Dickey Betts wrote Blue Sky about his then girlfriend, later to become his wife, Sandy “Bluesky” Wabegijig. They were married in 1973, and divorced 2 years later. For a long time after the divirce, Dickey refused to perform this song. This was the first song Dickey sang lead on. Duane Allman and Dicket Betts played on the bridge solo - one playing lead, the other playing rhythym. They switched up about half way through. For a measure or 2, they synch’d up on a riff or 2, for a couple of measures. I couldn’t find a video with Duane, but here’s a pretty good one.
On May 14, 1972, Dickey and Sandy Blue Sky had a daughter, that they named Jessica. About a year later, with the help of his daughter, Dickey wrote the song Jessica. He had been working on an in strumental, and wouldn’t let his wife clean the room where he was writing. There were wads of paper, trash, beer cans, guitar strings, and all kinds of stuff just laying around. Dickey could hear the melody in his head, but couldn’t quite get it out on the guitar. Jessica crawled into the room, knocking everything all over the place crawling around. Dickey started playing to her, and out came the melody to the song.
references:
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=833
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Sky_(song)
http://lamsmith.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E45AC9BE255C06C0!5722.entry
