Before the Dreams reunion, Warren was singing and sliding on "Statesboro Blues" in Dickey's band. I'm surprised Johnny Neel didn't sing it, he had the bluesier voice and it's easier to play key and sing than slide fills and sing. Unique take you don't hear every day.
I saw that band three times and bought Pattern Disruptive. They were a hot band. Good live version here. Warren's intro was very, very close to what Duane plays on the At Fillmore East version. Solo after the harp solo way different. And very high octane. Enjoyed it. Needed something new to experience today!
Interesting and thanks for sharing. I am a big Haynes fan and don't think he gets the love he deserves from fans.
Also found it interesting he played PRS guitars back in the day and now is mostly a Gibson fan.
@bill_graham and he was playing PRS pretty early on in their history, they had only been common for about 3-4 years in 1989. Pretty sure he is on a PRS on Seven Turns but switched to the LP/Strat combo by 1990 or 91.
@bill_graham and he was playing PRS pretty early on in their history, they had only been common for about 3-4 years in 1989. Pretty sure he is on a PRS on Seven Turns but switched to the LP/Strat combo by 1990 or 91.
Interesting, Any idea why he switched to Gibson's from PRS gits?
OT, but a short story on my experience with PRS. In my previous job I was a Product Safety Engineer and I worked for a safety agency similar to UL. Back in the late 80's or early 90's PRS contracted us to do a safety evaluation on a new solid state guitar amp head they were developing that was rated something like 150W(?) that had a proprietary circuit design that was supposed to emulate the tube amp sound.
I got to go to the PRS factory in Maryland and it was just one small building in a industrial park back then. The luthiers that worked there were just a bunch of long haired musicians building the guitars by hand one at a time.
They had a rented an empty warehouse room across the street where they were building the amp prototypes and they had a pro guitar player, can't remember his name, testing them out with a full stack of speaker cabinets. This big garage room was empty except for a few work benches a small production line and the test amp stack. The amp was loud as hell and they laughed and told me there was a mattress factory next door and they used to bang on the walls and complain due to the noise from the amp testing.
The prototype amp head had reverb and was beautiful with lighted toggle switches for the functions that changed color depending on what you selected. The tech's there told me Paul Reed was very picky about the form factor and quality of the components so it would have been atop notch product. Eventually they killed the project with us and I was told that evidently they could never get the power out of it they wanted and PRS would not allow it to move forward as it did not meet his specifications.
We had a prototype head at our lab with no cabinet or reverb spring box that got trashed after the project was killed as we had to destroy customer samples for completed projects but boy I wish I could have kept it as was a beauty and it really did sound nice and was a real unique piece of PRS history. I would have had a nice solid wood cabinet made for it, added the reverb spring box, and drove my neighbors crazy cranking that amp with my ESP Mirage Custom lawsuit headstock guitar I bought new in 1988.
@bill_graham that's pretty crazy. Yeah, I give PRS credit for trying, but I think there's a reason no one else it trying to get tube levels out of a state amp.
Regarding Warren, not idea for certain, but my guess is maybe he was chasing more of a Gibson sound once the ABB officially reformed. A PRS will just never sound like a Gibson. But, he never went back to PRS, so maybe it just wasn't working for him. Seems to have found his sound.
@bill_graham Porkchopbob is right as far as I know. First time I ever saw Warren was with Dickey just before Pattern Disruptive came out and he played Paul Reed Smith guitars. The one he used most was silver or gray. A friend was there who plays electric guitar and commented to me that Dickey's guitar player is really good. I agreed and wasn't sure about the make and he said it's a new make that is supposed to give Les Paul guys what they like without the weight. At the time I had heard of Paul Reed Smith but that was the first time I saw one in action.
Warren was still on a PRS when the ABB toured in 1989. There is a recent interview with Warren on the net and one of the callers is Paul Reed Smith inquiring about a guitar he sent Warren. He wanted to see how he liked it. In 1990 I saw the silver Paul Reed Smith on a couple of songs but he had a tobacco burst Les Paul and a Fender Custom Shop Strat with a red headstock with what Warren would describe as "Eric Clapton electronics" in it. About 1993 someone stole the Strat and a glass medicine bottle slide Duane Allman used the band gave Warren right off the stage. The band was real angry and Warren was very upset and hurt. They launched a rather through investigation looking at all the noted music stores and pawn shops across the country and nothing. Been about 28 years and unless something has recently turned up the guitar and slide were never found.
That is a hanging offence to me. Just like horse and cattle rustling.
Warren seems to have experienced in the last lineup what Dickey experienced in the first lineup. Last lineup Derek Trucks got most of the talk and accolades and Duane Allman in the first line up.
But the truth is Warren is a fantastic guitarist, singer, song writer and performer. Dickey, Gregg, Butch and Jaimoe KNOW what he can do and he is greatly respected by them and other musicians too. Warren is in my top five guitarists and I hate to put them in order. Changes all the time. That slide on Statesboro Blues Porkchopbob linked today is HOT, HOT!!
@porkchopbob Johnny sings it more like Gregg. This version of the Dickey Betts Band was hot. Matt Apts on drums. I think the bass player was Marty Prevette or something like that. I saw this band twice in 1988 and they left a trail of smoke both times.
Wasn't Rock Bottom the track which got some FM rock airplay?
Rock Bottom was a Rocking song by them.
I hear the same twin lead guitar melody on this song toward the end. This is 1978. It got recycled in 1988. apparently.
