Let's Get Together
After being fired by fax after 32 years in theAllman Brothers, Dickey Betts took his revenge by putting a band together and recording his fifth solo album (the second under the rubric of the Dickey Betts Band), using a handful of songs he had penned for the ABB as a starting point. While not as well executed or as inspired as his early stuff with the Great Southern,Let's Get Togetheris an honest work of an artist looking for his groove. And sometimes he finds it. Interspersed between an indifferent ballad, a shopworn good-time jam, and a gritty blues shuffle are three exquisitely contracted and played instrumentals: "Dona Marie," the Latin-tinged ode to Betts wife, which could have been easily lifted off of aSantanarecord, the surefooted and jazzy "She Bop," and the Allman-esque "Rave On." But after all, this is the guy who penned the romantic classic "Jessica," and the evocative "In Memory of Elizabeth," so one shouldn't be too surprised. Betts lets his autobiography take over in the eerie "Tombstone Eyes" and the even more revealing "Here Comes the Blues Again," showing that all that pent-up rage makes for some compelling tunes.--Jaan Uhelszki