The American South is the birthplace of the Southern rock music genre. Charlie Daniels has worked with many of the Southern rock bands that defined the sound. Speaking with Songfacts, he explained: "This song is just about a bunch of bands that we played with and enjoyed working with. We started in '74, we brought them out, and we worked with Marshall Tucker, and The Allman Brothers, and Lynyrd Skynyrd - our good old bunch. We all came up basically in the same kind of situation, and most of the guys that I wrote this song about we felt very close to. We felt a kinship to, a brotherhood sort of thing. So it's just a tribute song to the bands."
Named in the song are: The Marshall Tucker Band (Spartanburg, South Carolina) Lynyrd Skynyrd (Jacksonville, Florida) Dickey Betts (from Allman Brothers Band) Elvin Bishop (Glendale, California) ZZ Top (Houston, Texas) Wet Willie (Mobile, Alabama) Barefoot Jerry (Tennessee)
The band Grinderswitch is mentioned in the opening line of the lyrics: "A train to Grinder's Switch is runnin' right on time." Grinderswitch was a Southern rock band formed by Dru Lombar, Larry Howard, and Joe Dan Petty in middle Georgia. They recorded on the Capricorn label formed by Phil Walden in Macon, Georgia. They toured with The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, The Charlie Daniels Band and others in the early 1970s, and also played at Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam. Unfortunately, Joe Dan Petty, who was also a guitar tech for the Allman Brothers Band, passed away in 2000 and Dru Lombar passed away in 2005.
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