WXPN Welcomes The Allman Betts Band

Name: WXPN Welcomes The Allman Betts Band
Start: 2024-06-05T20:00:00-04:00
Location: The State Theatre

Schedule

Wed Jun 05 2024 at 08:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

The State Theatre | State College, PA

With Special Guest JD Simo
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ONSALE INFO
Member Presale:
January 17, 2024 11:00 am
Public Sale:
January 19, 2024 11:00 am
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Individually, they’re Devon Allman and Duane Betts, two solo artists and modern-day guitar heroes who’ve both spent years creating their own version of American roots music.
Together, they’re the leaders of The Allman Betts Band, a supergroup anchored by sharp songwriting, fiery fretwork, and an historic legacy. Inspired by the classic sounds of the group’s family tree, The Allman Betts Band makes timeless rock & roll for the modern world, blurring the boundaries between blues, Americana, and southern soul. Over the course of two critically acclaimed studio albums, hundreds of live shows, and annual performances of the Allman Betts Family Revival, The Allman Betts Band has established its own legacy of music and brotherhood.
Devon and Duane first met as children in 1989, when their fathers — keyboardist Gregg Allman and guitarist Dickey Betts, both co-founders of The Allman Brothers Band — brought their boys on tour for the group’s 20th anniversary tour. “When you grow up on tour like that, it connects you at a young age,” Duane says. “From that point on, we knew we were family. Even though we never lived in the same city, we always had that bond.”
In late 2017, Devon and Duane found themselves onstage at the Fillmore in San Francisco — a performance that would birth not only The Allman Betts Family Revival tradition, but also The Allman Betts Band itself. “That night would’ve been my father’s 70th birthday,” Devon recalls, “so I put together a one-off concert to celebrate his life and his music. Duane joined me for some songs. Our families had been intertwined for years, and we always knew we might form a band at some point in our lives. That show proved we had the chemistry to do it.”
The musical chemistry grew throughout 2018, while the two songwriters played more than 100 shows across the world. Along the way, they began writing new songs in hotel rooms and tour bus lounges, creating their own version of the soulful, guitar-fueled music they’d grow up loving. Flush with material, The Allman Betts Band recorded its debut album, Down to the River, at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. The guys tracked the record live, recording to two-inch analog tape without the use of computers or digital editing. Down to the River was released in 2019, reaching Number 1 on the iTunes Rock Chart and cracking the Top 10 on multiple Billboard charts.
“We built a fanbase very quickly,” Devon says. “I think there was a need for our kind of music, especially for people who loved bands like The Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and the Rolling Stones. Those fans were excited to hear a newer band doing music in an old-school vein.”
To support the album’s release, The Allman Betts Band launched a world tour on March, 2019 — an historic date that marked the 50-year anniversary of The Allman Brothers Band’s first jam session in Jacksonville, Florida. As the seven-piece band toured the world, the musical connection between Devon and Duane grew deeper. They wrote new songs during the short breaks between shows. They collaborated on the third-annual Family Revival. They even found time to return to Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with producer Matt Ross-Spang, with whom they recorded Bless Your Heart over a week’s time.
When a global pandemic threatened to prevent The Allman Betts Band from touring behind Bless Your Heart, the guys got creative, playing socially-distanced gigs in cow pastures before launching an extensive drive-in tour. They hit a new stride in 2021, when they played nearly 120 shows — including multiple performances with the Family Revival, which they turned into a traveling festival featuring an all-star lineup of guests. Artists like Robert Randolph, Jimmy Hall, Donovan Frankenreiter, and G. Love joined them that year, and when the Family Revival returned in 2022 for another run of shows, the guys were joined by Luther Dickinson, Maggie Rose, and others.
“The Family Revival started as a celebration of my father, but it evolved into a Last Waltz-style reunion of players from our generation, as well as up-and-coming talent,” Devon explains. “It’s become a chance for all of us to come together, play this precious catalog, and galvanize our own generation of musicians. It’s something my Dad would’ve been proud of. I know that Duane’s dad is proud of it, too.”
Meanwhile, The Allman Betts Band took some time off in 2022 and early 2023. During the hiatus, Duane recorded and released Wild & Precious Life — his full-length debut as a solo artist — while Devon toured the country with Donavon Frankenreiter, setting a new world record for playing 50 shows across all 50 states in 49 days. By the summer of 2023, The Allman Betts Band had returned to the road, ready to start a new chapter. The group expanded its lineup, too, with Allman and Betts now joined by guitarist Johnny Stachela, bassist Justin Corgan, keyboardist John Ginty, percussionist/saxophonist David Gomez, and drummers John Lum and Alex Orbison.
“We’re keeping the tradition alive,” says Duane. “The Allman Betts Band is an original band, and our albums are the foundation of what we do, but we’re also happy to include a couple tips-of the-hat to my dad and Gregg Allman during our sets, too. They’re part of our influences. They’re part of our history.”
History, indeed. There’s a rich lineage to The Allman Betts Band, whose two leaders are carrying the musical torch once held by their fathers. This is a group of musicians who proudly live in the present, though, not the past. They make music for today, creating a new soundtrack for the American South, blurring the lines between genres along the way. There’s a bluesy Americana band with a teeth. They’re a rock & roll band with soul. They’re first-rate songwriters and top-shelf guitarists, always searching for a new song to sing. They’re The Allman Betts Band.