Forty years ago today, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their second album titled Second Helping. The effort contained what has become the quintessential Southern rock anthem, Sweet Home Alabama.
Skynyrd, along with Georgia’s The Allman Brothers Band, Tennessee’s Charlie Daniels Band, and South Carolina’s Marshall Tucker Band, were part of a Southern music revival in the 1970s. Being Southern was chic. Everyone wanted to say “ya’ll” and cowboy hats, boots, and blue jeans were a fad. Even the Confederate Flag was cool (see the video below shot in Oakland, CA in 1977). The South had risen again, at least for a time, and the region experienced a revival after being beaten down and demonized by the media during the Civil Rights era.
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Growing up down South in the 1970s, we used to see Marshall Tucker, Skynyrd, and the Allman Brothers as often as we could.
ReplyDeleteI had a ticket for that last Allmans tour, the one where they suddenly broke up. Never got my money back...
Tucker and Skynyrd often played together, but the Allman Brothers were the next step up on the star ladder, so they were often on their own.
Tucker were like everybody's big brothers, Skynyrd were the guys down at the bar who you knew were trouble, and the Allmans were the artists who you knew you could never even imagine yourself being that good.
I've still got some of all 3 on my music player.
Wish I still had the albums.
- Charlie
Wish I still had the albums.
DeleteThanks and I bet. :)
One more. Everybody loves this song.
ReplyDeleteWe were in a bar in some nothing little town in Australia, and the band (and everybody else) were gettin' pretty well boiled.
They struck up Sweet Home Alabama, but couldn't remember much other than the main melody, so they just kind of played the same 30 or 45 seconds of the song over and over, and we all loved it.
- Charlie
Hilarious! Wish I had been there. When I went there on my first R&R in 1968, I never was able to but but one beer in a bar for as soon as they heard your accent people on both sides kept supplying you all night. :)
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I noticed there were no protests of the big Confederate Flag--even out in California. Back then, they were real liberals who were actually tolerant of diversity and had no problem with musicians displaying their regional Americana pride. Everybody was just doing the "live and let live" thing, enjoying the music, ambience and having fun, Southern Style! --Ron W
ReplyDeleteWhat a novel thought! How far we have fallen.
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