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Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 20. August 8 1977

Dickey Berts and the Great Southern Arista

Dickey Berts and the Great Southern Arista

"Dickey Betts and the Great Southern" is a classic example of the solo album syndrome — member of successful group strikes out on own, gets recording deal and throws together a bunch of songs and is about as interesting as the rest of them. More then anything else, this record embodies complacent musical regionalism, the lifes-style of the affluent Southern rock musician — the cover photo depicts Dickey and his band of good old boys, all imbued with a warm bourbon haze, lounging around the lawns of someone's ancestral mansion, rehearsing a few hot licks amidst the trappings of success. A far cry from dole queue rock indeed.

Proceeding to the album's aural content, "Dickey Betts and Great Southern" turns out to be an exercise in the tradition of the Allman Brothers Band, the leading exponent of Southern rock until its demise. Unfortunately Betts has neither progressed nor allied himself with musicians capable of complementing his playing and singing with some original touches of their own. The result is somewhat one - dimensional if in imaginative songs combining blues, and country influences, centred on Betts' lead and slide guitar playing. The mood is uniform throughout, and songs with similar tempos and instantly forgettable words tend to merge into each other. The album's great strength is in the playing. Indeed each song is more or less memorable inasmuch as it showpieces Setts' guitar. Great Southern do their stuff perfectly adequately, albeit somewhat mechanically.

Drawing of a snail being stood on

On to the songs themselves : there is some tasty harp oh "Out to Get Me" and "Run Gypsy Run", country-boogie with organ, drumming and twin lead passages recalling the Allman Band of earlier days. "Sweet Virginia (not the Jagger-Richard song) is the token hymn to the Fatherland, with Betts crooning dutifully in the Southern tradition then getting the blues on "The Way Love Goes" throwing in soulful organ and a few minor chords for good measure.

Betts is a controlled, tasteful guitarist and plays a fine slide guitar, simultaneously smooth and raunchy. He lets it rip on "Out to Get Me" and "California Blues", redeeming the letter's extreme ordinariness with his tasty picking. His guitar playing is immaculate throughout, possibly at its finest on "Bougainvillea" with a carefully constructed solo building to a climax with additional overdubbed lead passages.

All in all, one for country-rock enthusiasts who get off on Bett's instrumental dexterity, and best avoided by those irked by pedestrian lyrics and the reiteration of worn out musical cliches. But perhaps I've judged the record out of its fitting context — for full effect, get yourself a hot sunny day, out there on the porch in your rocking chair under the magnilias, drinking sour-mash and sniffing white lines off a mirror with rolled up thousand dollar bills — play this record and you'll be surprised how meaningful it suddenly becomes.

— Andrew Delahunty.