How did you go about gathering these images for your book? I put the word out to friends, posted pleas on Facebook, asked folks that I had interviewed if they had any good shots, tracked down some music industry professionals from the 70s, and then it kind of snowballed. One per- son would suggest I contact another person, and on it went from there. Trying to figure out who owned all these images and working with the publisher to determine what we could and could not use was quite a process. If I remember right, I believe there are about four hundred images in the book. I think my next book will have about five!


I love it that you included the various historical elements that helped to cre- ate this genre of music, beginning with Elvis and Little Richard and moving into R&B and Muscle Shoals. Who do you consider the very first Southern Rock band? The Allman Brothers Band. I know that’s the standard answer, but I think it’s true. I was working with a theory for a while that the Box Tops might be the first Southern rock band. You’ve got a group of white guys who grew up on R&B making rock music in Memphis. But, honestly, their records (which are very good) are probably too pop-oriented for me to point to them as the start of Southern rock. The All- mans were the band that ignited the revolu- tion. They had the sound, the soul, the spirit. It was all rooted in blues and country that was part of Southern culture, but the Southern rock era, in my mind, really started with the Allmans. When I interviewed Jimmy John- son, he said that when Duane launched into his maniacal solo at the end of Wilson Pick- ett’s “Hey Jude,” that was the precise moment when Southern rock was born. I think that’s a great observation.


Define “Southern Rock.” That’s a tricky one. Remember the “I know it


when I see it” line that Potter Stewart made famous? I could probably say something simi- lar about Southern rock. I know it when I hear it! But, of course, it’s about much more than a sound. The “Southern rock” tag was something that really developed in the media and in the music business. I’ve found that most artists who have been categorized as “Southern rock” tend to resist that label. As hard as it is to define, however, I did write a book about it, so I had to come up with some kind of explanation of what that term means to me. That’s what I attempted to do with the Introduction to Southbound. “Southern rock” is about an era as much as it is about the sound. It’s rooted in regionally distinctive musical traditions, and was made by musi- cians who had a true sense of community based on their similar formative cultural ex- periences. That community, however, was re- ally countercultural in its time and place. People often think of Southern rock as “red- neck music,” but rednecks in the 1970s gener- ally did not have long hair and wear tight pants. More likely, rednecks had crew cuts and wanted to kick the asses of the guitar wielding hippies who were making Southern rock. At the same time, these musicians were considered distinct from the larger rock music scene because they happened to be from the South, which was just beginning to try to recover from a troubled era of racial un- rest. I think Charlie Daniels said it best when he told me that Southern rock is a genre of people more than it is a genre of music. The bands that I consider Southern rock now, are the ones who channel that same feeling.


Here’s one for you. Scott B. Bomar’s personal Top Ten Southern Rock al- bums of all time. Oh, man. Just ten? Obviously, the Allmans’ At Fillmore East record is pretty much every- body’s #1. Just for fun, however, I’m going to limit this list to studio albums and I’m going to pick albums by ten different bands, with no


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