# I give up -- who was Elizabeth Reed?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 7, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006 "2003-04-07T04:49:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006/1 "2003-04-07T04:49:30Z")

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Am I the only schlub in Christendom who has no clue, here?

I dug out my Allman Brothers Band Greatest Hits tape this weekend, and was once again puzzled by the title of the instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”

[All Music Guide](http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=12:29:41%7CAM&sql=Bjifwxqw5ldae~C) says it’s “a tribute to Miles Davis,” which further confuses the issue.

I’ve run a search here in Cafe Society as well as in the collected columns of the Master, to no avail.

I have also Googled, to find much genealogical data and galleries offering the work of a painter by that name, but they don’t seem promising.

There _is_an Elizabeth Reed Theater in Macon, Georgia, which would be solidly in ABB territory, but beyond that I haven’t been able to go any farther.

Anybody?

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**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006/2 "2003-04-07T04:59:04Z")

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Maybe [this](http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1473) will help?

Daizy

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**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006/3 "2003-04-07T05:05:32Z")

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Thanks for the quick response. And it looks as if the people at that site assume there’s a connection between the person buried there and the ABB song. But I couldn’t find a link to a bio, so I still don’t know what she might have done to deserve the tribute.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Mook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mr.Mook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Mook)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006/4 "2003-04-07T06:42:54Z")

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This is from [www.songfacts.com](http://www.songfacts.com):

Written by Allman guitarist Dicky Betts. Elizabeth Reed Napier is buried at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, where Betts would often write. He used the name from her headstone as the title because he did not want to reveal who the song was really about.  
Based on Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” While Davis had been incorporating elements of Rock into his Jazz, Betts used pieces of Jazz for this Rock instrumental.

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-give-up-who-was-elizabeth-reed/167006/5 "2003-04-07T13:34:35Z")

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Don’t know if it’s true, but there was a Rolling Stone article in the 70s where someone alleged that Betts used the name because he and a woman\* had had some great sex on or near the grave.

\*No, a live woman. You people are sick. 🙂