50 years ago today (March 12th), The Allman Brothers Band recorded two shows in New York City for use on the album The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East. One of the highlights is “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” Guitarist Dickey Betts wrote a number of classic instrumentals while he was in The Allman Brothers Band, one of the most memorable being “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Betts tells what inspired him to write it and where he got the title.
“I wrote it for a girlfriend of mine, who was also a girlfriend of a friend of mine, so it was kind of a cloak-and-dagger romance. Her name was Carmela and she was a beautiful Spanish lady. Obviously, I didn’t want to call the song ‘Carmela,” because of the love triangle, if you will. But the place that I used to go to write was an old 1800s graveyard, down by the river in Macon, Georgia. Anyway, we used to go down there and, uh, whatever. And the tombstone there said ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.’”
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