Yesterday was a dark day in rock music history indeed, as there is no lyrical Blue Sky anymore over Macon, Georgia, The Allman Brothers Band's longtime base of operations*.
Even though it was hardly typical of their overall sound, to at least little ol' inconsequential me, "Ramblin' Man" was not merely a hit tune, but in fact the large-hole 45 which triggered my transition from a listening-diet of Top 40 pop to the far richer realm of FM-radio-band serious rock. (If not for that, I might still be under the forgivable delusion that The Beatles were the greatest rock band--they were not, by a long shot, much as I still love their better tunes--though they REMAIN the most SUCCESSFUL rock group ever.)
Though I always knew Betts was raised and lived most of his life on Florida's West Coast (with his demise occurring yesterday just south of Sarasota), it never dawned on me until Betts died that the "Highway 41" cited in his "Ramblin' Man" lyric was not just some obscure state route somewhere! Instead, it is a specific reference to the storied Tamiami Trail (which you may know is also designated U.S. 41, and is the principal route connecting the Tampa Bay Area on south to Naples).
Oddly, Jeopardy! champ Alison Betts--presumably no relation, though she IS rumored to have a serious showbiz background--found her five-victory J! run D.O.A. on airdate April 18, 2024, too.
Meanwhile, is anyone else always annoyed whenever anyone refers to my all-time favorite rock band merely as "the Allman Brothers" (as did David Muir last eve when introducing his Betts obituary on ABC World News)? After all, from 1972 on, those storied Southern blues rockers The Allman Brothers Band tragically had only ONE Allman brother** in its shifting line-up.
So now The Allman Brothers Band has been reduced by serial deaths to a one-man band; one trusts that Jai Johanny Johanson is still pounding his snare drum somewhere tonight.
BRYAN SYBLE/Florida
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* Macon is also where the band's longtime label Capricorn Records was located, in a rather modest downtown storefront which was more or less boarded-up when I went on my obligatory Macon pilgrimage back in 2000. Thought it would be a nice touch to lay drumsticks on the side-by-side Oakley and [Duane] Allman graves during that trip, too. (I'm informed Elizabeth Reed is also in the same graveyard, but I couldn't locate her Betts-inspiring famous headstone.)
** Fortunately, Gregg was arguably the greatest blues singer ever...and yeah, I've heard (and love) a lot of the work of Robert Johnson, Big Joe Turner, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly and quite a other few luminary bluesmen; for my money, white guy Gregg Allman's best vocals had every bit as much "soul" as did the remarkable recordings of Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding and maybe even Wilson Pickett. (And I haven't even mentioned Allman's ever-swirling work on the Hammond B-3 organ.)