Duane Betts Impresses on First Full-Length Album

Last Friday, Duane Betts released the first full-length studio album under his name. For a music artist who has been active for approximately 25 years, it’s been a long time coming, but the wait turned out to be very worthwhile. Wild & Precious Life puts Betts on the map as a solo artist.

When your father is Dickey Betts, guitarist and co-founder of The Allman Brothers Band, I guess the desire for music is in your genes. Duane recently told American Songwriter that after he had started learning the drums as a 5 or 6-year-old before switching to guitar around the age of 13, he never considered doing anything else but music. Evidently, nobody objected, so he stuck with it.

Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox

In 1994 as a 16-year-old, Betts joined the Allmans for a couple of gigs onstage. Four years later, he became a member of roots rock group Backbone69 and recorded their eponymous debut album with them the following year. After the band’s breakup in 2001, Betts co-founded rock group Whitestarr, together with his former Backbone59 bandmate Alex Orbison, the son of Roy Orbison.

In 2005, Betts’ father asked him to join Great Southern, the group Dickey had formed after his contentious departure from the Allmans in 2000. In 2015, Duane Betts became a touring member of folk-rock band Dawes. In April 2018, he released his first solo effort, an EP titled Sketches of American Music. Toward the end of the same year, he formed The Allman Betts Band, together with Devon Allman, a son of Gregg Allman. They released two albums in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and currently appear to be on hiatus.

Noting his EP, Betts explained to American Songwriter he wanted to put out a full-length album but the time needed to be right. He began writing songs for what would become Sketches of American Music during the pandemic in the summer of 2020. More songs followed in the beginning of 2022. In March of the same year, the recording sessions began at Swamp Raga Studio in Jacksonville, Fla., owned by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.

To make the album, Betts put together what he calls on his website “his dream team of musicians”: Allman Betts Band members Johnny Stachela (guitar), Berry Duane Oakley (bass) and John Ginty (keyboards), as well as Tyler Greenwell, one of the drummers in Tedeschi Trucks Band. There were also a few guests: Marcus King (guitar), singer-songwriter Nicki Bluhm and Derek Trucks (guitar).

Let’s check out some music! Here’s the magnificent opener Evergreen, which was co-written by Betts and Devon Allman. All it took for me to know I would dig this tune were the first few bars and that beautiful harmony guitar action. The jam-like instrumental part starting at around 2 minutes into the song is really sweet. And just after you could really picture the Allmans playing this song, Betts surprises you with some trumpet at around 3:43 minutes, which according to this Glide Magazine review was played by John Reid.

Waiting On a Song is another tune that grabbed my attention right away. Solely written by Betts, it first appeared on April 19 as the lead single, coinciding with the announcement of the album. An article in Garden & Sun, to which Betts’ website links, calls it “a breezy summer jam with an earworm melody and a guitar solo with more sizzle than steaks searing in a cast-iron skillet” – jeez, I never could have come up with that clever second half of the sentence!

Colors Fade features the aforementioned Nicki Bluhm on harmony vocals. The song was co-written by Betts, Johnny Stachela and Stoll Vaughan. And, yes, there’s more of that beautiful guitar harmony playing and some slide guitar action. Gorgeous tune!

Did I mention Derek Trucks? Check out Stare at the Sun, another single that was released ahead of the album on May 23rd. American Blues Scene reported the title of the song, which Betts co-wrote with Vaughan, came from something Trucks told Betts about his father’s guitar-playing: “He’s a player that’s not afraid to stare directly at the sun.” Apart from the great guitar interaction between Betts and Trucks, I love the keyboards in this tune.

Frankly, I could go on and on here. Another excellent track I included in my latest new music post is Cold Dark World, which features guitarist Marcus King. Let’s end it with an instrumental titled Under the Bali Moon. The track is credited to Betts and drummer Tyler Greenwell.

Wild & Precious Life was recorded to two-inch analog tape during a series of live-in-studio sessions at Swamp Raga Studio. Betts served as executive producer. Bobby Tis handled engineering duties, while mixing was done by seven-time Grammy winner Jim Scott who in addition to Tedeschi Trucks Band previously worked with the likes of Tom Petty, Wilco, The Rolling Stones and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Summing up the album, Betts stated on his website, “This is a record that guitar players will love, but at its core, it’s really a song record. It’s an album about who I am, where I come from, and what I believe in.” Here’s a Spotify link to the entire opus:

Sources: Wikipedia; Duane Betts website; American Songwriter; Glide Magazine; Garden & Sun; American Blues Scene; YouTube; Spotify

What I’ve Been Listening To: Booker T. Jones/Sound The Alarm

I dig the distinct sound of the Hammond B3 – just can’t get of enough it! Whether it’s used in blues, jazz, rock or even hard rock a la Deep Purple, to me it’s one of the greatest sounding music instruments I know. If you’re a more frequent visitor of the blog, this won’t be exactly a new revelation. If you happen to be here for the first time and would like to read more about the B3, I invite you to check out this previous post from June 2017.

Undoubtedly, one of the music artists most closely associated with the legendary tone wheel organ is Booker T. Jones. I feel magic is happening when the man works those keys and drawbars. As I’m writing this, I can literally hear Greens Onions.  Jones wrote the tune’s distinct organ line when he was just 17. His band mates from the M.G.s helped put it all together, and it became their signature tune. Booker T. & the M.G.s, of course, were primarily known as the house band of Memphis soul label Stax. While I know and dig the music Jones helped create in the ’60s, until recently, I had not explored any of his work post Stax and the M.G.’s.

Booker T. & The M.G.’s (from left): Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn

Booker T.’s solo debut Evergreen appeared in 1974, four years after he had severed ties with Stax and moved to Los Angeles. Sound The Alarm from June 2013 is his most recent solo work. It also marked Jones’ return to Stax since Melting Pot, the M.G.’s final album with the label in January 1971.

Sound The Alarm was co-produced by Jones and brothers Bobby Ross Avila and Issiah “IZ” Avila, who have worked with the likes of Usher, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliot. The album also features various collaborations with younger R&B artists. The result is an intriguing blend of Booker T.’s Hammond B3 and contemporary sounds.

Here’s the groovy opener and title track. It’s one of eight tunes co-written by The Avila Brothers. The song features American multi-talented artist Andrew Mayer Cohen, known as Mayer Hawthorne, on vocals. To be clear, I had never heard of the 40-year-old from Los Angeles before, who in addition to being a singer is a producer, songwriter, arranger, audio engineer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist, according to Wikipedia.

Broken Heart features another contemporary artist, Jay James, who has a great soulful voice that blends beautifully with Jones’ warm Hammond sound. The tune was co-written by Jones, The Avila Brothers and Terry Lewis. Together with his song-writing and production partner James Samuel (Jimmy Jam), Lewis also co-produced the track

Next up: Austin City Blues. Of course I couldn’t skip a good ole blues! Penned by Jones, the instrumental features Gary Clark, Jr. on guitar. The Hammond and Clark’s electric guitar live in perfect harmony, to creatively borrow from a Paul McCartney ballad he recorded with Stevie Wonder in the early ’80s. “Gary and I have a real thing going on mentally, kind of like what I had with Steve Cropper in the MGs, really understanding each other,” Jones noted on his website.  “He really is in my corner.”

66 Impala is a cool, largely instrumental Latin jazz tune with an infectious Santana vibe, even though there’s no guitar. But you can easily imagine Carlos playing electric guitar lines in his signature style and tone on the track, which is another co-write by Jones and The Avila Brothers. Instead of Santana, it features two other big names: Poncho Sanchez and Sheila E on percussion and drums, respectively.

The last track I’d like to call out is the album’s closer Father Son Blues. The title of this Jones-written tune couldn’t be more appropriate. On guitar, the instrumental duo features Booker T.’s son Ted, who was 22 years old at the time of the recording. Apparently, Booker T. coincidentally had heard his son play at their house one day and at first mistakenly had assumed it was Joe Bonamassa. “I thought, ‘This is amazing,'” Jones noted. “‘you can have something right in front of your own nose and you don’t see it!’”

Commenting on the collaboration with The Avila Brothers, Jones said, “Bobby and I had previously done a little impromptu gig with El Debarge – that was the turning point when I decided to work with him. They have a different perspective about the musical palette. Their attitude is quite unique and quite innovative. That’s something I’ve looked for since I was maybe 13 or 14 years old and had figured out a little bit about music. It can be very predictable or it can be exploratory. I’m always looking for something new to do.”

Sources: Wikipedia, Booker T. Jones website, YouTube