Highway Call

Richard “Dickey” Betts was blessed with the ability to mix homespun Southern country with populist pop without having to sacrifice integrity. The guitarist/songwriter and founding member of The Allman Brothers developed that skill on the band’s 1973 breakthrough Brothers and Sisters. (Betts penned the band’s biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man.”) For his debut solo outing, 1974’s Highway Call, Betts gets even more personal. The title tune is a gentle hymn of leaving-home regret that’s highlighted by his pedal steel playing and Allman Bro Chuck Leavell’s open-road piano. Betts’ savory hillside tones and Southern cadences have all the warmth and bite of any music born in the American South, and it bottlenecks beautifully on the 14-minute “Hand Picked,” which features fiddle godhead Vasser Clements (who’s heard throughout the album). And once the banjo-enhanced “Let Nature Sing” and the laidback “Longtime Gone” settle in, you'll swear you’re rolling down Highway 41, gazing at sagging wooden structures from the backseat of a Greyhound bus.