Can I Get a Rebel Yell?
Michael Buffalo Smith’s History of Southern Rock Told By The People Who Lived It
by Joseph Parrish I have known KUDZOO Publisher and Edi-
tor Michael Buffalo Smith for many, many years. We have played in bands together, drank cold beer together, went on road trips together and generally had a lot of fun over the past 35 or so years. He has always been a writer, whether it was writing song lyrics for my band Silver Travis, or writing songs for his various albums, or doing countless interviews, re- views and feature articles for local, national and international newspapers and magazines. In 2012, his memoir, Prisoner of Southern Rock was published by the prestigious Mercer Uni- versity Press of Macon, Georgia. Now he follows that book with another fine publication called Rebel Yell: An Oral History of Southern Rock. I asked Buffalo if I could be the one to interview him about the new book for KUDZOO Magazine, and he agreed.
Joseph: So, Michael B. How long have you actually been writing? Buffalo: Well Joey, I started as far back as high school in the 1970’s. Always writing about music for the school paper, and the same when I went to college. Then I got a job writing a weekly column for The Inman Times newspaper, a local weekly. Hilda Mor- row gave me my first shot. A bit later I found
myself working for half a dozen newspapers including freelancing for The Spartanburg Herald Journal. In 1996 I broke into national magazines with Goldmine, and became the go-to guy for all Southern Rock stuff, writing these huge 10,000 word cover stories on Mar- shall Tucker Band, The Allman Brothers,
Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc. Then Greg Loescher, the editor, started giving me reviews to do, and obituaries, features, all kinds of stuff. Later I freelanced for everyone from Rolling Stone to Mojo, Relix to Hittin’ The Note.
What was the first book you had pub- lished? Carolina Dreams: The Musical Legacy of Upstate South Carolina, in 1997. I had it written, and then I was fortunate to meet and get to know Doug Gray of The Marshall Tucker Band. We became friends, and he and his manger/business partner Ron Rainy pub-
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