Scott Bomar and Music Tomes
Southbound author Scott B. Bomar answered some interview questions over at Music Tomes! Read the entire article HERE.
And for all of you Californians, Scott will be doing a 2:00 pm book signing August 30th at the Barnes & Noble on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Don't miss out!
How did this project come about?
Mike Edison, who is a fantastic writer, was an editor at Backbeat Books. He was the guy who worked with Will Romano on an illustrated history of prog rock that came out in 2010. Will's book was really cool, and Mike thought it would be great to do something similar with Southern rock. He contacted a good friend of mine named Randy Poe, who wrote a great biography of Duane Allman for Backbeat called Skydog. Randy recommended me to Mike. I was not a Southern rock expert, but Randy and I had worked together on some projects, and he thought I would bring a fresh perspective to the subject. I didn't have any preconceived ideas, so it was just sort of "jump in and go." This is kind of funny, but the first thing I did was listen to "The South's Gonna Do It" by the Charlie Daniels Band and I wrote down the names of all the acts he references in the lyrics. From there I began reading everything I could get my hands on, and contacting all the great surviving Southern rockers for interviews. I grew up in the South, and I had listened to a ton of this music growing up, so I really connected with it.
Southern Rock has been something that has been often hard to define. How do you define it?
In the Introduction to the book I really grapple with this issue. There are a lot of ways that people have defined Southern rock, and most of the artists who are categorized with that label have been pretty resistant to the term. Gregg Allman pointed out that saying "Southern rock" is like saying "rock rock" because rock music originated in the South. Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and all those guys were Southerners. After the British Invasion, rock music shifted away from the South. By the time the psychedelic era ended, however, the Band, Bob Dylan, and Creedence Clearwater Revival heralded a return to the simplicity of rock's Southern roots. That set the stage for the Allman Brothers Band, which came together in 1969. To me, Southern rock is about an era as much as it is about a sound. It was music that was created by guys (and sometimes girls, but mostly guys) from the same geographical region who shared a similar cultural background. Though you can point to specific sounds – multiple electric guitars, for instance – the music that I would categorize as Southern rock today is the music that best captures the spirit of the golden age of the genre in the 1970s.
Posted in Music Fans
Tags: author interview, Backbeat Books, Duane Allman, Greg Allman, music tomes, QandA, Randy Poe, Scott B. Bomar, Southbound, Southern Rock