WOW🤙

didn’t hear of this - have Roy’s & Lonnie’s albums from around them too, Hot Wires & Second Sight, both on Alligator label

woulda been in the audience if they’d come to my town alright

I do have video with Roy, Lonnie & SRV from around then but not with DB.

The Show in Chicago was at The Park West - Great Evening !!!

I saw a show at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos CA...Dickey played a 54/57 conversion with a wham-o bar on it...

@goldtop This is it. This also is from 1986. One of two shows the Allman Brothers Band played in 1986 while the band was officially off the road and no longer active. They played this one as a favor to Charlie Daniels and the other 1986 show a few months later as a favor to Bill Graham. 

The guitar I was told by a roadie is Dickey's 1957 GoldTop "Goldie" Dickey bought in 1974 at a Pawn Shop in New York City. Dickey decided to add the whammy bar conversion after seeing and being inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan live for the first time around 1986. Dickey had an old Strat for some rhythm guitar in the studio but it's a hardtail so he decided to have the whammy conversion put on his 57 GoldTop as that had been his number one since 1974 and Dickey liked the humbuckers better that single coils. But by the time the Allman Brothers officially reformed in 1989, the whammy had been removed and the GoldTop had been restored to its original setup. I can hear the whammy on Pattern Disruptive from 1988 though so Dickey used the whammy for about 2 or 3 years. 

Dickey praised Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bonnie Raitt for bringing blues based music back around after it had fell out of favor with most record labels several years earlier. Dickey also said the first time he heard SRV on the radio being played as a current hit, it made him feel so great inside to hear that kind of music again as part of what was happening on the album charts. 

Posted by: @oldcoot

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I do have video with Roy, Lonnie & SRV from around then but not with DB.

Wow! That's even better.  

Posted by: @robertdee

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@goldtop This is it. This also is from 1986. One of two shows the Allman Brothers Band played in 1986 while the band was officially off the road and no longer active. They played this one as a favor to Charlie Daniels and the other 1986 show a few months later as a favor to Bill Graham. 

The guitar I was told by a roadie is Dickey's 1957 GoldTop "Goldie" Dickey bought in 1974 at a Pawn Shop in New York City. Dickey decided to add the whammy bar conversion after seeing and being inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan live for the first time around 1986. Dickey had an old Strat for some rhythm guitar in the studio but it's a hardtail so he decided to have the whammy conversion put on his 57 GoldTop as that had been his number one since 1974 and Dickey liked the humbuckers better that single coils. But by the time the Allman Brothers officially reformed in 1989, the whammy had been removed and the GoldTop had been restored to its original setup. I can hear the whammy on Pattern Disruptive from 1988 though so Dickey used the whammy for about 2 or 3 years. 

Dickey praised Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bonnie Raitt for bringing blues based music back around after it had fell out of favor with most record labels several years earlier. Dickey also said the first time he heard SRV on the radio being played as a current hit, it made him feel so great inside to hear that kind of music again as part of what was happening on the album charts. 

I'm thinking he had more than one goldtop. The one I saw had bad pickup routes. The pickups were not spaced correctly and you could see the routes from when it was a p90 guitar. I also saw this guitar at the R&R hall of fame in 2004 with the wham-o still on it and up close you could see it was an earlier Les Paul routed for humbuckers with the added wham-o bar still on it and by then Dickey had goldie stripped and turned red. This was a beater guitar...most likely a backup

UPDATE: This is the guitar he used the night I saw him. Look at the pickup rings...this is not a 57 humbucker guitar. This is an earlier p90 guitar routed badly. Even the tail piece is in the wrong place.

@goldtop Oh I see that now. I got my info from a roadie, actually the sound man, and his understanding probably was inaccurate. 

Goldie also didn't have a pick guard all those years Dickey played it. It does now after Dickey stripped it and painted it red. 

Dickey himself in an interview in 1997 said Goldie was in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame but Dickey said he wouldn't play it even if it wasn't. Dickey said he decided to put a hot rail pickup in an old Fender Strat he owns that was for some rhythm guitar in the studio and play it as his number one because Dickey said he was irritated at Gibson for ignoring him as he was for the most part a Les Paul man. But no longer. 

That changed in 2000 and Dickey returned to the Les Paul when Dickey was informed by Gibson their custom shop was going to produce a Dickey Betts signature Les Paul GoldTop.

Duane Betts now plays the prototype Dickey received from Gibson in 2001 as his number one. 

@robertdee Could be he used both on that tour and the night I saw him he used the backup...I'm sure they had a harem of guitars on the road for backup...