and it convinced me that taking the bands history as a whole, he was actually the most important member. Maybe that’s uncontroversial and everybody always believed it. He wasn’t equally dominant in every era and they had a long stint as a great live bad with their most stable lineup without him at the end (playing his songs, with two guitarists who were influenced by him, one of whom was recruited from his solo band), but there’s nobody else who costs the band more if he was never part of it.

Also, I was surprised how good the live stuff with just Dickey on guitar was. Chuck Leavell was the best non-guitar musician they ever had.