"SOUTHERN ROCK".....A GENERATION OF EXCELLENCE!!!!

The first thing you need to know about southern rock is this; there's the Allman Brothers Band, there's Lynyrd Skynyrd and then there's everyone else. Rarely has the lineage of a musical genre been so clearly defined. For as much as Dickey Betts and other members of the Allman Bros Band have tried to distance themselves from southern rock, they are the mountain stream from which the river flows. They started it all. Period.

Which brings up the second thing you need to know about southern rock: even at it's peak, the genre's biggest successes and greatest hopes were in the hands of just two groups-again, the Allmans and Skynyrd-and when acrimony and tragedy ripped them apart, the consequences were grim for the entire genre.

Southern rock arrived in two great twanging eruptions. The first was set off in 1971 when the Allman's released "At the Fillmore East", an album that put both the band and the genre squarely on the map. Of course Duane's untimely death and then Berry's a year later staggered the band, but they continued, knowing that their brothers would have wanted it that way.
   The second upheaval came three years later when Lynyrd Skynyrd released "Sweet Home Alabama", the bands highest-charting hit, it continued through "Street Survivors", the 1977 album that marked Skynyrd's musical rebirth. It was southern rock's greatest moment, cut abruptly that year by the fateful plane crash that killed three of Skynyrd's members.

There were others who kept the genre's pulse beating, groups like Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, 38 Special and The Marshall Tucker Band. Although none achieved the status of the Allmans and Skynyrd, they helped keep southern rock an ongoing entity and influence, one evident today in bands like the Black Crows, Gov't Mule and Widespread Panic.

Ironically, the group most responsible for the South's musical uprising is among the quickest to dodge the southern rock tag:

 "We may have inspired the whole southern rock thing," says the Allman Brothers' Dickey Betts, "but I don't identify with it. I think it's limiting. I'd rather just be known as a progressive rock band from the south."

I was lucky enough by accident to be a part of history on March 12th 1971. The day before at school my best friend and fellow aspiring musician, who happened to have a locker right next to mine asked me..."Hey Todd, wanna go see the Allman Bros tommorrow night at the Fillmore?" I asked..."Who the hell are the Allman Bros?".....His reply was simple..."I thought so, be ready at 5, me and my brother will pick you up"... "Ok, cool, I said."

That was an evening that changed my life, the shout from the crowd you hear on the album of "Play all night" came true. They did. When we walked out of the Fillmore the sun was rising and after seeing Duane Allman, Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley tear it up all night, I was a fan for life. My motivation to learn guitar intensified ten fold and I've spent the last three decades or so with every spare moment being dedicated to replicating the sounds I heard that night.

Screaming slide, twin lead guitars and the voice of Greg Allman was enough to make any person that was into the blues go nuts....Such was my introduction to southern rock....

Needless to say over the last 35 some odd yrs I have been witness to the magic of the Allman's incredible talent well over 40 times. Back in "74" a friend and I hitchhiked from New Jersey to Charlotte, North Carolina for the August Jam in which the Allman Brothers and Emerson, Lake & Palmer co-headlined. 4 days of non-stop partying with over 400,000 people. Well worth the time and effort to get there....

All in all, I enjoy writing about music. I have loved playing music, both personally and professionally, for over 35 yrs. Thanks to the incredible talents of people such as Duane and Dicky, Gary Rossington, Steve Gaines, Alan Collins, Ricky Medlock, the three guitar attack of the Outlaws and Molly Hatchet; bands such as Marshall Tucker, Grinderswitch, The Dixie Dregs, Blackfoot, Wet Wille and Elvin Bishop, 38 Special and White Witch, I have found my niche in music. I can play anything from Jazz to Metal to Hip-hop with a healthy dose of Country thrown in for good measure and have recorded with artists from all genres, but my true love will always be the sweet, searing solos of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. They have defined not only a genre, but a generation of music.