Rhett Butler After The Fall: Dickey Betts Brushes Himself Off...
Robert Duncan, Creem, March 1977
MY PERMANENT mental image of Dickey Betts comes from a photo taken on the last Allman Brothers Band tour, in which he has short hair, a moustache, is dressed in an elegantly tailored white suit and looks the quintessential Southern gentleman. Which is a compelling image to the half-Southerner I am. But what really nails me in this photo is the eyes. This Southern gent is angry. Not in any venal sense, but in some proud tradition of noble Southern anger — what a Yankee might call passionate determination.
Total word count of piece: 1453