The late Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and longtime Sarasota County resident Dickey Betts will be honored with a memorial highway, with an unveiling ceremony and tribute concert scheduled for Wednesday, July 1.
A state bill passed earlier this year will designate the portion of U.S. 41 between North Creek and Blackburn Point Road as Dickey Betts Memorial Highway, near Betts’ longtime home of Osprey, where he died at 80 in April 2024.
A co-founder and the lead guitarist of the Allman Brothers Band, Betts wrote and sang the group’s lone Top 10 hit “Ramblin’ Man,” featuring the lyric “I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rollin’ down Highway 41.”
Jon Thaxton — former Sarasota County commissioner, current planning commissioner, and longtime Osprey resident and Betts fan who suggested the memorial highway — said he wanted to plan a couple of events that would continue to recognize Betts’ ties to Osprey and help “put Osprey back on the map.”
“I’ve lived in Osprey my entire life, including going to Osprey Elementary School,” Thaxton said. “So I wanted to do something for the community of the town of Osprey, which seems to have been forgotten.”
The highway sign unveiling ceremony will be by invitation only, but the concert will be open to the public with no admission charge. The concert will be held at The Point Waterfront Restaurant — Evie’s on the Bay in Osprey overlooking Little Sarasota Bay, with music starting at 6 p.m.
It isn’t guaranteed which performers will show up, Thaxton said, with musicians coming and going without a set schedule on two stages.
The list of musicians who it looks like will be playing include Dickey Betts’ son Duane Betts — who has become a successful musician himself, recently releasing the new album “Isle of Hope” — though it would not be a Duane Betts concert and he would be jamming off and on with others, Thaxton said.
Other musicians likely jamming or playing include former bandmates from the Dickey Betts Band and his Great Southern group, such as guitarist and national blues star Damon Fowler, bassist Pedro Arevalo, drummers Frankie Lombardi and Steve Camilleri, singer and one-time nationally signed recording artist Twinkle Schascle Yochim, and Dana Lawrence and Thorson Moore of the popular Sarasota-based rock band Kettle of Fish.
Formed in Jacksonville by brothers Duane and Gregg Allman, the latter himself a former Sarasota area resident, Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks and Jaimoe, the Allman Brothers Band were one of the biggest rock groups of the 1970s, later inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and named the 53rd greatest musical act of all time by Rolling Stone.
The same magazine named Betts one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and Betts would later inspire Billy Crudup’s character in the Oscar-winning 2000 film “Almost Famous,” based on writer-director Cameron Crowe’s time as a young Rolling Stone reporter. Along with “Ramblin’ Man” and numerous other Allman Brothers band hits, Betts composed “Jessica,” which won a Best Rock Instrumental Performance Grammy for a 1990s concert recording.
Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at jimmy.geurts@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism by subscribing.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Free Dickey Betts tribute concert to honor Sarasota rock legend
Reporting by Jimmy Geurts, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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By Jimmy Geurts, Sarasota Herald-Tribune | USA TODAY Network
