40 Year Itch: Keep My Wheels A-Rolling

[Purchase]

   Before Hootie, South Carolina's most famous contribution to rock and roll was Spartanburg's Marshall Tucker Band. When the hard-touring MTB sat down to write the lyrics for their sophomore album, A New Life, it sounds like they looked out the windows of their tour bus and started name-checking Houston, Texas, Arkansas, Texarkana, Georgia, Denver, and South Carolina. Write what you know.

     As on the debut album, the Tuckers borrow from both country and swinging jazz (especially on "Southern Woman"). There's even a moog on this album. Charlie Daniels sits in on "Blue Ridge Mountain Sky" but it's Toy Caldwell's guitar that truly shines throughout. Might be their best!

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There's nothing special about The Charlie Daniels Band's southern boogie fest , Way Down Yonder, which got pulled from the Kama Sutra catalogue and was then re-released by Epic in 1977 as Whiskey. The Charlie Daniels Band classic, Fire on the Mountain, would come out in November of 1974