I’ve spoken before about my early love of Deep Purple, who captured my sonic heart aged 13, but soon after, once I’d assimilated jazz-fusion, I leapt into the southern rock ocean, initially led into the water by the Allman Brothers, buying The Road Goes Ever On in 1976. What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was their music genre, encompassed so many styles and was a real stew of different vibes covering country, soul, blues, jazz as well as rock. And indeed that was what I loved about it.
Obviously once I’d gathered in the Fillmore East, Eat A Peach, Brothers and Sisters and Win Lose or Draw (which I loved, High Falls is an overlooked classic) albums, I branched out to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s One More From The Road (which I was obsessed with for most of 1977) Then I began to properly research it and found a whole new world. Most of it, unlike the Allmans and Skynyrd, wasn’t popular over here. The Outlaws with the guitarathon Green Grass And High Tides was hugely popular at lunchtime on the big speakers and frequently led to a lot of air guitaring. The Bring It Back Alive record is a sizzling live album.
From there I got Champagne Jam by Atlanta Rhythm Section, a much undervalued album in the UK and Black Oak Arkansas and Blackfoot who recorded a live album at Newcastle City Hall. But it’s a much wider genre than I initially thought. My next big love was Sea Level with the great Chuck Leavell. Their brand of breezy jazz and funked up rock was captivating. It was great driving-on-a-sunny-day music (not that I can drive!).
I initially liked Charlie Daniels Band and loved the Saddletramp track and album with its cowboy painting but bailed when things got political. There were so many bands like Marshall Tucker Band who were consistently successful in America and Wet Willie, Grinderswitch, Stillwater, Cowboy and Point Blank. Later Molly Hatchet and Dixie Dregs were popular to a degree over here.
A good way to hear some of these is on Hotels, Motels And Road Shows, a live double compilation album. Sea Level’s Grand Larceny on that record is a sublime instrumental.
Others pulled into the southern rock orbit like Johnny and Edgar Winter, but I always saw them as belonging to a different genre. Same with Elvin Bishop.
The Volunteer Jam records documented that regular southern rock festival
Very few bands toured over here as they probably assumed (probably rightly) there wasn’t an audience, though Skynyrd did go down very well. Their Knebworth set is legendary when they blew the Stones off the stage.
The thing about southern rock is it’s sort of outside fashion and still sounds great today. It doesn’t age and deserves to be a section of everyone’s collection.
