The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Happy As Larry]

Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band co-founder and guitarist, dies aged 80

uitar legend Dickey Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, Ramblin’ Man, has died. He was 80.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer died at his home in Osprey, Florida, David Spero, Betts’ manager of 20 years, confirmed. Betts had been diagnosed with cancer and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Spero said.

“He was surrounded by his whole family and he passed peacefully. They didn’t think he was in any pain,” Spero said by phone.
Betts shared lead guitar duties with Duane Allman in the original Allman Brothers Band to help give the group its distinctive sound and create a new genre – southern rock. Acts including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kid Rock, Phish and Jason Isbell – among many others – were influenced by the Allmans’ music, which combined the blues, country, R&B and jazz with 60s rock.

Founded in 1969, the Allmans were a pioneering jam band, trampling the traditional notion of three-minute pop songs by performing lengthy compositions in concert and on record. The band was also notable as a biracial group from the deep south.

Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, and founding member Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash a year later. That left Betts and Allman’s younger brother Gregg as the band’s leaders, but they frequently clashed, and substance abuse caused further dysfunction. The band broke up at least twice before reforming, and has had more than a dozen lineups.

The Allman Brothers Band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and earned a lifetime achievement Grammy award in 2012. Betts left the group for good in 2000, and also played solo and with his own band Great Southern, which included his son, guitarist Duane Betts.

The group released a self-titled debut album in 1969. A year later came the album Idlewild South, highlighted by Betts’ instrumental composition In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, which soon became a concert staple.

The 1971 double album At Fillmore East, now considered among the greatest live albums of the classic rock era, was the Allmans’ commercial breakthrough and cemented their performing reputation by showcasing the unique guitar interplay between Allman and Betts.

The group also had two drummers – “Jaimoe” Johanson, who is Black, and Butch Trucks.
Duane Allman died four days after Fillmore was certified as a gold record, but the band carried on and crowds continued to grow. The 1973 album Brothers and Sisters rose to No 1 on the charts and featured Ramblin’ Man, with Betts singing the lead and bringing twang to the Top 40. The song reached No 2 on the singles charts and was kept out of the No 1 spot by Half Breed by Cher, who later married Gregg Allman.

The soaring sound of Betts’ guitar on Ramblin’ Man reverberated in neighborhood bars around the country for decades, and the song underscored his knack for melodic hooks. Ramblin’ Man was the Allmans’ only top 10 hit, but Betts’ catchy seven-and-a-half-minute instrumental composition Jessica, recorded in 1972, became an FM radio staple.

Betts also wrote or co-wrote some of the band’s other best-loved songs, including Blue Sky and Southbound. In later years the group remained a successful touring act with Betts and Warren Haynes on guitar. Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks died in 2017.
After leaving the Allmans for good, Betts continued to play with his own group and lived in the Bradenton area with his wife, Donna.

[Happy As Larry]

[misskit]

RIP Dickey Betts.


Makes me think back to the time I walked in the house and found Jaimoe sitting at the dining table with my then husband. I was introduced but didn’t ask why he was there. I just figured drugs.

[helge]

While Rodney King meant a conviction would probably have started a riot, the defence strategy was nonetheless to create doubt over the evidence, and a racist cop being in charge of it was exactly what they needed. Couple that with "The glove don't fit" and you've created all the doubt you need.

When Fuhrman was asked under oath if he ever planted evidence on a crime scene, he "took the fifth".

And it was over and should be.

Didn't exactly help that the leading detective, Tom something, drove around with blood samples taken from Simpson.

[harrybarracuda]

The American journalist Terry Anderson, who was abducted by Islamic militants in 1985 and spent six years as a hostage in Lebanon, died Saturday, his daughter, Sulome Anderson, announced in a statement. He was 76.




Anderson’s cause of death was linked to complications from a recent heart surgery, Sulome said.

“Terry was deeply committed to on-the-ground eyewitness reporting and demonstrated great bravery and resolve, both in his journalism and during his years held hostage,” said Julia Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP, in a statement. “We are so appreciative of the sacrifices he and his family made as the result of his work.”

Anderson was the Associated Press’ Beirut bureau chief at the time of his abduction, which came on just minutes after he’d dropped his tennis partner—a former AP photographer—at his home after an early morning tennis match on March 16, 1985.

He wrote in a book that men, armed with pistols, flung his car door open and they ripped him out, dragging him into a Mercedes-Benz that sped away—the same car he recalled cut him off the day prior.

The kidnappers identified themselves as Shia Hezbollah militants of the Islamic Jihad Organization. Anderson said the men blindfolded him and kept him chained in over a dozen hideaways in and around Beirut, where he endured various beatings but was never outright tortured.

His abductors said they kidnapped him to retaliate against Israel’s use of American weapons in its strikes against targets in Lebanon, indicating it was merely the nationality of Anderson—an Ohio native—that made him a target.

Anderson was finally released in 1991, having spent a grueling 2,454 days as a hostage. He returned to the AP’s New York office a hero, famously wearing a sweatshirt that read, “Hello World” with a picture of him on it.

Once back stateside, the AP reported that he “led a peripatetic life,” traveling across the country to speak and teach journalism, but also to operate a blues bar, a Cajun restaurant, a gourmet restaurant, and even a horse ranch.

He carried out those ventures even as he publicly battled with post-traumatic stress disorder—something that was widely reported and played a factor in him being awarded millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court concluded it played a role in his capture.

That wealth didn’t last, however. Anderson made some bad investments and filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the AP reported, and he eventually slowed down. He retired as a professor from the University of Florida in 2015 and moved to live on a ranch in northern Virginia.

Just a week before his death, his daughter recalled that Anderson said he’d seen all he ever wanted to see in this lifetime.
“He never liked to be called a hero, but that’s what everyone persisted in calling him,” said Sulome Anderson. “I saw him a week ago and my partner asked him if he had anything on his bucket list, anything that he wanted to do. He said, ‘I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much. I’m content.’”

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/terry-ande...010632909.html