RockBeat 2018 / Liberation Hall 2024
A breathtaking stage report from a fallen hero and his stellar compadres – finally presented in its glorious two-hour entirety.
Live From The Lone Star Roadhouse:
New York City 1988
An Allman brother in all but name, Richard Betts, as his credits went in the mid-’70s, when the singing guitarist attempted to claim an individual stake on the blues scene, couldn’t call the following decade too eventful. The ensemble he formed with Jimmy Hall, Chuck Leavell and Butch Trucks failed to find a label and broke up, and his solo endeavors didn’t succeed either, until the artist corralled a few friends into a new band to lay down a record titled “Pattern Disruptive” and embark on a string of low-profile, albeit highly charged, performances. One of those took place in “The Lone Star Roadhouse” in NYC and got preserved for posterity by a local radio station to be first released as a double vinyl, marking the concert’s twenty-years anniversary yet containing only half of what was played on November 1st, 1988. However, appearing soon after Dickey’s passing, the set’s complete cut has no less than seven pieces added to the previous edition’s tracks, which brings the number of entries from Betts’ then-latest album delivered on that night to eight out of ten.
It’s these tunes, from roaringly incendiary opener “Rock Bottom” to the belligerent, lava-hot “Far Cry” and on to the infectiously, hard rocking “Under The Guns Of Love” which precedes imaginative jams with prominent guests, that are of utmost interest, and importance, here, equal in elegance to such Betts-penned perennials as “Jessica” and “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” – two epics sounding much more ethereal and fusion-minded under Dickey’s individual command than handled by the collective he’d risen to fame in and is referring to in the instrumental “Duane’s Tune” where airy figures and heavy riffs vie for space. With Marty Privette’s bass firmly in the pocket of Matt Abbs’ drums, and jazzy passages of Johnny Neel’s ivories fueling up the exchange of guitar licks and vocal lines between the group’s leader and Warren Haynes, the deceptively patinated likes of “Blue Sky” see fresh harmonies unleashed to shine ever so brightly, while the almost-unknown “Time To Roll” and “The Blues Ain’t Nothing” reveal a powerful groove the veteran seemed to have lost for some time. But if the rollicking “Heartbreak Line” hops on the boogie train, and the harp-and-slider-abetted “Loverman” jives with a lot of country-flavored gusto, “Statesboro Blues” and “One Way Out” acquire another dimension once Rick Derringer’s voice and strings join in – just to let his “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hoochie Koo” be upstaged with the arrival of Mick Taylor and Jack Bruce who help turn “Spoonful” and “Southbound” into fantastic wigouts demonstrating all the facets of the legends’ chosen genre.
A stunning set from genuine masters of their trade.
*****
