Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock by Michael Ray FitzGerald

Abstract

Reviewed by: Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock by Michael Ray FitzGerald Ben Wynne Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock. By Michael Ray FitzGerald. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2020. Pp. xiv, 207. $28.00, ISBN 978-0-8130-6665-3.) In this compact volume, Michael Ray FitzGerald gives readers an overview of the origins of a musical movement that helped alter popular culture in the United States. While many use the term southern rock to label this movement, it was actually broader and more layered. It included the work of a number of musicians who had southern roots in common, but who also flourished because of their individuality. While FitzGerald notes that calling Jacksonville “the birthplace of southern rock” is “strictly speaking, hyperbole” and [End Page 189] “erroneous,” the significant infusion of talent that the city provided the music industry in the late 1960s and beyond is undeniable (p. 13). The author argues that southern rock might be simply a variation of country rock “with more rock,” and he cites Gram Parsons as an alternating direct and underlying influence on those who helped create the genre (p. 29). Originally from Waycross, Georgia, Parsons spent his early life in Jacksonville, a testament to the Florida city’s reputation as the cultural capital of south Georgia, where many from that region ended up congregating. Parsons’s career was famously cut short by alcohol and drug use, but he had established a musical reputation that lived on in fact and legend. The author takes some exception to Parsons’s place in history as the first to promote “country rock” but still recognizes him as a pivotal figure who bravely bridged “the gap between hippies and rednecks” during the late 1960s and early 1970s (p. 28). Parsons is thus significant to one of the author’s conclusions, that southern rock is “a dialectic of two opposing philosophies: the nonviolent, long-haired, drug-using hippie and the hard-drinking, brawling, fiercely independent redneck” (p. 152). FitzGerald also does a nice job relating the early history of the Allman Brothers Band, the group whose star burns brightest in the constellation of southern rock heroes. In this regard, the book takes a potentially tedious story and makes it digestible for the reader. The Allman Brothers Band rose out of a collection of personalities and bands that performed in Jacksonville and elsewhere, among them the Allman Joys, Second Coming, and the 31st of February. The cast of characters is many and varied, but FitzGerald does an admirable job of telling their stories, whether of rock icons like Duane and Gregg Allman or lesser-known but still significant players like Johnny Sandlin and Paul Hornsby, who also had great careers as producers. FitzGerald recognizes guitarist Dickey Betts’s country proclivities as the driving force behind the band’s “southern” image, noting that the Allman Brothers Band changed in force and character when the guitarist sang lead—not into something better or worse, but into something different. By tracing the careers of a cross section of other prominent Jacksonville-area bands, FitzGerald paints southern rock with broader strokes while proving that a succinct definition of the term is impossible to pin down. Lynyrd Skynyrd promoted the “redneck” elements of southern rock through its iconic hit “Sweet Home Alabama” and its aggressive use of Confederate imagery, while Cowboy’s releases on Capricorn Records, the famous southern rock label in Macon, Georgia, were a softer sound, “more like the California country rock of Gram Parsons or Poco” (p. 70). Toiling in the shadows of the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special had more chart hits than both of those acts combined, while the band Molly Hatchet broke through and then quickly burned out. FitzGerald finally offers a brief treatment of the career of Derek Trucks, the nephew of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks, pointing out that he may represent either the future of southern rock or its final flourish. Anyone with an interest in music history, southern culture, or the bands included in this book will certainly enjoy what Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock has to offer. [End Page 190] Ben...