little Martha. If my understanding from Butch's post in 2000 is correct, the actual Allman Brothers Band made NOTHING from that compilation album! ONLY those who wrote the songs did. And as you know, Dickey and Gregg have many on it. Also Dickey makes more money than Gregg on airplay. Ramblin Man and Jessica according to the latest info I've read get more airplay than any other ABB songs on the radio. One Way Out, Blue Sky, Ain't Wasting Time No More, Southbound, Mellisa, Midnight Rider, Revival and Whipping Post also get a good share of airplay on FM stations. But it seems ABB music is not being played as much lately as it was when the album rock and classic rock FM stations sprang up around the country. More and more are drifting to a heavy metal kind of format. But Duane69 you must know that the ABB broke up in 1976 and they decided to abandon the band due to falling out of favor with music trends in 1982. In 1978 AND in 1989 when the ABB decided to put a tour on the road, Gregg Allman was the one that everybody including Butch Trucks was skeptical about. Butch admitted in 1978 that he wouldn't have rejoined the ABB if Dickey had not told him he would make sure Gregg would cut the gig and Butch was convinced "Crazy Love" which Dickey played to Butch on acoustic guitar was going to be a hit! And again in 1989 Butch was skeptical about Gregg being able to cut the gig and be dependable but Butch was impressed with the songs Dickey and Dickey and Warren were coming up with and he was impressed with the twin guitar presentation that Dickey and Warren were bringing to the band so he decided to come on board again. Jaimoe when with the ABB again in 1978 and again in 1989 because he needed the money & missed what they had been doing. Gregg Allman leaned on Dickey to carry the big load for the band but when Dickey would be heavy handed, Gregg would resent it as Dickey was NOT Duane. But often, according to their bass player who told me personally, Dickey and Gregg got alone but it was clear to everybody, Dickey was the boss and in charge. In 1996 at at rehearsal, Gregg Allman HIMSELF said he became really pissed at Dickey because they worked up several new songs by Dickey but Dickey refused to consider his songs as good enough for the ABB and left the rehearsal and canned the idea of any of Gregg's songs being done. Gregg said that pissed him off so much that that is when he decided to do "Searching For Simplicity". Gregg did "Laid Back" in 1973 because Dickey would not allow "Queen of Hearts" to be a Brothers and Sisters yet they did Ramblin' Man which, to Gregg, was too country. But Butch Trucks and Berry Oakley went right along with Dickey on both scores. Gergg Allman had always been a bit jealous of Dickey after Duane died. It would bubble up and fade off and on plus Gregg didn't like Dickey's temper and threats to kick ass if necessary and unlike Duane, Gregg thought Dickey ran the band like a "damn third world dictator" (that is a direct quote from a 1996 interview) Butch also tired of Dickey's temper AND Butch and Gregg quit drinking and drugs (not sure if Gregg really stopped the drugs, especially marijuana) & Dickey's seemed to them to get worse but really it was no different that Duane and Gregg and Oakley. I can assure you that Gregg Allman has been too f***** up to play a decent ABB show far more times that Dickey. Butch Trucks turned on Dickey for different reasons. Here is my take from reading just the interviews, especially Butch's interviews. Butch became jealous with Dickey and Gregg make, as Butch put it, "millions" off of Decade of Hits released in 1991 which sold over 2 million copies. Butch had NO writing credit & it had bugged him for years that he didn't get one for Liz Reed and Madness. If he WOULD have had a piece of Liz Reed, Butch would have made some money off that release. So Butch decided that he would come up with another approach so he TOO could make money off the ABB other than just his cut of the gig money. When Butch tried to mixed his business adventures such as Flying Frog Records and Moogis with the Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts said NO!! Dickey said he would not be involved with the band IF in was mixed with Butch's personal business. Butch then got real pissed and posted on the blue site his disfavor of that back when Butch would post on his section of the blue site. He was the ONLY ABB member to do that. Butch even said that he was tired of every album having to have what to him sounded like "filler" music that Dickey wrote just so he could have the lion's share of the writers royalty. What songs was Butch taking about? Butch in three interviews said "Back Where It All Begins" was the best original ABB song in years. So was in "Everybody Has a Mountain to Climb" or "Desert Blues? In other words, Butch made the complaint on the blue site that most of the ABB albums have a Dickey song or two that are not really that good. They are ONLY on there so Dickey can get a big paycheck off the album while he (Butch) only get's his band cut which was divided by all the band members including DICKEY!! Can't you see how and why Gregg and Butch turned on Dickey?? Both men were going to QUIT the ABB in 2000 because they were jealous, tired of and fed up with Dickey Betts being the boss, making more money and feeling as if they were in HIS band and NOT THEIR band!! Butch admitted on the blue site that he was going to quit the ABB and tell them to get another drummer for the summer 2000 tour. Butch's wife told Gregg's then wife and Gregg's then wife told Butch's wife that Gregg too was turning in his notice to the band's manager that he would not be on the summer 2000 tour. When Butch found out Gregg too was leaving, he called Gregg on the phone and the two of them agreed that rather than leaving the band because of Dickey, let's get Dickey OUT OF IT!! They called Jaimoe and he refused to sack Dickey and told them that the ONLY way an Allman Brothers can leave is die or quit. Butch and Gregg told Jaimoe that they just could not go out with Dickey that summer, they just couldn't take it anymore. So Jaimoe, to save the summer 2000 tour, agreed to lay Dickey off for the summer. It was three votes to one. Gregg was asked to handle it so Gregg FAXED Dickey saying his services would not be needed for the summer tour and that his playing was an embarrassment to the fans and the band and to get help for his substance problems and they would get back together in the fall with a meeting to see if he is better. The reason, I think, Gregg wouldn't do it in person is because Gregg was afraid of what Dickey's reaction would be. Dickey hit the roof, told Gregg he was being fired out of his own band, hired a lawyer to collect what the band owed him for his many years of contributions to the band, the band turned it over to an arbitrator and it was settled in arbitration. My guess is it was a big sum or that Dickey continues to get some kind of cut from the band and that may be the reason that after 12 years, Gregg and Butch are still just as pissed about Dickey as they were in 2000. After Dickey left arbitration, Jaimoe said "Well I guess Dickey quit" and it was over. SO THE OFFICAL POSITION NOW, AND IT'S A LIE, FROM GREGG AND BUTCH IS THAT DICKEY WAS NOT FIRED BUT QUIT. AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT GREGG WRITES IN THAT RAG OF A BOOK JUST OUT. GREGG ALLMAN SAYS THAT "DICKEY QUIT, HE WAS NOT FIRED".

Popped in to check things out. Checked things out. Checking out.

Hiya Jim 😀 I love Back Where It All Begins too. Why don't we just have a party and spin 'em all? :mohawk:

Long Live The King! Just watched some 4.28.2012 vids of DB&GS on youtube and it was beautiful! I hope DB knows how loved he is and what his music means to so many! The Man in the Hat RULES.

Hey everybody :waving: Gotta agree with JK on this: At Fillmore East 10/10 Brothers & Sisters 10/10 Seven Turns 9/10 and I'll add Eat A Peach 9/10

I agree Rick. Y'all gonna play football this year.

Hi all, Dang, Ya'll love this music just as much as I do and that's what it's all about here. We just can't put it down. To go back a couple of pages, I think that Dickey both assumed, and was trusted in leadership due to strength and the ability to "conduct" the band. For as long as he's been there, I've never heard Butch say much. It is now obvious that that role has fallen to Warren Hanes and he does it well. All past circumstances aside, someone must call and count off the tunes to keep the show rolling. The old audiio of Duane comfortably introducing, crediting, and counting the songs was one of a kind. We cherish that.....example...."This is an old true story....I Must Have Did Somebody Wrong....I wonder who?" As with any great assembly of human interaction, leadership is both assumed by a leader and accepted by those who want to equal more than the sum of the parts. To me, that's how it was from 72 till 76. Some still lead. Some still follow. Gosh.... no more postings after three cups of wine!! Love, respect, and health to all.