Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins wrote "That Smell" "as a warning about the consequences of careless overuse of drugs and alcohol". At the time, the band was abusing drugs and alcohol with reckless abandon. It appeared on Skynyrd’s 1977 album Street Survivors; three days after the album was released, Van Zant and several other members of the band died in a plane crash. The song was released as a single in 1977, but failed to chart.
We visited WKMH in Detroit back in September 2018. During the ’60’sa and into the ’70’s it was WKNR, "Keener 13," and played Top 40 music. Here’s their Top 10 from this date in 1972.
And that’s The Friday 5×2 for February 21, 2020.
Back in 1988 or 1989, I saw Robert Cray at Chastain Park. The band that opened for him was The Nighthawks, whose lead singer at the time was Jimmy Hall, formerly the frontman for Wet Willie. A couple of years ago, I read an article about him, remembered seeing him, and dropped him an email. He was really happy to know that people still remembered him. "Keep On Smilin’" was Wet Willie’s big hit, reaching #10 on the Hot 100 in 1974.
It’s kind of a shock, really, to realize just how young I was when I was a teenager. Maybe because I’ve lived in this body for almost 64 years and this is the same exact body I had when I was 16 (it’s grown a lot since then, but still, same body). Sometimes I look around me when I’m sitting at Starbucks banging away on my laptop and see teenagers doing the same math problems and reading the same books that I did, and I think to myself, "My God, they’re so young! Was I ever that young?" The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, I can still remember what it was like when I was their age. I see what they’re reading, and I remember how I felt when I read the same thing, and start to experience it all over again.
At the same time, I look back at the stupid things I did at 16 and cringe, just like I did then. I have to remind myself that I was young and stupid then, and if I hadn’t done what I did then, I wouldn’t have that experience that I have now. I wouldn’t know, for example, that if you’re smitten with a gorgeous girl who doesn’t even know you exist, it’s generally bad form to call her a bitch when she doesn’t respond to you. I still have nightmares about that, and I have to keep reminding myself "You were an idiot, but that’s all over now. Live and learn, and don’t do it again, okay?"
Sometimes I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it’s almost a shock. "Who the hell is that old guy?" I’m sure it’s 16-year-old me asking.
There used to be a section of the classified ads in the newspaper called "Disclaimer of Debts," where people (particularly those who had had their identities stolen–yes, it used to happen quite regularly then, too) would declare "Responsible for my debts and signature only after February 19, 2020." There should be the same kind of thing for when you want to just forget about something kind of embarrassing. Maybe post it on Craigslist or something.
I guess what I’ve discovered is that I have had to learn to cut myself a lot of slack and not obsess over the stupid things I did when I was younger. You would do well to learn the same thing.
We aren’t quite sure who wrote this; Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson II both recorded it in the ’60’s, but it’s probably from much earlier. Anyway, Duane Allman, who was most likely influenced by Elmore James and other slide guitar players, probably learned this and lobbied the rest of the Allman Brothers to cover it.
The Allman Brothers Band is pretty much the 800-pound gorilla of Southern rock; it’s hard to talk about the genre without talking about them. They formed in 1969 and recorded two studio albums, their eponymous debut (1969) and Idlewild South (1970), but it wasn’t until their first live album, 1971’s At The Fillmore East, that people began to take notice of them. This is from that live album.
