I saw the Allmans opening for Mountain, a few months after they opened for Chicago.
Mountain? An Itailian kid from the Bronx and a Jewish kid from Long Island? Never heard of them being mentioned as southern rock. More like hard rock and part of the foundation for heavy metal.
I voted for the Allman Brothers. They were bigger first. It also depends on what you mean by Southern Rock. The Allmans were a blues band. Other rock bands like CCR blended country and rock. Do you mean country tinged rock or hard blues?
Southern Rock is hard to define. I think of it being heavily influenced by blues and rock with a little country sprinkled in.
It does have a unique sound. You can’t mistake the Stones with the Allman Brothers. They both were blues based bands but each had its own sound.
Interesting that, for a musical form with so many roots in Black music, none of these pioneers had prominent Black members. (Yes I know one of the Allman Bros’ drummers was Black.) Yet of all the absolutely tremendous Black performers of that era and region – many of whom were inspirations and even mentors to the bands named above – I can’t think of any who truly played what we’d hear as Southern Rock.
To be fair, their biggest hit was ‘Mississippi Queen.’
Excellent point here.
I bolded Bramlett because Delaney & Bonnie’s band eventually evolved into Derek & the Dominoes, and Layla is one of the cornerstones of Southern Rock, despite the leader being a Brit.
And a Canadian kid on the drums. They were loud, reminded me of Alice Cooper, never any southern rock association. Most people only knew them from Mississippi Queen, and as a band their success was short lived. I’m kind of surprised so many people here remember them at all.
So probably the second most known Mountain song (still unknown to most, though 
), was Nantucket Sleighride which is certainly a lot more New England Rock than Southern Rock.
I linked to the album version, which is probably 1/3 to 1/6 the length of the assorted live versions 
.
My first thought when I saw the thread title. I saw them, Skynyrd and the Allmans in a 4 month stretch around 1975, they did the southern rock sound the best. They also stayed true to the southern rock sound, Skynyrd drifted into the pop category and the Allmans stayed with the mellow rock sound. The last time I saw the Allman Brothers was in 1979, Elvin Bishop was the opening act. Bishop had everyone on there feet, Gregg and company put us back in our seats.
The “Southern” in Southern Rock implies white Rock, the same way the “Southern” in Southern Gospel means white Gospel.
By the time that southern rock became a genre the default for rock was white. No need for a code word.
Cool article – thanks! I especially like the bit about Duane Allman wanting two drummers because that’s what Black performers like James Brown and Otis Redding had.
The Band and Credence.
Neither was southern (or options on the poll). Canadian and Californian if I remember. They had the sound in 1968 and 69.
I’d also like to point out that The Band and Credence headlined at Woodstock. Mountain was the only other poll option to play at Woodstock and it was their 4th gig.
As much as I love the Band, and consider them the true fathers of today’s alt-country-folk music (or what some label – yuck – Americana), they didn’t go in much for the extended jams that are part of the Southern rock DNA.
Creedence did. Definitely ur-Southern there.
The Band recorded The Weight in their first session and played it at Woodstock. The emotive melancholy vocals are very similar to Simple Man, Whipping Post… You’re right they didn’t do the extended jams but that wasn’t really a southern rock mainstay yet and everybody put out long songs in the 1970’s.
It made me go back and look: CCR ended 1969 with 3 songs on the billboard year-end top 100 (Proud Mary, Green River, Bad Moon Rising). The only other country/rock act to chart looks like Jonny Cash with Boy Named Sue. Not bad for a few kids from EL Cerrito, California.
Right? For 3-4 years everything they touched was amazing. Then Fogerty got pissed at the record company (justifiably) and that was basically that. A glorious career squandered, that.
One of my best friends ( was in a S.F. band " CHUMBI", in the late '70’s - early '80’s), is a concert sound guy… He still does live sound for ( what is left) of CCR. ( among others known from the area)
The Greatful Dead aren’t considered southern rock but their certainly are a lot of country roots in their music.