SOUTHERN ROCK REVIVAL
Burton Leon Reynolds, aka, Burt Reynolds (1936-2018), dies on September 6, 2018. He was 82. He was part of the Southern culture revival of the 1970s.
For more on Southern Culture, check out this list. Abbeville Institute is your one-stop shop for all things Southern culture.
Some Southern Rock songs I grew up on in the ’70s. The Outlaws, “There Goes Another Love Song,” was released in 1975.
Loved The Outlaws’ “Green Grass and High Tides,” 1975.
And this one by Molly Hatchet, “Flirtin’ With Disaster,” 1979.
And Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” released in 1973.
I liked the Rossington-Collins band with Katz on vocals, but they really don’t have the soul of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I even hate myself for saying that.
The soulful beauty of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone,” 1976. The song was originally released in 1973.
“Sweet Home Alabama” was released in 1974.
And, of course, “Free Bird,” 1973, a song which reminds me of my good friend, Sean Moore, who died in 1978. Ronnie Van Zant (1948-1977), what a talent. He was a Southern Muse, Ronnie Van Zant. “The Southern Muse of Ronnie Van Zant,” Jeff Rogers, August 13, 2018.
Though I was not a big fan of the Allman Brothers’ music, I did love the intention and melody in “Sweet Melissa,” 1972.
Melvin E. [M.E.] “Mel” Bradford (1934-1993) was a conservative political commentator and professor of literature at the University of Dallas. Bradford is seen as a leading figure of the paleoconservative wing of the conservative movement.
“Confederate Hollywood, Part II,” from Abbeville Institute.
“The South’s Gift to Posterity,” Karen Stokes [09/25/2019], about Douglas Southall Freeman:
Freeman made his case for the South to the “final tribunal” of history and proclaimed that these words should be written across its record: “Character is Confirmed.”
Earlier in the 1930s, the celebrated English writer and critic G. K. Chesterton gave his thoughts on what the “Old South” had to offer the world in his essay “On America,” in which he asserted that, although the twentieth century was the “Age of America,” there was “a virtue lacking in the age, for want of which it will certainly suffer and possibly fail.”
That missing virtue, according to Chesterton, was honor.
“America,” he wrote, “is crying out for the spirit of the Old South … And we need the Southern gentleman more than the English or French or Spanish gentleman. For the aristocrat of Old Dixie, with all his faults and inconsistencies, did understand what the gentleman of Old Europe generally did not. He did understand the Republican ideal, the notion of the Citizen as it was understood among the noblest of the pagans. That combination of ideal democracy with real chivalry was a particular blend for which the world was immeasurably better; and for the loss of which it is immeasurably the worse.”
The Southern Genocide, Thomas Fleming
CSA SONGS
Rose of Alabama, Bobby Horton
Thanks to Tom Daniel at the Abbeville Institute.
Homespun Songs of Vicksburg, Bobby Horton.
1. The Rock of Gibraltar [my favorite in the list, so far]
2. Dixie,
3. The Battle Cry of Freedom,
4. The Bonnie Blue Flag,
5. Vicksburg Is Taken, [not bad]
6. The Siege
7. Hard Times
8. The Battle Cry of Freedom (Fife & Drum)
9. Gibraltar.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
“The Irish Brigade,” a military tune. Fun.
“To Arms in Dixie.” Defense of Dixie.
This is a compilation of Southern songs, many familiar. Though I’d never heard of #5, “Old Zip Coon.” Here are the lyrics. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” is the last song in the compilation.
This is not a bad list to have.
“John Brown’s Body,” 1861, sung by communist, Paul Robeson, and composed by James E. Greenleaf, C. S. Hall, C. B. Marsh, and others, 1861. I’d always thought that the “His soul goes marching on” was about Christ’s soul. Odd how so many hymns from losers and victors use church hymns to capture their narratives.
San Gabriel Tutor 