On Tuesday, March 26, Devon Allman and Duane Betts headed to the Paste Studio for a special acoustic performance as the The Allman Betts Band. During the stream, the duo plus percussionist R Scott Bryan performed two songs, “Melodies Are Memories” and “Down To The River.”
The set opened with a take on “Melodies Are Memories,” with the pair describing how the song came to be ahead of the performance. Giving nod to his co-writer Devon Allman as well as songwriter and friend Stoll Vaughn, Betts described that the song is about “a feeling … that lives inside of you.” Added Allman, “The title kind of gives it away. … Sometimes you hear a song and you’re like, ‘Aw, I remember being 12 years old when that came out.’ Maybe a smell triggers something, but a song will trigger milestones in your life.”
After the heartfelt performance, the group moved into “Down To The River,” the title track off the group’s forthcoming album due out on June 28. For their second song, the pair briefly talked about how they created the new collection, and specifically why they opted for analog over digital. Ahead of their final tune, Allman explained:
We live in a pretty crazy time, and sometimes you need to shut off the idiot box and get away from the computers and the phones and just go out to the mountains or the beach or whatever you’ve got in your backyard and just kind of escape and get in tune with nature. We all need that. It’s kind of a call-to-arms to say, “Get out there and resonate with Mother Nature.”
You can watch the full performance below:
Coincidentally, the Allman Betts Band’s in-studio Paste performance fell on the 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers Band. The Allman Betts Band continues the iconic Southern rock act’s lineage, given that Duane Betts is the son of ABB guitarist Dickey Betts and Devon Allman is the son of ABB namesake, the late Gregg Allman.
Tomorrow, March 27, the band will make their live debut at New York City’s Brooklyn Bowl. You can watch a free webcast of the band’s first-ever performance via Relix.
