The Southern rock genre, for the most part, has been defined by its two biggest anthems,
the Allman Brothers Band's "Whippin' Post," and
Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird." The truth does not fit the cliché or the stereotype. For starters,
the Allmans were not, at least initially, a rock band. They were a powerful, extraordinarily focused and sophisticated blues unit who took rock and jazz -- in virtually equal parts -- into their mix and spit it out as a new kind of Southern blues.
Skynyrd was a straight-up bluesy rock & roll band who touched on country occasionally but sonically had more in common with big power rock groups like
Cream and
Grand Funk and than they did
the Allmans -- other than the multiple lead guitar pickers who happened to play dual leads;
Thin Lizzy did that on the other side of the pond at the same time.