Instrumentally Yours: Jessica

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At long last, it’s time to rock and roll!! Sure, you could dance to the other instrumentals used thus far, but you’ll never see this song on the “easy listening” chart. So settle back and enjoy one of the great classic rock instrumentals of our time. Jessica - Allman Brothers Band Lots of inspiration for this song. Dickey Betts named this after his daughter. He wrote it as a tribute to the legendary Django Reinhardt (who’ll be along later, fear not)…NOT to mimic the “gypsy jazz” sound that Reinhardt made famous, but guitarists are able to play this using just two fingers on the fretting hand. (I’ll detail more when Reinhardt comes along, but the short explanation is that he only had use of two fingers on his left hand as the result of being badly burned in a fire when he was 18.) It came along at the right time, when the Allmans were reeling from the loss of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley (the same way — motorcycle accidents — that occurred three blocks and 54 weeks apart ). The success of this song, and this album (with its big hit “Ramblin’ Man”), helped the band move on from that tragic double whammy. Jessica Written by Dickey Betts Recorded by the Allman Brothers Band From Brothers and Sisters, 1973 Rock on: