In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

 The first thing you are probably asking yourself is, "who in the heck is Elizabeth Reed, and why is he doing a blog on her?"

Good question, both of them.

Before I answer those questions, how about you answering a question or two for me.   Do you have a quiet place?  By that I mean do you have a place that you like to escape to and be alone, away from the world, a place where you can be alone with your thoughts or alone with your thoughts or with God?

I'm guessing you do.  It might be a special room in your house, perhaps in your car sitting by the river, a corner booth at your favorite restaurant, or at the library surrounded by total silence.   I have one of those places and it is in the preceding sentence.  I'll let you guess which one it is.

I am a classic rock fan.  I am also a Southern rock fan.  One of the playlists on my i-pod is "Southern Rock."  Marshall Tucker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Charlie Daniels, Allman Brothers, Tom Petty, Little Feat, Ozark Mountain Daredevils.  I could go on and on.  

For about a dozen years, from say 2002 till late 2014, I was the early morning man on KPOC-FM in Pocahontas, Arkansas.  My alarm would go off at 4,40a, I'd get up, clean up, get dressed and head to McDonald's for a sausage/egg biscuit and a coffee.  I would be at the station by about 5.20 and immediately go on the air.  Our station computer held a little over 2,000 songs, and I would pick out what I wanted to play.  By boss, Tim Scott, never really told me what to play, and I figured our listeners needed their music to have an extra boost in the morning.  So a lot of guitar-lade rock for the fine folks of Randolph and Lawrence Counties.   I would play music, give weather forecasts, so some news and sports until shortly after 8, when I would head home, change clothes, and head to my real job at the newspaper.

I told you all of that to tell you this.

How any of you have heard of Dickey Betts?  I imagine a good number of you have.  Betts was an original member of the Allman Brothers band.  Betts grew up in Florida and once he became a member of the Allman Brothers, he moved to Macon, Georgia, the home of Duane and Greg Allman, the two for who the band is named.

It was too long after he moved to Macon, Betts discovered his place to escape, and what an escape it was.  When he wanted to get away, think about his music, maybe play a little guitar, Betts would head to the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon.  There he would wander among the trees and the tombstones to find that perfect quiet place.

Sometime in early 1970, legend has it Betts was involved with a woman named Elizabeth Reed, who just happened to already have a boyfriend.  There is probably some truth in that story.  What is also true is that while going through the cemetery one day he came upon a tombstone that said, "Elizabeth Jones Reed, Nov. 9, 1845, May 3, 1935.

Inspired by the girlfriend of another and stumbling upon the grave of a woman of the same name born 125 years prior, Betts went to work, composing what would become, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." ma seven-minute instrumental masterpiece that brings to life Betts jazz influences John Coltrane and Miles Davis.  It is a nearly perfect, flawless composition.

This past Saturday afternoon, M saw an ad online that an Allman Brothers tribute band, "End of the Line," will be performing at the Ritz Theater in Sheffield.  One of the things they plan to do is play what is arguably the Allman Brothers best studio album, "Idlewild South," in its entirety.  One of the centerpieces of that album is a seven-minute instrumental entitled "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed."

I would really like to go and hear in person the song written about my eighth cousin.

Rock on my friends.  Rock on.