I noticed 97.1 is playing more southern rock

I know this is a little late but IMHO 97.1 did a classy thing last Saturday with their station ID paying tribute to Gregg Allman. I realize a lot of the fans (like me) of southern rock of the 1970’s are out of the money demos but it has been nice to hear a variety of Allman Brothers tunes lately. I get that with influx of folks from other parts of the country, the old southern rock might not be familiar to the money demo transplants. Plus some of the “classics” are around 40 years old.

But I would like to thank 97.1 for playing a few tunes that this former southern long hair remembers.

Allman Brothers is more than southern rock and as a 35 year old, I can tell you that they have lots of respect from multiple generations of Americans. Yeah, they had many southern rock tracks but their passion was in the jam band arena and really tried to capitulate the dying (at that time) but still popular psychedelic crowd of the very early 70s. Yeah, Rambling Man is the over played southern rock track from Allman Brothers but listen to songs like In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and you realize this is more than just a bunch of long haired southern hippies from Macon Ga.

Regarding 97.1 - I feel they dug a bit deeper a few years ago. To me, they have went back to the hit based format they started out with. Very few deep cuts and many prog rock artists of the 70s are completely omitted from the playlist. Something tells me the future of classic rock is grunge and hell, I'm already tired of it.

Classic rock dumped prog rock a while back. The only Yes song you hear these days is "Owner of a Lonely Heart"; one time River played "All Good People" and I was floored.

The thing I notice is the respect southern rock gets from current country stars, especially those from Georgia, like Jason Aldean, who grew up near Macon.

My dad grew up on southern rock and today listens to country. I think a lot of people, especially 40+ folks, that listen to country have a special spot for southern rock.

You are right but it sure narrows down the playlist and you end up hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" on a daily basis. Went to St. Louis a few weeks ago and was listening to KSHE (one of the best classic rock stations in the country) and they played "Down by the River" by Neil Young followed by "Golden Country" by REO Speedwagon. No, it was not their very famous Sunday morning show where they dig deep. Station plays it all from Janis Joplin to Pearl Jam.

jabba17 said:

Classic rock dumped prog rock a while back. The only Yes song you hear these days is "Owner of a Lonely Heart"; one time River played "All Good People" and I was floored.

Click to expand...

Finally found out where Studio One was, where much of the southern rock was recorded. Its now a Chinese wholesale business.

I'm not sure if this is the location for Studio One but when I interned at FOX 24 in Macon, I worked with a journalist on a report surrounding the legacy of Allman Brothers and their connection to Macon. They had a recording studio in downtown Macon and at the time (2010), it was a vacant building that had been vandalized for piping inside the building. Have no clue how to post pictures on this site but I have included the url for the street level view of the building below. Should that not work, the blue building is located off MLK adjacent to where FOX 24 studios is in downtown Macon.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.832...4!1sZgKO6jb40HM-1QjZt-t70A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656