1967-1969Southern United States

Southern Rock

A rootsy rock style that grew out of the American South in the early 1970s, Southern rock paired blues-based guitar work with country phrasing, long jams, and a strong regional identity.

Origins and context

Southern United States

The sound

Characteristics

Electric guitars
Twin-lead guitar parts
Bass
Drums
Organ
Extended instrumental passages

How to listen

Start here

The Allman Brothers Band for the improvisational, blues-and-jazz side of the style
Lynyrd Skynyrd for the tougher, riff-forward sound
The Marshall Tucker Band for a country-leaning, melodic version

Listen for

Twin guitars answering each other
Song sections that stretch into jams
A rough-hewn vocal delivery
Country and blues touches inside a rock framework

History

Southern rock took shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the Southern United States, growing out of blues-rock, country, and the improvisational side of hard rock. AllMusic places the style’s early center around the Allman Brothers Band, whose mix of rock, blues, country, jazz, and extended live improvisation helped set the template, and Lynyrd Skynyrd followed with a louder, heavier version of that same regional punch. The style spread through bands such as the Marshall Tucker Band and others on the Capricorn-era Southern rock circuit, where twin guitars, organ, and long instrumental breaks became part of the vocabulary. By the early 1980s, the genre’s commercial peak had faded, but its phrasing and attitude kept resurfacing in later roots-rock, jam-band, and Southern-flavored hard rock acts.