In Memory of Elizabeth Reed - Overview

Overview

The original studio recording of "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" is the fourth track on the group's 1970 album Idlewild South. Composed by Dickie Betts, it is the first instrumental written by a bandmember. The original Rolling Stone review of Idlewild South said the song "just goes and goes for a stupendous, and unnoticed, seven minutes."

The song is named after a headstone Betts saw at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, a place frequented by band members in their early days to relax and write songs. Considerable legend has developed about what Betts was doing at the time, some originated by a possibly put-on interview Duane Allman gave Rolling Stone. The cemetery was later memorialized by the band as the final resting spot of both band leader Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley.

The Rolling Stone Album Guide called "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" in its original studio incarnation "the blueprint of a concert warhorse, capturing the Allmans at their most adventurous." The New York Times has written that "its written riffs and jazz-ish harmonies improvisers room." Accordingly, "Elizabeth Reed" has appeared in many Allman Brothers concerts, sometimes running half an hour or more, and on numerous Allman Brothers live albums, but first and most notably on At Fillmore East, which many fans and critics believe is the definitive rendition. In 2007, Rolling Stone named "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" one of its Fifty Best Songs Over Seven Minutes Long – and in giving it Honorable Mention on its 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time list made 2008, Rolling Stone called the At Fillmore East performance "transcendant".