#grownostr #Stoicism #nature
APOCALYPSE ANONYMOUS by
ATOSHI ANARKOMOTO
AUGUST 1973 (51 YEARS AGO)
The Allman Brothers Band: "Ramblin' Man" b/w "Pony Boy" (Capricorn CPR 0027) 45 single is released in the US.
"Ramblin' Man" is a song by The Allman Brothers Band, featured on their album Brothers and Sisters. It was written by Dickey Betts, who also sang lead vocals. It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was held out of first place by Gregg's future wife Cher's Half-Breed.
The song is sung by Betts and also features his lead guitar work, with support from session musician Les Dudek. Allmusic Guide writes that "the chorus is perhaps the catchiest and prettiest hook in all of Southern rock".
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RECORD WORLD, August 18, 1973
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND Capricorn 0027 (WB) RAMBLIN MAN (prod. by Johnny Sandlin and the Allman Bros. Band) (No Exit, BMI)
Edited version of tune penned by Dickie Betts is culled from their spankin' new LP "Brothers and Sisters." Group hasn't had a huge single yet, but this one could ramble all the way up.
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SONGFACTS
Allmans guitarist Dickey Betts wrote this song, taking the title from the 1951 Hank Williams song "Ramblin' Man." Betts also sang lead on the track, which he described as mostly autobiographical, telling the story of a guy whose travels take him to many places, and who takes life as it comes.
"When I was a kid, my dad was in construction and used to move the family band and forth between central Florida's east and west coasts," he said in the book Anatomy of a Song. "I'd go to one school for a year and then the other the next. I had two sets of friends and spent a lot of time in the back seat of a Greyhound bus. Ramblin' was in my blood."
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This was the first Allman Brothers Band single recorded without their leader, Duane Allman, who was killed in a 1971 motorcycle accident. Duane's work is on their 1972 album Eat a Peach, but for their next album, Brothers and Sisters, they had to fill the creative and sonic void left by his passing. Dickey Betts stepped up in a big way with "Ramblin' Man," which became the group's biggest hit and proved they could survive the loss.
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A key line in this song emerged in 1969 when Dickey Betts was playing in various bands in Florida. He would often stay with a friend, Kenny Harwick, who had a habit of asking questions and then answering them. One day, he asked Betts how he was doing and then answered for him: "I bet you're just trying to make a living and doing the best you can."
Betts held onto that line until 1972, when he wrote the rest of the lyric at the house the band shared in Macon, Georgia.
The five-second intro on this track is very effective, making the song instantly identifiable and launching it right into the chorus. Betts called it "a fiddle-like opener built on a pentatonic scale" (his dad played the fiddle). That section is his guitar and Chuck Leavell's piano.
After a chorus/verse/chorus/guitar solo/verse/chorus, the song resolves for another two minutes in an intricate section inspired by the end of "Layla," a track Duane Allman played on. This was Dickey Betts' idea. To accomplish it, he first tried overdubbing lots of guitar parts, but then recruited his friend Les Dudek, who was in the studio, to play lead with him, as Duane would have. They played together, creating a bed by repeating the guitar line over and over, then doing it again in a lower register, which they then overdubbed onto the track. Betts then overdubbed a lead part on slide guitar, coming in and out of the track as he listened to the bed.
This section served as a tribute to Duane Allman, as it built on the twin-guitar harmony sound he forged with the band. It also gave the band lots of room to show their chops when they played it live.
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The original working title of the song was "Ramblin' Country Man." A heretofore unknown third verse was sung by Dickey Betts on his Instant Live CD released in 2004.
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The band played this on the premiere of an ABC show called In Concert. It was their first national TV appearance, and also Berry Oakley's last performance, as the bass player died in a motorcycle accident a week later. The show aired after his death and was dedicated to him.
This was the last song Berry Oakley recorded. He died in a motorcycle accident on November 11, 1972.
https://youtu.be/jUTORC4eoGc
