Not somebody that the Allman Brothers ever met, or even knew anything about–other than that she was dead. Elizabeth Reed Napier, born November 9, 1845, was a Southern belle who came to Macon, Georgia to attend Wesleyan College; she died in 1935. “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” originally on the album Idlewild South, is a lovely, intricate instrumental by guitarist Dickey Betts, who spent a lot of time sitting and writing in the Macon graveyard, where he saw Elizabeth Reed’s name. The song was actually inspired by a living girl–but because she was Boz Scaggs’s girlfriend, Betts couldn’t use her name. “Some writer once asked me how I wrote the song and Duane [Allman] said, ‘Aw, he fucked some girl across the tombstone,'” Betts said. “You can imagine how the girl I wrote it for felt after that.”

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)