If the ’70s were the era of good times and excess following the tumultuous ’60s, the boogie band would be its champion. Boogie was a leveler – a style, feeling, and groove – affecting everyone from Mississippi bluesman John Lee Hooker (“Boogie Chillen”) and Arthur Smith in early rock and roll (“Guitar Boogie”) to blues-rockers Canned Heat (“Fried Hockey Boogie”), R&B artists Stevie Wonder (“Boogie On Reggae Woman”), Mick Jackson (“Blame It on the Boogie”) and Earth, Wind & Fire (“Boogie Wonderland”) as well as KC & the Sunshine Band (“I’m Your Boogie Man”), Taste of Honey (“Boogie Oogie Oogie”) and Heatwave (“Boogie Nights”) in disco. Boogie entered the hit parade with Canned Heat’s “On the Road Again” (#16 in ’68) and Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” (#3 in ’70). Hard rock and metal were not immune to its allure.

AC/DC jammed on boogie a la Canned Heat, while Van Halen demonstrated the power of supercharged boogie grooves in “Hot For Teacher” and “I’m the One,” as did Joe Satriani in “Satch Boogie.”

The press dubbed Foghat a boogie band before it was a buzzword. Building on its blues ancestry, none characterized the rock flavor of boogie more aptly, especially their hit, “Slow Ride.” Intended for arena-rock appetites, it’s now a piece of the classic-rock canon and part of the world’s soundtrack heard in TV commercials, sitcoms, video games, and movie scores.

Foghat arose during the third wave of British blues-rock; the first splashed ashore in ’64 with the Stones’ and Animals’ revivals of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and Howlin’ Wolf, while the second was the lead-guitar-driven surge with Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor reinterpretations of Freddie King, Otis Rush, and Albert King in Bluesbreakers. The third struck with the Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, and Savoy Brown. The latter boasted the guitar and vocal talents of “Lonesome Dave” Peverett in its classic ’69-’70 lineup, as well as bassist Tony Stevens and drummer Roger Earl. The threesome departed in January of ’71 to form Foghat, named after a nonsense word from a childhood Scrabble game.

Foghat displayed its depth on a prescient rock ballad “I’ll Be Standing By.” The feeling, tonal colors, atypical harmony, and orchestration are closer in spirit to of ’80s rock anthems than a British boogie band. The tradition begun with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Stairway to Heaven” is carried forth in this solo that poses melodious rock licks over changes. The guitar lines draw from the well of blues melody and are repurposed for a progression that differs markedly from the I-IV-V of blues-rock. Note the use of E major-pentatonic melody over the diatonic E and B chords in the first four bars as well as the remote harmony, G# and F# major. The color tone A is used tastefully over A then retained as it modulates to D (in 6), in weeping pre-bend lines. Thematic development occurs in 7-8 and the runs over A and B comprise a familiar gesture of the structured rock solo building to a climax. Note the switch to B major-pentatonic over B to emphasize the harmony and heighten the drama in this section.

The London-based group was augmented with Rod Price (formerly of Black Cat Bones) on slide and additional lead guitar, then relocated to America after securing a contract with Bearsville Records. Their ’72 eponymous debut was produced by Dave Edmunds, flaunted appearances by Todd Rundgren, Edmunds, and Andy Fairweather Low, and featured six band originals and three blues standards including “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” the Willie Dixon tune made famous by Muddy Waters and Etta James (and recast by the Stones in ’64). Foghat’s studio version reached #83 on pop charts, but was supplanted five years later by their live rendition, an arena favorite that cracked the Top 40 (#33). In an uncharacteristic move, the band also named their ’73 follow-up release Foghat (affectionately called “rock and roll” due to its depiction of a jagged stone and dinner roll on the sleeve). Bearing only one cover (Chuck Willis’ “I Feel So Bad”), it was heavier, more assured, and reached #67 on Billboard’s charts. The third album, Energized, continued the MO, offering original compositions (notably the single “Step Outside”) and covers, this time from Big Joe Turner (“Honey Hush,” a crowd pleaser that included a paraphrase of “Train Kept A-Rollin’”) and Buddy Holly (“That’ll Be the Day,” also issued as a single). It was yet more successful, hitting #34.

Foghat became one of the most popular live acts of the ’70s, bolstered by Energized and Rock and Roll Outlaws, which again went Gold (#40 in ’74) with originals and covers of “Eight Days on the Road,” “Rock and Roll Outlaw” and “Blue Spruce Woman.” Tired of relentless touring, Stevens resigned in ’75, leaving producer/keyboardist Nick Jameson to stand in as studio bassist on Fool for the City. Foghat trivia: an actor/comedian and voice-over specialist, Jameson is best-known for his portrayal of the Russian president on the TV series “24.”

Fool For the City was the band’s first platinum album, reaching #23 and initiating a trend of originals composed by Peverett (without Price or other members). It yielded the gargantuan hit “Slow Ride” (#20), a Peverett song that established Foghat’s supremacy as stadium rock’s leading boogie band and bona fide rock stars, but also maintained fealty to their blues roots, with a remake of Robert Johnson’s “Terraplane Blues.” After its release, Craig MacGregor joined as bassist, and “Fool for the City” became the next hit single (#45). The quartet lost momentum slightly with Night Shift, produced by Dan Hartman, which nonetheless enjoyed Top 40 success with “Drivin’ Wheel” (#34). Any slippage was redeemed by Foghat Live (’77), a double-platinum recording that remains the band’s best seller. Eddie Kramer (of Hendrix and Zeppelin fame) produced Stone Blue, which reached #25. The program consisted of Peverett-Price originals and covers of Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago,” Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too” and Earl McDaniels’ “Chevrolet.” A handful of hits followed that suggested Foghat was widening its perspective past the confines of ’70s blues-boogie as Peverett began exerting greater influence on songwriting with telling Top 40 tracks like “Stone Blue” and “Third Time Lucky” on Stone Blue and Boogie Motel. The latter was a self-produced album that contained only one Peverett-Price collaboration (“Boogie Motel”) and the first to not go gold since ’74. Tight Shoes (’80), the ninth Foghat album, self-produced but completely dominated by Peverett’s compositions, also failed to strike gold. It was the last with Price, who had grown tired of constant touring and was disenchanted with the move away from boogie/blues. He was replaced by Erik Cartwright, and Jameson returned to produce Girls to Chat & Boys to Bounce, In the Mood for Something Rude, and Zig-Zag Walk, their final Bearsville recording.

Rod “The Bottle” Price brought the art of blues bottlenecking to rock arenas. This excerpt from his “Slow Ride” solo begins with a very high feedback note activated by constant slide string rubbing, a technique with which he is closely identified, and one that moved the country-blues sound into the post-Hendrix hard-rock world. He’s in Open E tuning to create idiomatic blues and rock melodies throughout, decorated by the legato slurring of notes and quivering vibrato, made vocalesque with the slide. Noteworthy are the arpeggio shapes in measures 9-11, contrasting the blues licks in 2-5, and his long passage of sustained minor-pentatonic notes in 6-8.

Foghat was the last of the British blues-rock bands to exert significant influence on pop audiences. By the mid ’80s, they began experimenting with contemporary trends like new wave and nouveau rockabilly while developments in rock had moved the masses beyond the boogie spirit of the ’70s. After Foghat disbanded in ’84, Peverett returned to England while Earl (the only member to play in every lineup), MacGregor, and Cartwright toured with various singers into the ’90s. In ’94, Peverett, Price, Earl, and Stevens reunited under a contract for Modern Records, with Jameson producing the aptly titled Return of the Boogie Men. They toured into ’96, briefly recapturing their rock-star cachet, and assembled a live album (Road Cases) from performances at the Roseland Theater, in Portland. Road Cases marked the end of an era; Peverett was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2000, while Price passed in ’05 from a fall following a heart attack.

INFLUENCES
Peverett cited numerous blues and rock influences that included Green, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard. As a child, Price listened to classical music and country a la Roy Rogers, and was subsequently drawn to rural blues artists Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Scrapper Blackwell, and Robert Johnson. He cited the Stones’ Brian Jones (for electric slide) and Buddy Guy as later influences. His rock inspirations included the Shadows and Eddie Cochran.

STYLE
As boogie evolved from 1920s piano-based boogie-woogie to’60s rock, it became a guitar-dominated medium. Foghat embodies the quintessential expression with a two-guitar sound that defined the band at the outset. Peverett and Price were both accomplished lead guitarists, as the opening bars of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” attest. Strict delineations of lead versus rhythm guitar do not readily apply, though Price is generally perceived as the primary soloist. Both are blues-based, fluent with the requisite pentatonic/blues-scale vocabulary, Chuck Berry double-stops (heard in “Maybelline”) and string-bending techniques, and capable of solid improvisation in the stylistic language. Price was dubbed “The Bottle” due to his bottleneck expertise (and adventurousness rivaling Duane Allman) and the small glass bottle he wore on his middle finger. After the first two Foghat albums, he most often played slide in Open E tuning. On earlier records, he had just one guitar and used only standard tuning, underscoring the quality of his creative and advanced slide soloing in “Feel So Bad.” Peverett and Price sometimes worked together as lead guitar partners, playing phrases in unison and harmony – as in the interlude of “Slow Ride” – or trading solos in tunes like “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “Road Fever.” Their expansion of the boogie/blues form when covering “Honey Hush” cultivated a heavy sound commensurate with the most aggressive hard-rock bands of the time and anticipated grooves found in later speed metal. Moreover, the power-pop ballad “I’ll Be Standing By” revealed another side of the band circa ’76 and sported a singing guitar solo laced with modal ingredients filtered through a rock prism, comparable to the melodious playing of Carlos Santana, Gary Moore, Neal Schon, or Michael Schenker. Blues purists to a point, the guitarists freely applied rock effects like feedback, pinch harmonics, heavy distortion, and processing via wah, phaser and envelope follower, to color tracks and reinvent the boogie/blues for the ’70s.

“Slow Ride” was once described by Dave Peverett as inspired by John Lee Hooker. The main riff certainly bears that out. The first line depicts Dave’s opening riff, which is repeated and varied by Gtr. 1 throughout the verses and choruses. Note the simple first-position chord partials, the unmistakable boogie rhythm in the syncopations and accents, and emblematic pull-off pattern in measure 2. The second line present’s Rod Price’s chorus riff (Gtr. 2) played with slide guitar in Open E tuning. Check out the slurs and arpeggios facilitated by connecting the chord shapes of the tuning.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING
Fool for the City, Foghat Live, Energized, Rock and Roll Outlaws, and Night Shift are classics. The Best of Foghat is a serviceable compilation that contains their hit singles and most popular tracks. The Complete Bearsville Album Collection is for serious listeners.

ESSENTIAL VIEWING
Highly recommended are “It Hurts Me Too” from 1977 at the New York Palladium and in Dayton in ’97, “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (live ’74), and “Slow Ride” (live ’78).

SOUND
Peverett favored a late-’50s Cherry Red double-cut Les Paul Junior and sunburst single-cut mid-’50s Junior. Though he played a Strat on “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” Price also preferred solidbody Gibsons. In Foghat’s classic years, he used various white and red SGs for slide, and a black Les Paul Custom for standard tuning. After 1980, Peverett also played a custom instrument inspired by Bo Diddley’s cigar-box guitars and fitted with custom Duncan pickups that approximated PAFs. His Junior inspired Price to make his own modified version from a 1960 model – a mainstay seen in concert after ’77. It was customized with two PAFs or Duncan humbuckers, Grover tuners, and routed for new circuitry. Peverett played a Guild acoustic while Price played an acoustic Dobro for slide in studio.

On their debut album, Foghat used Hi-Watt amps, but, by ’77, Price preferred a Sunn Model T 100-watt head and a pair of Super-Reverb amps. In later years, Peverett turned to Hughes & Kettner Tri-Amp heads with 4×12 cabs, while Price relied on 100-watt Mesa/Boogie Rectifier heads with 4×12 cabs, along with Soldano amps.

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Wolf Marshall is the founder and original editor-in-chief of GuitarOne magazine. A respected author and columnist, he has been influential in contemporary music education since the early 1980s. His books include 101 Must-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Collection, and Best of Jazz Guitar, and a list credits can be found at wolfmarshall.com.

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This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Josh Smith has been very busy. When he’s not on tour or sharing production duties with Joe Bonamassa for artists like Joanna Connor, Eric Gales, or Larry McCray, he’s producing artists on his own and making music. Bird of Passage finds the multifaceted guitarist fronting a 13-piece big band. It’s blues that swings – and Smith knows all about making the blues swing.

What made you want to record a big-band album?
It had been in the back of my mind for a while. One of my best friends, bassist Calvin Turner, would prod me. He knows I’ll make it happen once I’m into something. He planted that seed, then I had a little time in 2019; next thing I knew, I was writing the tunes. He also started writing, and we went back and forth until we had it. Bird of Passage is live in terms of the quartet; you’re listening to two days of work – me, Larry Goldings on organ, Lemar Carter on drums, and Calvin on bass. Then, Calvin and I flew to Nashville to track a 13-piece horn section, and that all went down live. I can’t fit a big band in my studio (laughs).

You’ve been making good use of Flat V Studios.
Strings and horns are the one limitation of my studio. I can pull off pretty much everything else. From all the records I’ve been producing, I also have a great working relationship with Nashville’s horn and string players. I tend to go there for that stuff because it’s easier than in L.A. They’re used to working together every day. In L.A., it’s usually a collection who’ve never played together.

Did you know it was going to be primarily instrumental?
Yes, I wanted it to feel like a Blue Note record. I wanted slow blues I could sing on – a “T-Bone Walker meets Frank Sinatra” moment. There were vibes I wanted to catch for the rest of the tunes – an Art Blakey vibe and a Grant Green vibe. So I wrote what came naturally. The important thing was that I didn’t want it to seem like I was playing a role. I didn’t want it to seem like Josh picked up the big box and played differently. I wanted the record to sound like me with a big band.

There’s also a ’70s-cop-show vibe.
“Hopeless Quarters” and “Rare Plus” has that. We treated it old-school when it came time to mix. Everything has its own reverb. My studio has a real plate reverb, and the horns had their own reverb. Everything was panned the old-school way. I bought calfskin heads for the drums. It made a big difference.

How did you position your guitar?
I put it out front, like a vocal. To lead the big band, it had to be. I used my Chapin T-Bird and a Case J3F on the slow blues, which is like a 175 with P-90s, made by John Case in the U.K. On “Fat Hair,” I’m using a Ronin guitar with vintage DeArmond Gold Foil pickups and flatwounds. It was the only song where I went for a jazzier tone with my Lovepedal Tchula, a Morgan JS12 amp, and my ’55 Bassman. There’s a lot of guitar on it. “Wayfarer” is one of the strongest songs I’ve ever released on any record.

You produced Andy Timmons’ new album.
I’ve known about Andy my whole life. He’s an unbelievably gifted guitar player. I met him a few years ago, and he’s uncommonly nice. He hadn’t done a solo record in years, and wanted to do something organic, more bluesy, and he thought I was the right guy to help him do it. He wanted to be pushed out of his element, so we ended up writing the whole record together. It’s crushing.

You have a whole other career now.
I’ve been doing seven records a year for other people, and I never thought that would be the case. I really enjoy it. I’m playing gigs with Joe Bonamassa, producing with him, and producing artists on my own. I’m trying to find time to do my own stuff in the midst of all that, but now it’s mostly producing. I’m also producing Joe’s next album, going to Europe to play gigs with him, producing Marc Broussard’s new record, and producing another Joanne Shaw Taylor album.

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This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Shane Fontayne has held down the guitar hot seat for top artists including Bruce Springsteen, Ian Hunter, Sting, Joe Cocker, and now, Graham Nash on the Woodstock legend’s new Live album.

In 2012, the British-born Fontayne aced an even higher-pressure gig, with Heart at the Kennedy Center Honors, where he had to play the guitar solo in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” – with Jimmy Page sitting in the audience!

Playing “Stairway to Heaven” in front of Led Zeppelin, and with Jason Bonham backing you on drums at the Kennedy Center Honors had to be one of the most daunting gigs of all time. How did you approach it?
There had been talk of someone else guesting to play that solo, but it eventually was entrusted to me. I just wanted to reproduce it as faithfully as possible – and passionately, too. It was only later, as the performance went viral, that I realized how iconic that solo was.

What was the buildup like, and then the performance?
I’m never quite so nervous as the moments prior to the curtain going up on the Kennedy Center stage. You’re on a stage that’s hydraulically whisked into position as the video montage is playing, praying all your gear boots up as it should. Because when the curtain rises two minutes later and you gaze up to the balcony to see the President and that year’s honorees, you have to be completely focused and ready to go.
Ann and Nancy Wilson were so good, and it blessedly went off without a hitch. Needless to say, it was wonderful to later see the reactions from Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.

Did you talk to Jimmy afterward?
I spent a couple of minutes with him and was able to ask if he had played the solo on The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” – Jimmy’s response was that he had been at the session, but did not play the lead. Also, it was after seeing how good he looked with white hair that I decided to stop coloring mine!

For Graham Nash shows, how do you put together the arrangements?
Our normal touring mode is as a trio with Graham, [co-guitarist] Thad DeBrock, and myself, but for Live we had a full rhythm section and background singers. My first experience with Graham was on the Crosby-Nash tour in 2011. As the lead guitar player in that band, without Stephen Stills, my thought was, “What would I want to hear if I was in the audience?” So much of what Stephen played feels like orchestration to me, like “Wooden Ships” or “Marrakesh Express.” I wanted to reproduce a lot of what he played as faithfully as I could.

On this live set, how did you find your own parts in such well-known material?
Honestly, I don’t worry about it. There’s the old joke, “How do you get a guitar player to turn down? Put a chart in front of him.” Fortunately, Graham loves electric guitar accompaniment. I’ve been playing professionally for 50 years, and at a certain point there’s a maturity you can lean on. Your playing becomes simpler – and maybe more essential.

You and Nash play interesting, different rhythms in “Be Yourself.”
It’s always lovely to hear two acoustics playing different chord inversions. I used a different position on the guitar for that song, using a capo. Rhythmically, if Graham is playing quarter notes, I may do something a bit more languid around him or in-between the beats, to offset it. Graham’s playing is totally intuitive, very much in the singer/songwriter style; I don’t believe he gives himself enough credit as a musician.

Which guitars, amps, and pedals did you play on Live?
I used a 1966 Gretsch Tennessean that I bought in Woodstock in 1977. It’s a lovely guitar. There was also a ’90s Strat, a Gibson ES-175, Takamine acoustic, bouzouki, and a very heavy lap-steel that feels like it’s made of cast iron! I have a Matchless Avalon 1×12 with a matching cabinet. I weened myself years ago from the old Maestro Echoplex and now use the Line 6 DL4 delay. I also have various Keeley pedals – a compressor, Katana boost, overdrive, and reverb, plus an Ernie Ball volume pedal and Vox wah.

Which other vintage guitars do you own?
I have a ’55 Tele that I also bought that year on 48th Street for $750. Living in Woodstock in the late ’70s, I got to know John Sebastian (VG, June ’22) and he let me buy one of his three Fender Bass VI models, which I used as a baritone. I still have the Melody Maker that I came to America with in the mid ’70s, and a Silvertone with lipstick pickups. Actually, I’m pretty vintage myself at this point!

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This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Few American guitarists have roots in Americana as deep as those of Jim Weider. For 15 years following The Band’s reformation in 1983, he was the sole guitarist, contributing heavily to its finest latter-day album, Jericho.

Weider is also part of Masters of the Telecaster, a collaboration with G.E. Smith and Tom Principato that performs exciting live shows honoring the instrument and those who made it famous.

Following the demise of The Band, Weider assembled a group of musicians to continue the group’s musical legacy and create new music in its tradition. Calling themselves The Weight Band, they released a debut album in 2018 and toured the country until the pandemic.

Honing their songcraft during the two-year lockdown, Weider and his bandmates recentlyemerged with Shines Like Gold, an album of nine originals and a Willie Dixon cover.

What was the impact of the pandemic on you and The Weight Band?
It was tough. We were on tour in March of 2020, and the bottom just fell out. Everything shut down and we flew home. There was no work for a year and a half, and I’ve never been unable to go out and play. So, it was strange. I ended up going to my studio and working on music.

That was the catalyst behind Shines Like Gold?
It really was. I started going into the studio every day and working on songs and ideas, and they built up. I had nothing else to do, and songs started coming. Despite the uncertainty we all felt, I didn’t want the songs to be down; I wanted positive and inspirational, like “There’s a new dawn rising and it shines like gold.”

“Out of the Wilderness” is a great metaphor for coming out of the Covid era.

It is, though I actually wrote that with (producer) Colin Linden in the ’90s for Rick Danko to sing on Jericho, but we never cut it. It was perfect for Rick’s voice, and for (Weight bassist/vocalist) Albert Rogers, so we lifted it up a bit and I put some mandolin and slide on it. It fit really well with what we went through – or are still going through.

After you developed the songs in your studio, were you able to get the band together and record them live?
Yes, we got together for a rehearsal at the studio, and it felt really good, so we recorded them live in four or five days.

Did you record the solos live?
The main tracks were all done at the same time, but I tracked most of the solos in my home studio.

Which guitars and amps did you use?
For the main tracks, I was using my ’52 Tele and ’62 Tele into my ’55 Deluxe, as well as a Deluxe Reverb. For the slide stuff, I used my Ry Cooder-style Telecaster with the lap-steel pickup. For the first time, I used a ThorpyFX Fat General compressor, which allows you to blend the amount of compression with the straight signal. I did all the guitar overdubs at home, using the Colby dtb-50 amp cranked for “Long Journey,” and the tweed Deluxe for the solo on “Weight of the World.” For “Shines Like Gold,” that’s my tweed Super and Deluxe Reverb together. I used a Colby-made Park JTM45 for a rhythm crunch sound on “Tear Down the Walls.”

The slide on “Time is a Thief” has a real Little Feat vibe to it…
I think that rubbed off from hanging and playing with the guys from Little Feat – Paul (Barrere) and Fred (Tackett) – when we toured with them in Japan. Paul used to say, “Jim, when are you going to use a compressor?” That was our joke for 30 years (laughs).

Did you use any other pedals?
Yes, the Analog Man King-of-Tone, and the Dunlop Echoplex pedal, in spots.

The record captures the tradition of The Band, but with a more-modern feel.
That’s the idea, to carry on that sound, but take it to another place – one that rocks harder. I’m excited about the record and I think it really puts the stamp on our original sound.

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This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

By early 1973, “Southern Rock” had come into its own, spearheaded by Capricorn Records and its keystone act, the Allman Brothers Band, whose music was melodic, popular, and brought plenty of memorable guitar riffs.

Though they could boast a rapidly expanding fan base, the members of a Florida group known as Lynyrd Skynyrd hit a wall after recording their debut album at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in 1971-’72; the recordings were shelved awaiting a record deal.

Named after a high-school gym teacher, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s approach differed from other Southern aggregations; unlike the Allman Brothers’ harmony guitars or the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s back-and-forth riffing, bandleader/vocalist Ronnie Van Zant had Gary Rossington and Allen Collins rehearse note-for-note unison lead breaks on their Gibsons. And once they finally signed with musician/producer Al Kooper’s Sounds of the South label, sessions were set for the spring of ’73 at Studio One, in Doraville, Georgia. A last-minute addition was guitarist Ed King, formerly with the Strawberry Alarm Clock, who hired on to replace bassist Leon Wilkeson, then stayed after Wilkeson abruptly returned, giving the band three guitarists.

Rodney Mills, chief engineer at Studio One, was upbeat going into the sessions.

“I was excited, because when I played bass in a band called the Bushmen, we’d gigged in Jacksonville a lot and knew the local players,” he said.

Mills recounted that the Atlanta Rhythm Section was also using Studio One at the time, alternating sessions with the Skynyrd crew, who mostly worked with engineer Bob Langford.

“He was there most of the time,” said Mills. “I’d assist on some things, but I had a lot on my plate with ARS, and Bob had a handle on the Skynyrd project.”

Stringent rehearsals were part of the Skynyrd regimen, which made for productive time in the studio. Mills described the band as “…beyond prepared because they had rehearsed so much. And they were re-recording a lot of what they’d done at Muscle Shoals and had been playing for a good while. In fact, this album was a lot like capturing a band playing live.”

Van Zant was as strict in the studio as he was in rehearsals.

“Ronnie knew what level of performance each guy was capable of,” Mills recalled. “He was a great front man, and took that position seriously.”

Wilkeson brought Fender basses and Gibson Thunderbirds, but King’s new ’73 Stratocaster (VG, June ’19) made a particular impression, including on ARS guitarist J.R. Cobb; “Ed was the one who really made me want to stick with a Strat,” he said in a 2017 interview with VG.

Of the album’s eight songs, five were re-recorded versions of tracks done first at Muscle Shoals, and among the other three, King and Kooper each co-wrote one with Van Zant, who had credit on all eight.

Producer Kooper suggested using the Mellotron heard on the plaintive “Tuesday’s Gone,” and by request of Van Zant and Kooper, ARS drummer Robert Nix – a big fan of Skynyrd – played on the song. In a 2020 interview with TapeOp magazine, Langford said the band recorded “Sweet Home Alabama” during the Pronounced sessions, but he didn’t speculate on why it wasn’t included, and the song became the lead single on the band’s second disc.

Closing the album was “Free Bird,” which would become the standard for extended Southern-rock songs that start slow then shift gears. The outro’s “guitars from all directions” sound is thanks to Langford famously mixing eight guitar tracks down to two, bringing much protest from the band, which argued that it couldn’t possibly re-create it in a live setting. But, Langford (with backing from Kooper) held his ground, and time has proven him right.

Released in August ’73, (Pronounced ‘Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd’) is a gritty workout that inspired an untold number of good ol’ boy guitarists on its way to double-platinum status.

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This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.