Sunday, March 09, 2008

Guilty Pleasures Part Three - B-List Southern Rock Edition


Southern Rock is a very large canvas indeed. Some of the very best American bands came from south of the Mason Dixon line, with the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd being the most prominent. But there were others: in fact, there were a lot of other very good bands that came around in the late 60s and early 7os. If you want a good survey, all you need to do is take a listen to "The South's Gonna Do It" by the Charlie Daniels Band, who calls out the roster in much the same way Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music" did it a decade or so earlier:


Well the train to Grinder Switch is runnin' right on time

And the Tucker boys are cookin' down in Caroline

People down in Florida can't be still

When old Lynyrd Skynyrd's pickin' down in Jacksonville

People down in Georgia come from near and far

To hear Richard Betts pickin' on that red guitar


CHORUS:So gather round, gather round children

Get down, well just get down children

Get loud, well you can be loud here and be proud

And you can be proud here

Now be proud to be a rebel 'cause the south's gonna do it again and again


Elvin Bishop's sittin' on a bale of hay

He ain't good lookin' but he sure can play

And there's ZZ Top and you can't forget

That old brother Willie's gettin' soakin' wet

And all the good people down in Tennessee

Are diggin' barefoot Jerry and the CDB


As good a list as that is, there were more. You also had the Bellamy Brothers and Blackfoot. And you had the contestants for today's showdown.


First, in this corner, jamming for nearly 8 minutes in true Southern rock style, we have:




And in this corner


"Bounty Hunter" by Molly Hatchet


Thanks to the ever-resourceful Strolling Amok (a former North Carolina resident) for this suggestion.


5 comments:

Gino said...

molly hatchet.

Right Hook said...

Gotta go with The Outlaws.

Molly Hatchet always seemed overdriven, over compressed or poorly mixed to me.

Strolling Amok said...

The Outlaws were a better band. But... Molly Hatchet is the epitome of what I love about bad southern rock. Unlike a lot of music aimed at a young male audience this was not angry, depressing, self-pitying stuff. It was a bunch of happy, dumb, stoned, good ol' boys having a blast.
Molly Hatchet all the way. They're not good - but they're fun.

Daria said...

Molly Hatchet, mainly for the fun factor.

Anonymous said...

It's a very close call, but I'm going with Molly Hatchet on the basis that their album covers are guilty pleasure tie-breakers.
Rich