Southern Rock Mount Rushmore

I have Spotify Premium with two personal playlists in heavy rotation, and by that I mean I honestly listen to them every day: Jimmy Buffett and Carolina Beach Music.

 

With me, it's not so much my obsessions as it is how eclectic my (our) taste is. It was many long years ago, but I remember the look I got as I was leaving a record store in Houston. I went to the counter with the Rocky Horror soundtrack, Chester & Lester's 1st album (Chet Atkins and Les Paul instrumental guitar duets), Romeo Void's "Benefactor" (I might like you better if we slept together), and The Band's "Last Waltz". So, yeah. I listen to everything from klezmer to Texas singer-songwriters.

 

Buddy Holley (spelled correctly on his grave marker), Roy Orbison, B.W. Stevenson and Robert Earl Keen heartily agree with your musical tastes.

 

Been to several Buffett shows. I get the parking lot tailgate. It's a blast. I don't get the allure of ending that party to step into a rote recitation of mid-tempo songs about what a good time you were having in the parking lot. Then again, given my musical proclivities, the problem isn't with him or anyone else but definitely within me.

 

My wife didn't either - until I took her to a concert. Now she tells me when his tours are passing through the area.

My obsessions, however, are much more specific. I'm a serious wonk when it comes to the Dead's cover of "Not Fade Away." Depending on who's counting, they played it about 640 times in concert. Thanks to tapers, I've been able to find about 460 of them.

That OCD-ishness carried over to DMB and I started tracking "Say Goodbye." I've got a couple hundred versions of it, but not all.

 

Yep. It's the "Passtime, aka The Jug," in Jacksonville, Fla. Brick cinderblock painted bright orange. The regulars in there drinking at 7 a.m. looked at us like we were aliens — and maybe we were.

 

Never seen Buffett, nor do I have any desire to - but I really enjoy a lot of his lesser-known stuff - like "Biloxi", "Elvis Imitators", "Pencil Thin Mustache", The Great Filling Station Holdup" that was on his four-CD box set. PBS ran what was basically an infomercial for a recent rarities CD and it included video of him doing four of his most famous songs at a concert in Vegas, Buffett is obviously the focal point amidst the beach balls, parrots, Hawaiian shirts but his band looking bored to death.

I will add this: his books are very good.

 

Was one of them a girl named Linda Lou?

 

Maybe? But I'm glad I didn't see a man with a gun in his hand — and that I'm not a fella with a hair colored yella.

 

This is a cool thread.

I'm not as pedantic about the definition of Southern rock. I don't care where the band came from if they're playing the style. That's like saying a country band can't be country if they're from north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

I do think swamp rock can be included as "southern" rock. Lynyrd Skynyrd delved into swamp rock. Along with conventional rock, country rock, blues rock and funk rock. It's why I think they're a shade ahead of the Allman's as the greatest southern rock band.

CCR counts in my mind, even if they didn't trade in the later imagery of southern rock. I'd consider them proto-southern rock. Skynyrd is the next evolution of the sound.

And "blues rock", which supposedly eliminates ZZ Top, is at the very foundation of what both Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers play, so I don't think it can be used to eliminate bands. Certainly, nothing ZZ Top recorded in the 80s qualifies as southern rock, but a lot of their 70s output does.

Both The Band and Little Feat are interesting cases, probably because they both have a sound all their own and they were constantly bobbing and weaving. The NOLA-influenced bands are interesting in and of themselves. The funkier wing of NOLA music is certainly not southern rock at all, but the blues-based songs most definitely are. Listen to "Do The Dirt" by The Meters. That's southern rock, blues rock, and funk rock all at once. (Actually, just do yourself a favor and listen to The Meters in general.)

I guess if you boil it down, does southern rock have to have a slide guitar in it? I think that's the unspoken line of demarcation many are making. I say it doesn't, but I can see the argument the other way.

As Robert Christgau used to write, there are some subjects for further research that haven't been mentioned:

- Tony Joe White is best known for "Polk Salad Annie" and little else, but I took a deep dive into his records of that era once and while it's swamp rock, it's also a template for southern rock. Good shit too. He's one of the many artists that recorded at Muscle Shoals which is itself an influence on southern rock.
- What about the Rolling Fucking Stones? How do you treat "Exile On Main Street"? At it's core, it's Gram Parsons-influenced "American music", but that's really just southern rock re-labeled, or pre-labeled as the case may be. I'd say a majority of it is southern rock even though it's rarely defined that way. Hell, "Brown Sugar" could be considered country rock too. "Honky Tonk Women" might be the whole God damn template of southern rock. Which gets me to ...
- What about the country revivalists of the late 60s? Flying Burrito Brothers and that iteration of the Byrds? Of course Parsons sprung from this wing.
- What about the original outlaw country artists? I'd say no, but they definitely shared the same cultural sphere, and fans, as the Skynyrd's and Allman's of the world did. I think the reason I adore Waylon Jennings is he came closest to walking the rock line while maintaining his country bonafides. Both "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" and his cover of "Are You Ready For The Country" would be considered southern rock if recorded by anyone else.

 

Traffic and Cream were short lived but exceptional bands. I don't think they have the catalogue size that CCR has though.

Has anyone mentioned George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers? Obviously not southern in origin but Blues Rock is a Southern Rock. NRBQ, Kentucky in origin.

Little Feat
George Thorogood
Neil Young
The Band
Dylan
NRBQ
Clapton
Dead
Bruce
That was a good afternoon and evening's rotation of getting high and listening to tunes in the dorms of Maryland in the late 70s and early 80s. Unfortunately The Doors received play, a ghastly group.

 

The Rolling Stones are a Southern (U.K.) band.