Highway Call | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | September 1974 | |||
Recorded | 1974 | |||
Studio | Capricorn Sound Studios, Macon, Georgia | |||
Genre | Country rock, Western swing | |||
Length | 35:28 | |||
Label | Capricorn | |||
Producer | Johnny Sandlin, Dickey Betts | |||
Dickey Betts chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [2] |
Tom Hull | C− [3] |
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide | [4] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [5] |
Highway Call is the debut album by Dickey Betts (under the name Richard Betts), of The Allman Brothers Band. [6] [7] It was recorded in 1974 in Macon, Georgia, at Capricorn Studios. Betts further develops the country sound that emerged on the Allmans' 1973 album Brothers and Sisters . Tracks include "Long Time Gone", "Highway Call", and the extended country jam "Hand Picked". Guest musicians include Vassar Clements on fiddle and Jeff Hanna on acoustic guitar. The album peaked at #19 on Billboard's "Pop Albums" chart in 1974. [8]
No Depression called the album "exhuberant," writing that "Betts conjured a rollicking brew of bluegrass, western swing, and jazz." [9] The Rolling Stone Album Guide wrote that Betts's "hesitant vocals can't match the pace of his lightning fingers." [5] AllMusic said "Highway Call stands as the artist's finest solo moment, one that holds his true voice easily expressing itself far from the madding blues wail of the Allmans..." [1]
All tracks composed by Dickey Betts, except "Kissimmee Kid" by Vassar Clements
Chart (1974) | Peak position |
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US Top LPs & Tape ( Billboard ) | 19 |
Forrest Richard Betts was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, composer and founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. He assumed sole lead guitar duties during the peak of the group's commercial success in the mid-1970s and was the writer and singer on the Allmans' hit single "Ramblin' Man". Betts was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. He was ranked No. 58 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list in 2003, and No. 61 on the list published in 2011.
Vassar Carlton Clements was an American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical traditions. He was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Win, Lose or Draw is the fifth studio album and sixth overall by American rock group the Allman Brothers Band. Produced by Johnny Sandlin and the band themselves, it was released on August 22, 1975 in the United States by Capricorn Records. It was the last studio album to feature bassist Lamar Williams and pianist Chuck Leavell.
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Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town is the 73rd album by American country singer Johnny Cash, released in 1987, and his first for Mercury Records. It was re-released in 2003, paired with Boom Chicka Boom on a single CD. "Sixteen Tons" was previously a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, "The Big Light" is an Elvis Costello song from his album King of America, released the previous year and "Let Him Roll" is from Guy Clark's debut, Old No. 1. The album reached #36 on the country charts, while the only released single, "The Night Hank Williams Came to Town", peaked at #43.
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