As the echo of guitar strings fades into memory, we sit down with the esteemed Andy Aledort, whose fingers have danced along fretboards in harmony with the legendary Dickey Betts. Our conversation takes you on a backstage tour of those hazy, adrenaline-fueled days and the poignant reflections on an era that shaped the very fabric of rock music. Andy's tales of camaraderie and the birth of his latest record spin a yarn of passion and perseverance, revealing the untold stories of life on the road and the creative fires that forge timeless music.
Strapping on a guitar is more than just playing notes; it's about infusing every chord with soulful authenticity, a lesson that Betts himself exemplified. Andy and Greg unravel this philosophy, musing on the magical alchemy of band dynamics and the unspoken language of music that resonates with the audience. The conversation resonates with the love musicians pour into their craft, akin to a chef's devotion to their cuisine, crafting a feast for the senses that lingers long after the last note has been played.
Gearheads, rejoice! Andy and Greg then venture into the hallowed realm of guitar gear and tone techniques, dissecting the sonic signatures that have become the hallmark of guitar greats. From the technical prowess of Hendrix to the soul-stirring slide of Duane Allman. Lace up your listening boots and prepare for a journey through the strings and stories that continue to echo through the halls of rock history.
As the echo of guitar strings fades into memory, we sit down with the esteemed Andy Aledort, whose fingers have danced along fretboards in harmony with the legendary Dickey Betts. Our conversation takes you on a backstage tour of those hazy, adrenaline-fueled days and the poignant reflections on an era that shaped the very fabric of rock music. Andy's tales of camaraderie and the birth of his latest record spin a yarn of passion and perseverance, revealing the untold stories of life on the road and the creative fires that forge timeless music.
Strapping on a guitar is more than just playing notes; it's about infusing every chord with soulful authenticity, a lesson that Betts himself exemplified. Andy and Greg unravel this philosophy, musing on the magical alchemy of band dynamics and the unspoken language of music that resonates with the audience. The conversation resonates with the love musicians pour into their craft, akin to a chef's devotion to their cuisine, crafting a feast for the senses that lingers long after the last note has been played.
Gearheads, rejoice! Andy and Greg then venture into the hallowed realm of guitar gear and tone techniques, dissecting the sonic signatures that have become the hallmark of guitar greats. From the technical prowess of Hendrix to the soul-stirring slide of Duane Allman. Lace up your listening boots and prepare for a journey through the strings and stories that continue to echo through the halls of rock history.
At long last. Ladies and gentlemen, season five of Chewing the Gristle is indeed upon us, a convivial conversation fest between myself, gregory S Caulk, esquire and a variety of musical potentates from hither and yon, brought to you by our friends at Wildwood Guitars and our friends at Fishman Transducers, of course, both of which I've had long-standing and continuing relationships with, and I'm very grateful for their continued support in this endeavor to bring you Chewing the Dog on Gristle. We've got a bunch of fun guests, some you have heard of, some maybe not so much. It'll be a little bit of discovery and a little bit of chaos all rolled into one. Thanks for tuning in folks. Now, without any further ado, let's chew some gristle.
Speaker 1:This week on Chewing the Gristle, we have our first repeat customer, my buddy, andy Allidort, guitar player extraordinaire. With the passing of Dickie Betts, we thought we would convene. Andy played in Dickie's band for about 10 years and has some glorious stories and information to share, and he also has a brand new record out as well. So we thought we would reconvene here on Chewing the Gristle. Ladies and gentlemen, this week, andy Allidore, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we're back at it again Another installment of Chewing the Gristle. Today we have our first guest that we're doing for a second time, the mighty Andy Allidort.
Speaker 1:Now for years I've been saying keeping the T silent. But Andy has just informed me that the T is in fact said and he said well, don't worry about it, I understand your name has a few twists and turns, and I said you're damn right, but we were talking the other day of course this has kind of been brought to the fore, our re-engaging here on this format to talk about the passing of the late great Dickie Betts, which Andy who Andy of course, played with for about 10 years and of course we're all huge fans of Dickie's and of Andy's. And also Andy has a new record out which I enjoyed listening to immensely. So we're going to talk about all of the above. Andy, how the heck are you? It's been a while.
Speaker 2:I'm great, greg, and it's always great to see you, my friend Likewise. I was just telling my wife I'm not sure what year it was, but I think it was 2008 because somebody sent me. It's so crazy. They found this guy, some guy. This is the wonder of today's world. That's so bizarre.
Speaker 2:I think his name is Tyler Johnson and he said oh, I found this video on my dad's phone and I thought you would like to see it and it's from Summerfest in Milwaukee in 2008 and it was like a this clip of me taking a guitar solo, you know, and I guess people shot videos with phones in 2008 because the sound quality is so horrible. But that was the day that you guys, you and your dylan, who was, you know, negative 12 at the time, you had a, uh, a glint in your father's eyes. You just what you showed me a picture of you said this is my son Dylan, and I was like I see a glint, but anyway, and now he's, you know, john Bonham incarnate all these years later. But let me just say first of all, greg, I love you. It's always great to see you.
Speaker 2:For those listening it's a little bit of a pain in the musician world because you know like there'll be people, your kindred spirits, that you feel so close to and you just see them once every 20 years or something. You know it could even be somebody that lives down the street. It's just everybody's working all the time and you never get seen to me. So with Greg it's been very rare because he lives in Milwaukee. But I wanted to say I'm so happy to see you out and touring so much and playing so much over the last year and a half or so. It just makes me so happy, it's so great and and I'm excited about your new record, which I can't wait to hear Well, thank, you so much.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. Congratulations on that, thank you. Well, I'll tell you what it's been a little crazy thing going out and touring. I've been enjoying it immensely. But thanks for those kind words because it's been a lot of years coming. It was interesting. Did you ever do that, andy, where every now and again you'll go online and somehow you'll find a link to some uh chat group and you're like what is this? And it's your name is mentioned on a uh um chat group like gear page or something like that, and you'll'll see these, hear these people talking about you like they know you and which is flattering, that anyone gives a crap. Don't get me wrong, I'm always very forthright in saying listen, I'm flattered that anyone cares at all. But one of the interesting things that was discussed on this thing was I went and saw Greg in Atlanta and there was 50 people there. It was so depressing. I'm like, well, yeah, that's what happens on a Wednesday night you know what I mean or a Thursday night, and even on a weekend night.
Speaker 2:It can happen when you're on the road.
Speaker 1:one night you're playing in front of several hundred people. The next night you're playing in front of 20 people. That's the way it works. But if you're smart enough and you're lucky enough, you put enough gigs together that by the end of the run you look back, it's like we made money. And so the point of my thing was that some guy was saying you know, there's always the inference of well, I don't know how he's making any money, you know, just because you're playing a lot, doesn't? It's just like, oh well, yeah, well, unless you do it, you really don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope you chimed in and said you know, um, uh, I got into, you know, being a sex worker a long time ago and that you know has paid the bills and has enabled me to go out and play for seven people on a tuesday night. And adam, oh man, see, if I was good I'd have, oh, crocodiles or alligators or what's the name of the place. Do you know this place? It's in like Pittsburgh or something.
Speaker 1:Does this ring a bell? No, we always play the city club cafe in Pittsburgh, which I highly highly recommend. It's a small place, but that place gets packed with people and they go crazy.
Speaker 2:I play this place with bets. There's somebody out there who's gonna know what it is and makes me want to look at it was called like alligators or crocodiles or gators or something, and it was just one of those places. Did you ever play captain hyrums? No, um, I think that's um venice beach in florida, but like, uh, captain hyrums always cracks me up because it's on, it's just, it's actually on the beach and it's nice, but everything's made of driftwood. The monitors are made of driftwood. You know which I'd never seen and they sounded like driftwood. If you put your ear up to it you could hear the ocean. So, anyway, you know there are all these joints out there. I mean in the Steve Ray Vaughan book. For you listeners who may not know, I co-wrote with Alan Paul. Yes, steve Ray Vaughan biography called Texas Flood Insights.
Speaker 2:I started with Steve Ray Vaughan. Steve was a guy I got to know and I got to play with him once and interviewed him many times and then became friends with Double Trouble, etc. Etc. And like after you know, at 7 am, after everybody was super high, said something he probably regretted like hey, if you're in LA, come over and I'll record. You know you can record for free and then you know, three months later we're here to record. It's like what I said. When did I say that? And so Bill Bentley, the PR, extraordinaire, wonderful person who's worked with Warner Brothers, and everybody who's from Dallas, texas, bill Bentley's an incredible guy. Everybody should look up Bill Bentley on Facebook if you want an incredible education in everything, education in everything. And because they were out there, he set up a gig at the Cathay de Grand, this tiny place under a Chinese restaurant, and, steve, he played to three people, right. So you know, this is the glamour that. This is why we became guitar players.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing I mean. Well, we could talk about this all, all doggone day long but I think it's just, it's just that it's just that thing, that it.
Speaker 1:You know. Occasionally you're just like you just shake your head. You realize, first of all, when I get to a gig and I'm set up, I know that I've done due diligence to try to get people there, cause you know the social media game is good and all that other kind of stuff. But there are certain things that are out of your control. So when I get to the gig and I set up and I play, I don't give a shit if there's two people there or several hundred. I'm there to play, because that's what it's all about ultimately. It's about music. You gotta eat, as I like to say. It's not all about the money, but it is a little bit. But you know, you do, you put things in place to make sure that you don't lose your ass and that's it. But let's get on to our other subject, which I enjoyed your eulogy to Dickie immensely.
Speaker 2:It's very well written.
Speaker 1:As is. All your stuff is very well written and we could talk about all the different things in there and I know the last time we spoke on this podcast we talked quite a bit and I enjoy the Dickie Betts stories immensely and I also enjoyed your, um, your list of of the tunes, uh, that you thought was essential listening and uh. But let's talk a little bit about just the whole phenomena of of. You know, the whole allman brothers thing is just such a trip. You know they a lot of what we were just talking about was what they experienced going on the road, nonstop and really until Live at the Fillmore came out and almost overnight-ish they were actually quote unquote, making it Other than that they were going around. I mean those stories about them going around on that O'Connell line, you know, with two guys up front and no seats in back and those guys stacked up kind of staggered like cordwood in the back of the van, you know, with no heat in the back, going on the road, you know 300 and some odd days and the dartboard.
Speaker 2:You know like you can look these things up and they're fun to look up. Like you can look these things up and they're fun to look up, but I mean I guess when you're 22 years old and eating bags of Reds Right, like the Grateful Dead said, you know, living on Reds, vitamin C and cocaine, right, and they literally were they would play in Jacksonville and then they play in Massachusetts Right, I mean they did. But you know, back in the old frontier days when fans would tour in a van even though people still do that today, but like Hendrix toured, like people don't understand, like Hendrix toured in like a, a station wagon, right, like a Chevy wagon, right. And the Kinks, like, if anyone's read Ray Davies' fantastic autobiography X-Ray, you know he talks about, you know they're English, they don't know anything. They come to America and, yeah, new York, fantastic. What are you know're English, they don't know anything. They come to America and, yeah, new York, fantastic, what a you know people are. And then they get like an hour out of New York and it's like you might as well be, you know, in, uh, peoria or something. Like you know nothing against Peoria, but like you know the point.
Speaker 2:His point was nobody understood them. It was 1966. And they were like these guys have long hair. So with the Allman brothers, this is the tie-in. Thank you, greg. They lived through exactly what you're talking about, which is they would just show up and play and it didn't matter because they were going to get back in the van and go play somewhere else tomorrow, right, and I've done gigs for three people.
Speaker 2:And if you walk in in your attitude and this is like the Cathay DeGran thing or there's a few examples of it in Stevie's book and your attitude is, you know, I'm here because I care about music and I care about the guitar and I love my bandmates and we are going to have a great time and make the best music we can for each other. And we are going to have a great time and make the best music we can for each other. You know, like when I play with my band, my drummer is a guy named Sam Bryant. He used to tour still tours with Kenny and Chuck sometimes. But part of the thing is I go to the gig to listen to Sam play because he's phenomenal. So I am thrilled to be playing with musicians that like knock me out Right.
Speaker 2:And then we all play that way and we've all learned that if you play that way, the audience hears it. People, um, there's no difference, because the uh right mindset and energy and spirit is in the music and there are people that will pick up on and there are people that won't. And so, to tie this into Dickie Betts, I can tell you that I learned so much. I learned more in the first week and a half on the road with him than I had learned my entire life gigging prior to that, because it was a different, everything was on a completely different level. And he even said to me after about two weeks or two to three weeks, he just came up to me and he said you know, I see the change in you and you're changing from being a club guitar player to somebody who can play for bigger audiences and is getting, is getting it Right.
Speaker 2:And I and there's you know, and just cause I hope people understand what that means. You know, I mean there's cliches like swinging for the fences or whatever it is. Or you know what do they say Like, you know, bringing it large or whatever. You know, it's a wonderful lesson that you can actually do when you're sitting in your music room alone, playing your music room alone, playing this reverence for music, um, and the power of it, um, becomes so undeniable and like a truth, it's so true to you that, um, that beautiful space in place and opportunity that music gives you, then you always want that, you always want to try to, you know, get into that realm, whether you're by yourself with a guitar and trying to write a song or you're in a rehearsal room with your guys and just playing, like if that becomes the thing, you know, I always make the analogy to being a chef, like when you cook, you know, if you're putting all of that enthusiasm into the food, like maybe you'll taste it, right, yeah, so I learned that from Betts immediately that he, every gig he would lead by example, He'd, before every solo, just about he'd set his legs apart a little bit You're kind of getting this a little bit of a lower stance and you put his head back and he would put everything into playing.
Speaker 2:And I was standing a foot away from him and that was the greatest lesson I could learn as a musician, not just as a guitar player, but believe me, it helped me a lot as a guitar player.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But that's what music was to him. You know, music wasn't music if it wasn't the intention of it being as honest and truthful and spirited and filled with emotion and trying to connect to the audience and just that striving for, you know, to transcend somehow, you know, our normal world. Uh, that's what music was, if it. Let me just tell one story really quick, please. I don't mean to monopolize, it's all good, but this is sort of the best way to explain it. We did a gig with the Outlaws I think it was in Syracuse, and we had two shows. We had a late afternoon show and an early evening show and we did the afternoon show and we'd been touring. So the band was pretty, you know in shape and man, I thought it sounded amazing, like it sounded perfect, you know, like we were really clicking. We'd been on the road, we knew what the set was. It was like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang and I was like goddamn. Like while we were bang, I was like goddamn while we were playing, I was like man, this shit is tight as a gnat's ass Sounds so good.
Speaker 2:We finished the set, go on the bus. Everybody felt great, dickie gets on the bus and he sits down, he goes hey guys, that set you just played was the tightest performance. Every note, every chord, absolutely perfect, sounded like a record and it was the most boring, motherfucking thing I've ever heard in my life. And if you think I hired you to go out there and play like a bunch of trained monkeys, you're wrong, because that isn't music and what you just did isn't music. And if you do it again for the next show in two hours from now, you're all fucking fired. He walked off the bus Wild Like holy crap. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha. So what a wonderful lesson that you can then carry into every facet of your life, which is, you know, the moment is the moment. That's a fact.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And he, I, and I learned. I learned a great deal from from the great man.
Speaker 1:Well, he had some other things that he told you too that were different ways of looking at things, like when you're playing the harmony parts to think of like the Everly Brothers singing and then yeah, how cool is that. What other types of things like that would he say?
Speaker 2:Well, there was a few. The Everly Brothers thing was particularly enlightening because, first of all, something I never would have thought of, but this shows Betts' sensitivity and his awareness and just his broadness of his musicality, his ability to communicate something that isn't necessarily that easy to communicate, like if he was trying to say to me play your part more gently, or make sure our two guitars are the same level, like you know, like the, the way that most musicians would talk to each other, let's make sure our levels are even, or you know what I mean, but he said it in this way that was conjuring up a musical feeling instantaneously. Let's try to make our guitar sound like the way the Everly Brothers when they sing, the way they harmonize their voices. It's like, well, nothing's more beautiful than that. Right, everly Brothers fan, like me, kathy's clown and their voices.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing. They're not guitars. You know their voices, which also makes it more, uh, personal and sensitive and and makes you aware of all the important things about playing a melody on the guitar. You know articulation, every note. You know you've had a lot of students and you've created a lot of instructional material over the years, greg, and you know to talk about touch and articulation and the sound of one note, that one note. It's important how one note sounds and you know, I always thought this is like an aspiration if, if, I can make my guitar sound like when, like paul desmond, paul desmond plays the saxophone, right, that would be like the greatest thing ever. Every note is perfectly round and it's so easy. It's like it's just this flowing, beautiful, effortless thing.
Speaker 2:So Dickie was just great at that. You know, like yeah, and it's sort of like he knew that if he said that I'd understand, and I did, I did understand instantly. And it was cool too, because it was my first gig private party at BB King's pre-soundcheck, I walked up just to plug in, to get my sound together a little bit, and then he came up and it was just the two of us and keep in mind this is my first show and you know, in case, just to encapsulate it, you know, dicky called me on like a monday or a tuesday at 10 am. I'm standing online at the bank I'm sure he hadn't gone to bed yet and I looked down on my cell phone rings and I see the name dickie Betts, which is always a little bit alarming, right, and I said, dickie, what's happening? And he goes. Oh hey, I'm listening to my guitar player, which was Dan Toler, who is one of the most phenomenal guitar players ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was a big fan of Danny's.
Speaker 2:He said my guitar player just quit and the tour starts in a week. Do you want to do it? And I had a full-time job and in 2005, we were writing for five different guitar magazines and I had two young kids at home. So I said yes, of course I do, you have to. And I said when do you want me to come down? He said you know the tour starts in a week. I said when do you want me to come down? He said you know tour starts in a week. I said when do you want me to come down? He says now. I go Zicky, I can't come now. You just asked me like one second ago and he goes well, come tomorrow. I said I don't know if I could come tomorrow.
Speaker 2:So the next day I went to Guitar World you know my employer and I said Dickie Betts called me and wants me to go on the road with him and be in his band. I promise I'll write all my articles from the road and I won't drop the ball. What do you think? And Brad Tolinsky was the editor-in-chief. He was like well, that would be fantastic. You know, we could say you know, one of our editors and primary writers is now Dickie Betts' guitar player. I think it's great. And I'm standing there and my cell phone rings. I'm at Guitar World and it's Dickie's manager, david Spiro, and he goes. So, andy, when are you going to fly to Sarasota and I go, david? I mean, there's no way I can go, like before tomorrow, and he goes. Good, I bought you a plane ticket for tomorrow morning. And when, when Dickie on the phone the first time Now, dickie had a three hour plus show.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of songs I don't didn't know, and these complicated harmonized lines yeah, they're weird, a lot of really complicated stuff. And then dickie had changed a lot of the arrangements and then there were new songs, but even the old songs, like jessica, he what's nothing like the record. There's tons of extra stuff, yep, and sometimes he'd like to do all of mountain jam in the middle of jessica. So you put a 15 minute song in the middle of a 25 minute song, right, and for you guitar players out there, of which I imagine there's a few, listening to Chewing the Gristle with Greg Koch, at the end of Jessica, dickie had added this free time melodic line where every note had to be executed with a volume swell and it was like wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. And these vibratos, wah. And he expected me to shadow him absolutely perfectly. And if I didn't, I mean including the swell, like the swell of my guitar had to match his perfectly. This is free time and the vibratos had to match his vibratos. We couldn't have clashing vibratos. I mean, this is hard to do, right, and it took a bit, but I got to the point. Where man it was, you wouldn't even know it was like. And then, if there was a night where one of them wasn't just ready to go, yeah, you got to work on that volumes. Well, vibrato thing, man. So, because it was so much, for the next two nights before I went down and then while I was there, I'd slept for like an hour a night and I wrote dozens and dozens and dozens of charts of transcribed you know what my lines were supposed to be.
Speaker 2:And then the first rehearsal. Now the guys in the band were freaked out. They were like no one's going to be able to walk in and do this. It's way too much. And I couldn't blame them for feeling that way.
Speaker 2:And I tackled the hardest stuff. First I was like I'm doing High Falls, which is a 20 minute song and I'm doing. He had a new song called Having a Good Time. I did the whole set all the hardest stuff and had my charts. And when I got, when we went to the first rehearsal, I got like three music stands, hardest stuff and had my charts. And then when I got, when we went to the first rehearsal, I got like three music stands I think I. I think I just had everything out on music stands. When we did the first couple of gigs, I had a board. I got a board and I taped up the music which I used just for the first three shows. One of them was Bogarts in Cincinnati, which you may have played. Bogarts is a place that's been there forever and people know it. But, and during that show Dickie came over and pretended to be reading my charts, like while he was playing.
Speaker 2:He was like, how does this go? Oh, I'll just read it. It was very funny, but anyway I got no sleep and I had all these charts and the whole band is like no one can do this. It's too hard, it's ridiculous. And I would say I'd give myself about a 93 and a half percent on all the songs we played for the first two hours, like it was good, and we took a break and dickie went and got a chair, pulled it all the way to the other side of the room to smoke a cigarette which I would learn later, meant he wanted to be alone, got it. But I was too, you know, in my own freaked outness to even think of that. So I walk, I grab a chair and I go over and sit next to him and I go Dickie, I hope I'm doing a good job for you and he looks at me and he takes a cigarette out of his mouth and he's just looking at me and he goes.
Speaker 2:Listen, I've had to do this a lot of times. You know, when we first put the almonds back together in the early 80s, I had to do with Dan Tuller and then when we got back, you know, reformed the van with Warren. I had to do with Warren, and then I had to do with Jack Pearson, and then I had to do with Derek Trucks, where all those guys were in a week. You're there the first day and then he goes. You were there the first day, awesome. And then he goes. You're a quick study Now, here's the best part of the story. So then we resume the rehearsal and, jessica, you know, like I made some mistakes but I'm pretty good. You know, like I've got most of it together, like the band, the whole attitude's changed, everybody's like. You know, we have one or two more rehearsals before we go on the road, like we're going to be okay, right, and so then now it's the end.
Speaker 2:Dickie goes well, let's wrap up with rambling, and he counts it off and I don't play anything. So he stops the band and he looks at me and he goes what are you doing? And I go. I didn't work on that one and it was true, I had no idea how to play rambling man, and he goes. You how to play rambling man, and he goes. You don't know rambling man. It was like I did everything and I went. I didn't get to it, so, anyhow, but you got to it. I got to it right away and, uh, it was easier than um, so I'm just curious if it's.
Speaker 1:I got to it right away and it was easier, so I'm just curious, even if it's not okay to talk about it or if you don't want to say but was there any inclination of why Danny Toler quit so quickly like that, without any kind of notice, as it were?
Speaker 2:Well, it seemed that you know. I guess the only thing I could really say is I think there had been some acrimony or what's the word you know about some of the material. I asked the listeners to forgive me anyone out there if this is incorrect. You know, like from the original Great Southern Days, like maybe Danny had written some parts and felt he wasn't credited, or I don't really know. I think there was some of that. You do have to think like you don't quit like one week before the tour unless you're purposely, you know, trying to stick it to somebody because you could have quit any time during the five months they had off between touring and give Dickie a chance to find a guy. So I don't know, I can't really say.
Speaker 2:My experience with Dan is Dan was always the nicest person and most generous person in the world and I spent three years going and sitting in with the band Once I got to know Dickie. I got to know Dickie by ghostwriting his column for Guitar World and then I sent him my first CD, a CD called Put a Sock in it, and the opening track is a cover of the Freddie King's the Stumble. And then you know, typical great businessman that I am. I totally forgot that. I sent it to him. So we were on the phone, you know, because that's how we put the columns together. We would talk on the phone and I think, you know, like it's some time had gone by, and he just says to me I got, you know, I got your CD. Like you'd been waiting for me to ask, and I forgot, and I went oh yeah, like I'm such an idiot, you know, I sent him a CD and I forget, and I'm like, hey, did you get my CD? So he goes, you know, I, I got your CD, you know, and I go oh yeah, I go. What'd you think? He goes, man, that first track will knock your hat in the lake, which I guess means he liked it. So I said well, thank you, man, and if there was ever an opportunity to sit in with you and play with you, it would be just the greatest honor. And he said which I put in my little eulogy tribute to him I couldn't believe it. And he said well, here's my stage manager's phone number Mike, any gig you can make, just call Mike and there'll be a half stack Marshall waiting for you. I couldn't believe it, believe, and it was true, and so for the next three years it was like I drew a circle on the map, like anything within 100 miles, man, I would go, you know, out in waterloo, new jersey, like wherever it was, I would just, or upstate you know whatever direction. If it's within two and a half hours, close three hours, I'm there. And he'd get me up for two tunes.
Speaker 2:And Dan was always great, he was very gracious. You know, like, when Dickie called for me to sit in, there was one gig I had only sat in one time before and then he was playing BB Kings in New York City and that first time, you know, we were on the phone and I said I'm going to come out and he said, great, you should come play. I brought my guitar. So then he's playing BB Kings and I wanted to get a hold of him and just make sure it's okay. You know, hey, dickie, I'm planning to come to bb kings it's like you know, sitting in school. That's great, I'll bring my guitar. Couldn't get him on the phone and I didn't want to show up with my guitar, right, look like a presumptuous, I get it. Pain in the neck like hi, here I am with my guitar, right, when do I get yeah, when am I playing?
Speaker 2:so I didn't bring my guitar and I went to the show with my wife and her friend, with some people, and they played the first set and then I said, well, I'm gonna go back and say hello. So I go in and hey dicky, and he goes. He just looks at me, goes where's your guitar? And I go. And I start to say, well, I didn't bring it. And he goes don't you want to play? And I go well, yeah, I want to. And then he's like well, where's your guitar? And I go. But I couldn't, you know. It was like right, he was just like what is wrong with you? So he goes. Well, you're going to have to play Dan's guitar. And I was like, if, it's okay with Dan. And so there are pictures of me playing a red.
Speaker 1:Strat. You know I was going to ask you about that because all through the bros and through the Greg Allman years, his Greg Allman solo band, danny, always played that 58 Les Paul that I think Dickie gave him. Yes, he did, and I was wondering whatever happened to that guitar. Did he sell it? Did he give it back to Dickie? Because I know somebody else owns it now, but do you know anything about that particular instrument?
Speaker 2:I had heard that Danny sold the guitar, but quite a while ago, you know, like not for $250,000, unfortunately, and because you know, he's a normal musician and he needed bread. Yes, there's ebbs and flows, shall we say. Oh, there are. It's the old joke. You know what did the musician say when he won the lottery? What's that? Well, I'm just going to keep gigging until the money runs out.
Speaker 1:That's like how do you make a million dollars in the music industry? Start with five, exactly. We interrupt this regularly scheduled gristle-infested conversation to give a special shout-out to our friends at Fishman Transducers, makers of the Greg Koch Signature Fluence Gristle Tone pickup set Can you dig that? And our friends at Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, colorado, bringing the heat in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. So let's just geek out a little bit about the gear situation with Dickie, because I know, okay, well, you started to say about.
Speaker 2:Danny playing the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Les Paul versus the Strat Right. Just to make the point, danny did play in those great Southern days in the 70s when he you know, that's when he first connected with Dickie. He's on those great, great southern albums. And then early 82, allman Brothers is Dan Toler and Danny played a lot like Dickie and then he played a Les Paul and his sound was not dissimilar to Dickie's. And so Danny told me that all his years went by when they didn't play together.
Speaker 2:And you know people, some people know Dan Toller from his guitar solo on I'm no Angel Greg Allman, and he played from his guitar solo on I'm no Angel Greg Allman because that was a great song and he played a great guitar solo on that. Then Danny just got attracted to having his own sound and wanting a really different sound. So he switched to a Stratocaster. He used the tremolo arm a lot actually, and with a maple board, and it was a completely different sound. And then his style changed a lot and became very legato and Danny had a lot of chops. Man, yeah, he did.
Speaker 1:Dangerous Dan Toller.
Speaker 2:He really sounded like a fusion guitar player, you know, and very adventurous musically, and so that was just to, you know, put a cap on that was that Danny, you know, made a concerted effort to change the sound into something different. Well, I was going to say, just talk about geeking out about the gear.
Speaker 1:you know, when I listened to, uh, you know, the live at the fillmore record which of course is, you know, uh, an absolute favorite of most guitar players but, uh, certainly the bible of blues rock guitar in many ways, shapes and forms. I remember you when I would first listen to it. I always liked Dwayne's slide playing but I preferred Dickie's conventional playing. I I liked his tone better, uh, I liked his precision better. Later on, I would just appreciate them both for what they did and I love Dwayne's playing. I love Dwayne's vulnerableness, you know, and his vibratos and sometimes his overbends and so on and so forth. But Dickie's tone back then was just so, was snottier, and it's just sounded like the middle position most of the time on a Les Paul or an SG, as the case would have been with the film, or I couldn't quite remember, you know, when those recordings were done. If he was, because there's some footage of him playing an sg, uh, during that period of time could have been but anyway, the picture on the inside of the record.
Speaker 2:He's playing a less ball. He's got that less ball exactly so, but it's you know.
Speaker 1:he had a snotty tone and I remember that I'm always curious about you the volume levels of various bands, what, and I know that exactly. And that Dwayne liked 50-watt super bass heads yes. And I'm wondering if Dickie used 50 watts, then too, to get that snotty, or he always used 100. Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, interesting, and you can hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's searing Well in a glorious way.
Speaker 2:It's a punch in the face and the clarity of his tone all the time. But in that record in particular, a great example is that sort of extended breakdown thing in um, you don't love me, where Dwayne plays first and using a 50 and those guys didn't use any pedals. You know, like, just turn it up, you know. And today, meaning for the last 45 years, is what today is Right. Um, you know, I remember going to buy a distortion pedal. I was like why would someone use this? It was in 1980. Right, and it was because I couldn't put my amp on nine. You know, in this like pop slash new wave band that I was going to be in, you know. So I needed to get, you know, distortion at like a level that wasn't louder than the singer, right. So I went and bought a one of those yellow dod preamp Overdrive 250s, which is the Yngwie pedal, and I'm looking around for it because I was still using it not that long ago. It's because they have a great sound. The only pedal Yngwie uses, by the way, is that exact pedal and um, but so to me, you know, so, so you know, uh, and hendrix too, you know, like, I mean, he used the fuzz face. But a good part of the time when you're listening to live hendrix, he's just plugged into his amplifiers and they're turned up and they're not necessarily on 10 and that's why the tone is like so amazingly beautiful and but gigantic, like gigantic, and so on that breakdown section, if you don't love me, I always get the feeling that Dwayne playing through fifties it was sort of like the biggest version that you could get of what he had been used to, which was playing, you know, out of a Tweed amplifier in the studio or a Brownface amplifier, like on 10 or you know, you know. You know, like that cranked amp distortion sound and Dwayne takes the first unaccompanied free time solo in you Don't Love Me, right, and that's his sound, like that's the Dwayne sound and he's not on 10 because he's not playing over the band but he's playing loud, right, and there's distortion. And because he's not playing over the band but he's playing loud, right, and there's distortion, and the guitar's turned up and it's that Dwayne Allman sound, that's hairy, you know, it's a hairy sound, woolly, whatever the word is, and then he sort of fades out and then Dickie comes in with this sort of country stuff, right, you know, it's sort of hybrid picked or finger picked, and it's so clean, right, it's so clean.
Speaker 2:And so one thing I told Bonamassa Joe Bonamassa, that he thought was cool, you know, and it's fun, like I feel like I'm this old codger with you know these stories and I have nothing inaccurate about that. But I told him we were talking about volume swells, and I said, well, what I learned with Betts, which was very, very cool, was he would keep his now, this is like a Les Ball thing, right, because he's one of the absolute kings of the list ball is that he would keep the volume, his bridge volume, either on 10 or almost on 10 all the time and his neck volume. Then he would put it on zero, right, but he'd put the toggle switch in the middle, in the middle. Yep, I get you, yeah. And so anybody who knows what that's like let's say, for example, the bridge pickup's on 10. Well, when you go from zero to one on your neck pickup, I mean you go from silence to loud, right, loudish. If you go from zero to two, then you've pretty much attained loudness, right.
Speaker 2:And so Dickie would do this before we start the first song. He would I didn't really know what he was doing at first, and then I realized that's what he was doing. He put the bridge pickup basically on 10 and his neck pickup on zero and he put the toggle in the middle and then he would just turn the neck pickup up enough so that it would be sort of like if it was a neck pickup alone on three or four, right. But then when he did a swell and you go to both pickups on 10. Right, it's like this glorious. You know, full orchestral volume, swell, it's gigantic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Bonamassa was like, wow, like I never would have thought of that, like that's how to get a volume swell to be like I'm going from zero. You know like pianissimo to. You know fortissimo times a know, fortissimo times a million, right, right, right, that's pig latin, that's right linguists out there. So, um, but you know, as I mentioned in 12 essential tracks, because it's always cracked me up, um, the tone that dickie has for his one way out solo is just, it's unreal. Yeah, and I'm going to assume, greg, that you have tried at different points in your life to get that sound yes and I know I have, and it's just pointless to try it, it's impossible, it is just the most.
Speaker 2:it might be the greatest like blues rock guitar tone ever, because it's just unbelievable. And you know it's the most powerful laser sharp, but it's distorted, but it doesn't sound like distortion, doesn't sound fuzzy, it's like. I mean, it's just unreal. So, um, as I mentioned in the thing on the 12 essential tracks, by the way, I should say today is, uh, what is today, tuesday, april 23rd, and so today is the day my eulogy and 12 essential tracks will be live on guitar world online. Um, so everybody could read it.
Speaker 2:And um, a fan of that one way I started solo is Martin Scorsese, because in the movie the departed there's a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio basically beats the living hell out of someone in a bar fight. He's beating the guy to death and the soundtrack of him crushing the guy's skull is Dickie's guitar solo. One Way Out. Guitar solo is the background, is the soundtrack to someone having their face pummeled in, and so we were watching it on the bus and Dickie said I'm glad they used my song in the movie, but this is pretty rough. He's like this is kind of rough, like I don't know what it says about the song. So, yeah, so dick is using hundreds and um name drop alert. But I was texting with joe satriani, um, a couple days ago and he was asking me, actually it started because of Betts passing, and then we he sent his condolences because of Betts and then we started talking about Betts sound, and so he asked me basically the same question, like what was Dickie using? And I said they were hundreds and plexis.
Speaker 2:But you know he liked metal fronts too, you know. And who doesn't? And but they use these JBL D120s Right, which Dickey called Altex. And so before it became JBL JB Lansing Right, it was Altex Lansing Exactly Yep. So Dickey would refer to them as Altecs and I'm old enough to remember that that was something that existed and by the time I was playing in a band in the mid-70s, that had changed. But I was aware of those things. And so those D120s, I believe rated like 250 watts a piece. So if you have four of them in a cabinet it's a thousand watt cabinet. You know that's an insanely efficient cabinet. And duane used the same thing and there's even pictures where you can see that they must have had trouble mounting them because you can see they had to put screws in through the front. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there are pictures that exist for you, gear freaks, which is fun. You can see that they had to mount them because these speakers have massive magnets, because they're incredibly heavy, so you know. So I'm wondering so.
Speaker 1:So in the bros back then was it, was it duane using 250 watt heads and and dickie just using 102 cabinets, or I always look on stage and try to figure out, okay, who's using what.
Speaker 2:But it really didn't seem like they were both playing out of two stacks, which was kind of the norm at the time with everybody, it seemed I would have to look at pictures to to tell you and I'm sure that it changed, because there's lots of really nice pictures of, like, the Piedmont Park days in 1969.
Speaker 2:Right, when the band was first coming together. And for those listeners who may not know, that's how the Allman Brothers formed, because Dickie was in a band called Second Coming with Barry Oakley, and Dwayne, who was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, would come and sit in with Second Coming and they did these free concerts on Sunday afternoons in this park, piedmont Park, and then eventually, you know, dickie had brought along Jamo, and then Butch had been in a band called the 31st of february, and then he came along and next thing, you know, you know you got all these guys and then greg came in back from the west coast and you got the allman brothers, and so there are pictures from men where you see twins and stuff, right, and so I would have to look at a video of like them at the film war or something like that. I really do think that they were both using two full stacks, but I'm not. I'd have to look at pictures.
Speaker 1:Crazy. So when you played with Dickie, he was using 200, sometimes right, and then two, just one.
Speaker 2:No, when I joined the band in 2005, dickie was using the reissue 50-watt Plexi heads with two of his original bottoms. Now I can tell you that when you plug a 50-watt head into a 1,000-watt cabinet cabinet, my 100 watt head, my 1978 jmp 100 watt head into my 280 watt cabinet because it had loaded with vintage 30s through 1,000 watt, you know basically 2,000 watts of speakers and I'm playing through 280 watts of speakers. But you know, there were times where Dickie would say, well, you're using 100 watt, like why is it on eight? You know, like he would just look at the number and he would say you're too loud. And I would say well, dicky, you're using thousand watt cabinets. They're like incredibly efficient. So I'm happy to use a 50 watt head, just like you.
Speaker 2:Give me one of your cabinets, right, we'll have the same rig and I I'll play lower than you, but if I have to play through, he didn't want to hear any of this. It was like he would just go turn your amp down. I don't want to see that knob pass by. And it made it difficult because but I sent you a little video clip of me playing a slide solo. I don't know if you got a chance to check that out.
Speaker 1:I saw the memory of Elizabeth Reed solo I didn't get to the slide one.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can't hear you suddenly. Oh, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Your sound went away.
Speaker 1:Oh, now you're back.
Speaker 2:Now you're back, say that again.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I heard the Memory of Elizabeth Reed solo. I didn't get to the slide solo, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Do you want to watch it? It's like 20 seconds long. Let's see, check it out. But this is why, because I'm playing through one of Dickie's 1972 or three metal front heads with one of his thousand watt cabinets.
Speaker 1:Why, on that gig I was using his, my amp probably died. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very nice. So you were using one of his amps.
Speaker 2:for that you were using his, yeah, yeah, I was using, uh, his one of his 1972 or three metal front 100 watts with a thousand watt cabinet, and that's why it sounds like that, it sounds ridiculous so when you would sit in with him, uh, prior to you joining the band, would you use one of his old cabinets or did he have like a just a spare, spare rig?
Speaker 1:that was not the JBL infested goodness.
Speaker 2:No, I would be. It would be a spare amp of his. So sometimes we had a bunch of stuff on the road. So cause amps, you know they die all the time they do, and so and then he didn't take the best care of stuff. So, like you know, he lives in Florida where it's hot. So, like you know, like when they go off the road, everything would go in storage and in those storage things it would probably be 300 degrees in there or something you know, with all the stuff, and then they would just pull it out and throw it in the trailer and you'd go play. Nobody checked anything to see if it worked. And then you'd be on the road in the Amplitie and you'd just pull one out that we had and then that wouldn't work because everything melted inside of it, you know, while it was in the storage facility. Like there wasn't much quality control. Well, how?
Speaker 1:about all the guitars. I mean there was that. You know. There's the gold top that we we think about from the from the duane days and then in the brothers and sisters era he had kind of that open coil sunburst lester he used a lot of the time, yeah, and then when the bros reconvened in 78 or so he had a gold top and he played that through that whole time of that band and then sometime during the 80s he put like a Kaler or a Floyd Rose on a gold top.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know, and he was wearing skinny ties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And then you know, when the bros got back together again, you know he had the gold top for a while, then he had a 335. And then he stripped the gold top and painted it red.
Speaker 2:Yeah that was his original.
Speaker 1:So that was the original. I was going to ask which gold top. Was it the same gold top from the early days? Did he always have that guitar and was that the one that? That's a different one that Dwayne had right.
Speaker 2:Because Dwayne got rid of his gold? This is an excellent question so it's impossible to get a straight answer to. But basically and I'm a little confused about this because I do think this was the case. So if anybody listens to the earliest like Allman Brothers bootlegs and stuff, you know they had no money, they were broke and Dwayne had one guitar. He had his gold. He had his gold top, which is referred to as the Layla guitar, because that's a guitar he plays on Layla and 57, I guess. I'm not sure Is it a 57 gold top? I think so. And so Dwayne always played slide and open tuning and open E, but he only had had one guitar. So when you listen to those bootlegs from 1969, um, maybe even early 70s, there's so many great ones like syrian mosque, and you know there's just super so many cool ones, boston commons, um, you hear duane tuning on the spot, yeah like tuning up to open e and then tuning back.
Speaker 2:And so Dickie had two guitars. He had his 335, his 1961 Dot Neck 335, a piece of absolute wonderfulness that made me get mine, because Warren Haynes had bought one, because he coveted Dickie so much, and original 61 dot neck and cause, you know, I'm super gay and wanted to be in the club, I want a dot neck 61, also that's red, and the custom shop made me one in 2008 and it's an incredible guitar. And I should tell you, the only cause you'll get a kick out of this is that when I showed up at his house for us to start rehearsals in 2008, I got there at night and I came in and I was with a couple of the other guys and Dickie was still awake, but he was going to bed, and so we talked for a minute and then I said, hey, dickie, I got a new guitar, you know, for the tour, and this definitely is justified for gear, you know whatever you want to call it nerdiness. And so his son, dickie's son, dwayne Betts, was in the band and they were both playing Les Pauls. And then, for a period of time, the three of us were playing Les Pauls Right All of 2006 and 2007. Three Les Pauls, you know, through a hundred wild marshals, it's a lot, yeah. And before the first gig with the three of us you know, which was at the Freebird cafe in Jacksonville Dickey looks at me and Dwayne he goes, let's not go out there. And Molly hatchet, everybody, he goes, let's not go out there. And mollyhatchet everybody. So I thought, well, you know, it would be nice and I've always wanted one. I'll switch, I'll get a 335. I'm going from the custom shop. I want one anyway, really badly, a Dot Neck 335. And they said we'll make it exactly like a 61.
Speaker 2:More guitar geekness Sometime in 61, originally 335s had a solid center block, but a 345 or 55, because of the additional wiring, the center block was channeled out for the wiring and the very tone. But because it was channeled out the wiring and the very tone, but because it was channeled out there's less wood in the middle and there's more air in there and the pickups are screwed in but they are much more resonant guitars and the tops vibrate and you know, no one's going to complain about a 58.335 like Larry Carlton's guitar. They're incredible guitars but they're very. It's a different beast than a guitar, a 335, from 61 or 2, where it's been routed out, the center block's been routed out. It's just a different animal. Where it's been routed out, the center block's been routed out. It's just a different animal. And so when I asked the Gibson Custom Shop to make me the guitar, I said you know, make sure it's routed out Because Gibson at some point said screw it, it's too much of a pain, like, let's just make them all the same, whether it's going to be a 335 or a 45 or 55. You know they'll all have the same routed out center block. They just switched. But it was a cool you know happenstance that the guitars are more resonant anyway.
Speaker 2:So I come in and I said, dicky, I got a new guitar, you know, uh, for this year. And he goes what'd you get? I said I got a 61, 3. And he goes what'd you get? I said I got a 61-335. And he goes, you rat bastard.
Speaker 2:And then the next day I'm in the guest house. I used to stay in his guest house, I think he has this beautiful mansion in Osprey, the southern part of Sarasota, spanish-style mansion, right on the Spanish Key, the Narrows Gulf of Mexico. It's beautiful. And then this beautiful, small but beautiful guest house where I always stayed and, it's funny, the first day I stayed in it the previous occupant had just left. Vassar Clemens oh no kidding. Yeah, you know who's on Highwaymens. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, you know who's on Highway Call, the fiddle player yeah, on Dickie's first solo album, which is an incredible album Richard Betts, highway Call. So anyway, I went to take a leak in the bathroom and then I hear like these footsteps and the door open and then I hear some plinking on a guitar and I come out and it's Dickie sitting on the couch playing my 335.
Speaker 2:Now I did the Dickie Betts mod, which some people might know what. That is what Dickie did on his own guitar, on his original, because he's volume swells are very important to Dickie and if anyone's, you know, greg, I don't know how big your hands are, but I mean, uh, to try to do a volume swell on a three 35. Yeah, it's difficult, like you know. Yeah, pinky, extender, impossible for me, and because the knobs are further away from the bridge and the strings where you pick and there's a toggle switch in between Right, whereas on a Les Paul, you know, the neck volume is pretty much right there. I mean it's a little bit of a stretch. It's not like a Stratocaster, you know. So, anyway, what Dickie did was he swapped the position of the toggle and the neck volume so you can get to the neck volume control and do swells, and it's still a little bit of a reach, but it's very similar to a Les Paul.
Speaker 2:So there are people that look at the guitar and they go, oh, something's weird about it or how could you do that to a vintage guitar. But there's no routing. You don't have to drill new holes, no, nothing. You just swap the position.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing that's cool it makes it like a, like a strat almost is that your pick hand on the 335, the first thing that's below it is the volume for the neck, uh, pickup, right like a strat. And then right beyond it it's the toggle switch, which is also like a strat. When you drop your hand down which is a normal thing to do when you're playing, if you're used to a Fender you move beyond the volume tone controls to smack the toggle switch. And this is just like that. So you get used to it instantly. It's very easy. You got your neck volume and then, so I had them make it that way, so mine was made that way. And I walk out and dicky's sitting on the couch and he goes. I see you put that neck volume where mine is and I said, I said, yeah it was a good idea, dickie.
Speaker 2:So it was the first thing he said. He's like yeah, so you put that volume controller where mine is.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, my friend, we've got about five minutes left. I just wanted to touch base on your new record, which I had a chance to listen to and I enjoyed it immensely. New record, which I had a chance to listen to and I enjoyed it immensely, starts out with that incendiary version of lordy mama, which, of course, is uh cream like from uh, but it's initially, of course, from the um. As far as I understand, it's from that junior wells uh buddy guy record that clapton probably heard it. And who do man? Who do man?
Speaker 1:exactly, and that's hey La La De Mama as a shuffle Right and so which Cream originally did it as a shuffle, and then, yes, when they went in and they changed it to the Strange Brew groove, exactly.
Speaker 2:So that was the thing you listen to, those Club Day 1966 Cream bootlegs. You know, hey, la La De Mama, no need to worry, they did it just like junior wells and buddy guy. Then they rearranged it, recorded it as laudemama and it didn't come out to live cream volume one. It was the only song on live cream volume one that wasn't live, it was just left over track. But within a day or two of cutting it somebody said well, it's so different, let's write new lyrics.
Speaker 2:And much to the chagrin of Jack Bruce who told me this in an interview oh, let's make it a, you know, like a vehicle for Eric, because we want him to be the star of Right. And so Felix popularity wrote these lyrics for uh, and the star of the team. And so Felix Papalardi wrote these lyrics and the song became Strange Brew, right, but it's the identical track. So if you listen to the track, eric recut his fills and his solo and the singing, but the bass and drums are identical to La Di Mama. So I did it because other people have covered strange brew and people know it that right as strange brew. I've never heard anybody cover la de mama. So I thought it would be kind of fun. And I could tell you, like my son-in-law text me and he goes what's up with this first track? Isn't this strange brew? And I was like, yes, it is, but it's la de ma. Um, did you get to track number two with the harmonized slide guitars?
Speaker 1:I did, it's glorious very, very well done, very becky and, if you will, very.
Speaker 2:Jeff beck, definitely maybe. And george harrison, my sweet and you know, give Me Love and all those incredible you know. George Harrison Harmonize Slide.
Speaker 1:I also enjoyed the incendiary version of Polly Gap that you put together. Oh killer, yeah Cool quotes from the original Jimmy. But then you go off and impale in your own right. And who's the sax player? Are there different sax players or is it the same guy? It's the same guy and he's a monster right, and who's the sax player?
Speaker 2:Are there different sax players or is it the same guy?
Speaker 1:It's the same guy.
Speaker 2:He's a monster. Yeah, he's a bad boy. His name is John Aravagon I-R-A-B-A-G-O-N. He I think he's in his like mid to late mid forties and he had lived in Brooklyn and then now he lives in Chicago. I mean, he's a monster.
Speaker 2:So when I went to do the session this is a whole other story, so I'll just put the 10-second version of it is that this Italian record producer, fabrizio Peresnoto from Long Song Records he had reissued my first record put a sock in it like seven years ago or something like that, and then he said, hey, hey, you want to make a record for me on my label? I said sure, and I was going to fly to Milan and do at the end of 2019. Didn't happen. And then what happened? So they all came over, all these Italian guys flew over and we did it in New Haven Firehouse 12 in september 22, so I didn't know any of the musicians and we had two days to do it. So it was like crazy pressure and five originals, three covers and john arabagon was, you know, the sax player on the date and he killed it. There's a song called cotton sham melodies which was that's a glory.
Speaker 1:That's a great tune. Sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:That was my nod to. I love Lee Morgan, the, the, the Trump jazz Trump player, and he has so many songs, like Gary's notebook and totem pole and sidewinder, where he plays these incredible harmonized melodies with Hank Mobley. And so you know my, you know, garden variety version. The best I could do of a nod to that was to have this jazzy tune and we do the same thing on Moonwaves, where John and I will play the melody in unison first, which Hank and Lee Morgan do on those songs, and then what's so cool is, at a certain point Mobley splits off into a harmony and then they'll resolve back in unison Like it's amazing, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I followed that same tack on Cotton Sham. That's very cool. We play in unison and then I split off and we play in harmony Come back to unison and John's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I encourage everybody to go out and listen to that record. In a Dream, that's what the record's called, am I correct?
Speaker 2:That is because I dreamt five of the songs. That is because I dreamt five of the songs. I woke up with the songs already written came downstairs and Cotton Sham melodies. I dreamt I was jamming with Sam the Sham from Sam the, and in the dream I said, oh, I remember learning this when I was a kid and I woke up it was clear as a bell and I went that's not an Almond Brothers song. And then, in a dream, same thing. I had dreamt that first part. You know, it was just the last dream, like the second, before I woke up, and so it's really cool to. That's why the album's. That's the title track In A Dream. Love it, my friend, greg. Thank you, man. Well, thank you it was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1:I encourage people to go check out your eulogy to Dickie and also that suggested listening and great to see you. As always, my friend, always a pleasure. Thanks for spending some time with us today.
Speaker 2:Hey, Greg, what's the name of your record and when can I hear it?
Speaker 1:Well, the latest record we did is a thing called Melting the Farmhouse and it was basically just an EP. We did four tunes live in the studio and then we decided to put it out on vinyl. Excuse me and volume the vinyl's been out now for a little bit, but it's going to be on all the streaming services as of April 26th, which is in three days. That's in three days, I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Very psyched Thank you, my friend, great to see you. Thank you, greg.
Speaker 1:Have a good one. We'll see you soon. Love you, bro, likewise, bye-bye. Thank you so much, folks, for tuning in. Special thank you to Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, colorado, and the mighty Fishman Transducers for making this podcast possible. If you enjoyed yourself, ladies and gentlemen, please subscribe and review so that people can get the word out that this is worth experiencing. Can you dig it? Thanks again. We'll see you soon, or you'll hear me soon.