S/D Southern Rock

Crowbar, Corrosion, Eyehategod, and their combo (Down) all have a distinctive southern feel under all the chaos, especially Down.

I have the luxury of seeing BOA reunite about once every year or so 'cause some whippersnapper thinks it would be totally WILD to get them on the bill. It is. Totally gangbusters. Dandy does look like he crawled out from under a bridge these days though.

REM=Southern Gothic* Rock

*in the literary sense (Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty), not the Marilyn Manson sense

You know, I've been hearing people say that about R.E.M. and various other bands for 25 or 30 years now, and I still really have no idea what it means (though maybe I would if I'd read more Southern Gothic literature than I have, who knows.)

also, why isn't zz top southern rock? or are they? or were they?

I wouldn't say ZZ Top are an obvious southern rock band. Like any rock, blues or country group from Texas, they've maintained a certain independence from the South. At least, that's how I've always seen it.

Then again, maybe my definition of southern rock has been drawn a little too narrow. I'm no expert on the genre, by any means.

ZZ Top were considered southern rock in the seventies, but the tag kinda disappeared after they went new wave.

That makes me wonder...did Southern rock fans still consider 38 Special Southern rock after they went powerpop (which wasn't too far into their career, really)?

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Altough I do agree w/Texas groups being independent of the movement. The only other band I can think of that comes close is Point Blank, and even then the were closer to Bad Company or April Wine than Skynyrd or the Allmans.

I think .38 Special slides by on account of the Van Zandt bloodline.

xp: thirding that. texas is its own thing.

Well, the stereotypical Texan identity is too individualistic to be merely lumped in with "The South", isn't it? And was Texas even ever part of the Confederacy? (No real need to answer, I can look it up.)

Anyways, even though the guy's a racist paranoid humourless lunatic these days, Charlie Daniels used to be a cool redneck, of the whiskey-weed-&-wimmen variety. And I've got a real fondness for a big percentage of Charlie Daniels' '70s records, particularly Honey In The Rock/Uneasy Rider and the other long OOP ones.

(pls ignore now-redundant remarks re. Texas)

The thing about Texas is we had Outlaw Country happening at the same time.

ZZ Top were considered southern rock in the seventies, but the tag kinda disappeared after they went new wave.

I'm of that generation. So yeah, I didn't know about the southern rock background when I was digging those funny dudes with beards on MTV.

I do think ZZ Top has always had more of a minimalist approach to grooving than most southern rock bands.

ZZ Top also seems less influenced by southern soul, Muscle Shoals, etc. (Again, all this stuff is new to me.)

ZZ Top started out closer to Cream, James Gang, Johnny Winter. Stuff like that, power trios & what not.

I do think they (ZZ Top) had a good grip on southern soul as well. It just wasn't their selling point.

i really need some Barefoot Jerry records. i don't have any. how come i never see them anywhere?

i've been digging my elvin bishop records a lot lately. and my grinderswitch records. and the james montgomery band album on capricorn that i picked up.

been digging my fave cowboy rekkerds as well. i'm always in the mood for those:

IAN, WHEN WILL YOU KNOW THE JOYS OF CAPRICORN RECORDING ARTISTS *COWBOY*????

Point Blank reviewed

PB were definitely southern rock. They certainly seem to consider themselves so at pointblanksouthernrock.com. Their first album was ZZ Top as interpreted by angry drunks and biker-meth freaks. Heck, they were managed and produced by ZZ Top's manager who obviously wanted them to be even more dangerous. So it's their best. A long mellowing out followed.

Hydra had their moments, most of them on their first two CDs, the second with a classic photo of a copy blowing his nose with money. They were on Capricorn.

The trinity of southern rock has to be Skynyrd, the Allmans and Molly Hatchet. Besides music, they still have a lot in common. Many of them are dead. And by this they prove southern rock is something of a generic yet very distinct brand. As ringer bands, they still make records people buy and no one cares at the big country and ag fair fests that the guys onstage aren't the real guys anymore. In any case, some of the ringer guys have now been in the bands longer than the original dead guys were.

And Molly Hatchet's live CD from last year was decent. I put something on it somewhere on ILM but the search function doesn't work for shit so it's out of sight.

And now there's Mudcrutch, definitely a southern rock band. Even the album art is classic southern rock hooey. Reviewed it in Rolling Hard Rock xposted to Rolling Country. It's an Outlaws record which means if you liked the Outlaws and have the Outlaws (or Henry Paul), then you don't actually need Mudcrutch.

I need to borrow/steal my sister's Point Blank records.

Yeah, that sounds awesome.

And when I say Mudcrutch is the Outlaws, it's Tom Petty and company doing something of a wan imitation of the Outlaws who often could be very wan themselves. Both bands were rooted in Gainesville, so maybe there's a reason for that.

I passed on a couple of Black Oak records in the used dollar-bin last weekend. Not sure if I erred. I do like Skynyrd's first two pretty well and some of Little Feat is okay - not expecting these to be that good, but I suppose they might be worth a listen.

i don't even own any blackfoot albums anymore and that's a crime. i love blackfoot.

blackfoot strikes was one of my fave albums as a kid. i had no problem playing it alongside judas priest and krokus and whatever other filth i was listening to. now i wanna hear it!

Bugs Henderson and the Shuffle Kings! Now those were southern rock records. Of course, he was Texan -- flying in the same orbit as Bloodrock and Nitzinger, the latter who made very southern rock records. Great first album followed by gradual slide.

i wonder if my dad still has all his doc holliday records. my dad LOVES molly hatchet. i gave him a promo of their last album. only the Germans and my dad listen to Molly Hatchet anymore. And Gorge.

No mention yet of Jerry Reed's "Eastbound and Down (Smokey and the Bandit Theme)"? Surely one of the classics of the genre.

"Lord Mr. Ford"!

my dad took me to see The Roundup in philly in, um, 1981? we stayed in a hotel and everything. marshall tucker, outlaws, 38 special, allmans, um, there were probably others. at jfk stadium.

my dad loved his rossington collins band albums as well. he wore those out. you must bear in mind, this is a person with a collection of a zillion jazz and R&B records, and, like, 50 southern rock records. he got the bug for those guitars. he didn't even own any regular rock records. i guess if you are an albert collins and lonnie mack and jazz guitar fan you have to got to southern rock to get that mix of blues/virtuoso-ism/volume. (oh and stevie ray was his god as well. he saw him play right before the crash.)

Blackfooot Strikes is definitely a Southern-fried metal thing. Those dudes kicked some ass. I think Medlocke and Spires were in Skynrd in the prehistoric days.

Medlocke was. And he's been back in Skynyrd for some time. Spires, sadly, is dead. I interviewed him for a local newspaper I worked at and he was very gracious. He once had a spread in Pennsy when Blackfoot was at the top of their game. Spires indicated it started going downhill when the record company and management pushed them into making changes to accomodate a desire to look more hep and 80's-AOR. Management brought in Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep and they started doing "Easy Livin'" in concert. I seem to recall him telling me he had no idea why or what that was about. Hensley arrived for the album Siogo, which was an acronym for Suck It Or Get Out. It actually was not bad at all, even with Hensley, and had your standard Blackfoot-type song about poon, called "Going Down to Eat at the Y." The next album had a Blackfoot-like title, Vertical Smile and polaroid crotch shots of women in panties but was produced horribly by Eddie Offord. It was utter crap and didn't sound anything like a southern rock band.

"She make it all worthwhile with her vertical smile." Still, amusing for a moment but total rubbish.

I was just listening to Blackfoot Strikes! That is a totally rad album. "Train, Train" is one of the great lesser-known singles of the 70s.

too bad about Spires. Blackfoot always had a following in western Jersey/PA. Thanks for the info, Gorge, as always.

Now I'm kicking myself for not buying the $4 Blackfoot Tomcattin' CD I saw at Princeton Record Exchange last month. Boy am I a cheapskate sometimes. (It's probably still there, if anybody plans to be in that neighborhood.) Not sure why I ever got rid of my old copy to begin with, but I did. Re-bought Strikes for $7.99 a couple years ago, and it's as great as everybody here says.

You would definitely like <I>Siogo</i> A lot. <I>Tomcattin'</i> was much in the vein of <I>Strikes</i>, their benchmark album. The latter includes a lot of killer tunes, two of which are great covers, Spirit's "I Got a Line On You" and Blues Image's "Pay My Dues." (Aussie biker band Buffalo also latched onto the worth of that.) "Left Turn on a Red Light" is also great and then there's the obligatory long guitar bash which starts slow and ends fast -- every suvvern band has to have one -- "Highway Song." I always thought it was the weakest piece on the record.

Then there was <I>Marauder</i>. Don't listen to it much. However, it does contain three very catchy hard tunes -- "Fly Away, "Dry County" and "Good Morning" -- which were put to even better use on their live album, <I>Highway Song</i>

<I>Highway Song</i> was never released domestically until a couple years ago as CD on Wounded Bird. It was a mistake on the part of the record company. Wound up as a Euro-import and its deletion in the US market, since all southern rock band live albums tend to do well with fans, is a mystery.

i need to hear ZZ Top as interpreted by angry drunks and biker-meth freaks....
which reminds me, motorhead's cover of "beer drinkers and hellraisers" is fucking ace.
are blackfoot any relation to jd blackfoot?

No, not even close. Although I can recommend JD Blackfoot's Yellowhand from a couple years back. The only southern rock record ever made in New Zealand, I bet. For only Corky Laing on drums and JD on acoustic guitar and vocals, the shit rocks. Actually, much more than the obscure full hard rock band stuff he did in the early Seventies.

Southern (Hemisphere) Rock

I've a boot CD of Blackfoot's debut "No Reservations" with two "bonus" tracks that sound like a totally different band - because they ARE! Another Blackfoot, this one from Frisco(?), late '60s.

But back to the Allmans.

There's a great live set on Wolfgang's Vault from the gig I saw @ Winterland just before Duane crashed it. I can still smell the reek of cheap Mex weed.

There's another one a few months later (that I also was @) just before Berry Oakley did the same, but I haven't listened to it. I kinda lost interest after Duane.

J.D. Blackfoot started off as a psych-rock band out of Ohio. Craig Fuller of Pure Prairie League was the guitarist.

The Allmans are so damn interesting to me. They're a southern rock foundation, but did any other southern rock band follow them into rock/improv/free jazz/classical//blues exploration? If so, I NEED names!!!

Obviously, Captain Beyond answers my question, but any others? I think most folks who peg the Allmans as southern rock (none of us, of course!) don't even realize just how "out" they traveled.

dixie dregs!

dregs were all about hardcore improv fusion blues jazz jams.