When manager Pat Armstrong brought the boys up from Jacksonville to Atlanta to audition for me,I jumped at the chance to work with the 3-guitar attack I had first observed when I tried to sign Skynyrd a few years earlier. Epic turned me down on Skynyrd before Al signed them.
At the time, this guitar trio thing was something distinctive to the South, and surprisingly polished.
I loved these guys, and over 5 albums I countinued to wonder how a
sheltered Boston preppy found himself in a studio with this group of humorous,
considerate, self-proclaimed rednecks. "Dreams" was one of the few covers we did, at their suggestion, and Duane Roland was the most underrated guitarist I've ever seen or heard.
Duane doubled all his guitar parts and solos with his eyes closed. On their cover
of "It's All Over Now" (the " Flirtin' " album) he smoothly and precisely executes the lead break which Keith had composed years earlier. Duane's dexterity and natural feel clearly stand out as the guitarists take turns.
Sadly, this is the only band I produced whose members, much younger than I, are all gone.
Working with them on 5 LP's was a great pleasure.
Tom Werman
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Hi Bob — You are 100% correct about Molly Hatchet — "a band considered so unattractive they weren't even on their own album covers."
That's why Epic marketing came up with those Frank Frazetta paintings for the covers of their albums. Visually striking, created a consistent graphic image, made the group's albums instantly recognizable, screamed "pick me up" when spotted on the record racks. Problem solved.
I do not recall whose idea it was in the beginning. It may have come from the packaging art department; may have originated with Larry Stessel, who did a fine job as Molly Hatchet's Epic product manager; maybe even came from the group or its management.
But I do remember we had a hard rocking band considered too ugly for a big cover shot. They were relegated to a small image on the back.
It worked.
Jim Charne
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RE: Molly Hatchet
I remember them well. Phil Walden, myself, and others had formed a merchandise company for The Allmans. Hatchet was red hot and their manager, Pat Armstrong, wanted a $90,000 advance for merch and when we went to the bank to borrow it they wanted personal warranties from all of us for repayment of the loan. I was nervous as hell about that, but to my relief they sold enough merch in the first month for us to recoup the advance and pay off our bank loan. Many times the merch gross was higher than the box office gross for the concert. Those were truly great days for "Southern Rock" and everyone was making a small fortune on seemingly every endeavor. Poor Molly Hatchet didn't last too long at the top, but few do.
Willie Perkins
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Always so much stuff in these missives!
To me the Allmans transcended southern rock. Most of the other bands patterned themselves after Skynyrd. The Allmans were a richer band musically.
Check out the version of "Dreams" that Buddy Miles did. Molly Hatchet lifted the guitar arrangement from it, but Buddy's version had a terrific horn chart and it wails.
I saw Marshall Crenshaw open for George Thorogood (!) in 1991 and he did a cover of "Flrtin With Disaster." It was terrific. It really is a great song.
How many bands toured for years on the strength of one or two hits? Better than none at all, I guess.
Joseph Taylor
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"Molly Hatchet has a collective IQ of 10, and 8 of it belongs to their road manager!" -a deceased Southern Rock legend.
We were new wave kids, and Hatchet was the butt of many jokes. But all these years later, I'm with you on their cover of "Dreams," which is actually a cover of Buddy Miles' version of the song. MH might have seemed silly, but they were real and they were everywhere. Drive-By Truckers' "Southern Rock Opera" is a remarkable album that encapsulates what it was like to be a kid in that era, also exploring "The Duality of That Southern Thing" with songs about the region's tangled history and Lynyrd Skynyrd's as well. "Let There Be Rock" is an anthem. The album is Essential.
Bob Anthony
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Bob, as much as I love the this version of Dreams it is a copy of the Buddy Miles cover that he did on the Them Changes record. A bit more funkier without the grit of the Danny Jo Brown vocals.
Adam Gerstein
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cCJ2m_nz5I
Buddy Miles covered Dreams in 1970.
Big R&B arrangement with horns.
Possible inspiration for the Hatchet version?
A couple of young Connecticut natives not even out of high school in the band at the time, Charlie Karp and David Hull.
JD Dworkow
Westport, CT
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Hi Bob, I had the pleasure of being the lighting director for Molly Hatchet in the early 80s. One of my favorite parts of the show was doing lighting for Dreams. The dynamic changes were so alive. There was a lighting cue on Dreams that was not used anywhere else in the show. On the breakdown I used 8 aircraft landing lights mounted in the front of the drum riser to project a rainbow over the guys in their guitar line up at the downstage edge. The dynamic changes made the cue awesome. Steve Holland MH guitarist was credited with the arrangement that Molly performed.
Tony L, LD
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Hi Bob, I was lucky to see them several times in the early 80's they were great. Having grown up in South Florida they were a mainstay on the local rock scene. I can remember my first time seeing them at Summers on the Beach and being blown away, especially when they did Dreams (I have always preferred the Hatchet version). When the three guitarists and Danny Joe joined up and did what I was told was the Hatchet two-step the crowd wants nuts, it was rock-n-roll magic.
Through a good friend, I got to know Danny Joe Brown a bit. He was great. Had an amazing voice. Sorry to say they are all gone now but their music lives on. Thanks for bringing back to active listening memory.
Jonathan
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Saw Molly Hatchet in Chicago twice around the time Flirting With Disaster. One show was opened by some generic southern rock band called Point Blank. The other show was opened by The Babys, an odd pairing. The crowd wasn't having the Baby's and they were more or less booed off the stage. As they were walking off, of the guys in band doubled back to a mic and said "f—-off Chicago". Was funny to hear. Flash forward forty some years I was listening to your podcast with John Waite and he mentioned a show in Chicago opening up for Molly Hatchet and his bandmate yelling that.
Jack Powers
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I saw Molly Hatchet live in 1980 at WIU in Macomb. Amazing concert: intense, fun, and full of swagger. I served on the Host and Hospitality Committee of the student programming board, which meant I was an usher at all concerts. Thus, we all knew the contractual start and stop times for all the shows. Molly Hachet was one of the bands that did a true encore and went beyond the contracted stop time.
Kevin Lampe
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As a youngster, I thought Flirtin' With Disaster was a great album. At the time, I didn't realize how closely they were imitating Lynyrd Skynyrd. Danny Joe had so many Ronnie Van Sant-isms in his delivery that it was akin to Greta Van Fleet's singer aping Robert Plant. But in the end, f*ck it - it still sounded great because they actually had talent and could pull it off. Thanks for sending me down memory lane.
-Dave Lackey
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Didn't expect a piece on Molly Hatchet from you, it's a nice surprise. My high school friends and I, from a rural S. MN town, went to all the rock concerts in the late 70s, driving to the twin cities in our parent's beasts. My fondest memory was passing a joint down the row then reaching up to find a MH drum stick in hand. Pure tingling joy. Communal indeed. I wish I had kept all of those concert tee shirts, they were our mark of achievement in the high school cafeteria.
Thanks for the memories.
Marit Sathrum
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Saw them live in Montgomery AL, right around this time, headlining an all-day festival with several other lesser know Southern Rock bands (remember Mother's Finest?). They kicked major ass.....
Donald Bartenstein
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Flirting with Disaster was a great album, the whistles calling in the solos. Saw them open for the Outlaws at the CU Boulder Events Center in 1980. They blew the Outlaws off the stage.
Barry Levinson
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I'm a HUGE Allman's fan. College wasn't working out for me. Living at home. I had broken up with my first long term girlfriend. My older brother lived in Denver and I decided to go hang out with him to see if I could get a job and achieve some level of independence.
My brother's apartment had a pool. I was in it one day and someone had a radio playing. Molly Hatchet's version of Gregg Allman's Dreams came on. I was mesmerized! They had taken an amazing jazz inflected song and turned it into a driving rock anthem. Totally reinvented the tune. Pure genius!
I thought back to the long broken up Allman's such that someone had remembered them….me.
Tim Pringle
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The thing I appreciated with Molly Hatchet was, you could hear the same verve in a live concert that they played on record. It was absolutely electric, there's nothing (I'm aware of) that is close to it today
SpikeProspector
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A very nostalgic read for me. Molly Hatchet at the Oakland Auditorium was my very first concert at age 16. Parents didn't take their kids to shows back then, at least mine didn't. You had to drive yourself, so I had to wait a couple years to see one of my favorite bands. They were touring on Take No Prisoners, which was two full albums and a new lead singer removed from Flirtin' With Disaster. Not sure who had the genius idea at Bill Graham Presents to book a show on Super Bowl Sunday, but this one took place in the Bay Area on the same night that the San Francisco 49ers won their first Lombardi Trophy. Needless to say, not exactly a packed or buzzing arena. Though clear to me now but not then, this was a band in steep decline. But I was oblivious to that and they were gods to me. The six guys on stage were a fierce and totally locked in unit. I didn't realize it in the moment, but that night sealed the deal that I had played my last inning of baseball, or any competitive sport for that matter. I got my first real taste of live rock and roll, and there was no turning back. I was hooked. I went to every show I could after that. The financial barrier was so incredibly low. For the cost of going to the arcade, a movie, or bowling, you could be front and center and in the same room with Judas Priest, ZZ Top, Rush, Tom Petty, Iron Maiden, Y&T, you name it. And if you think of it like that, you understand that very few of these acts were getting rich, even though we thought they were all living in mansions and drove Ferrari's. Not the worst way to make a living, but how devastating it must have been for those without longevity when things dried up. The next time I saw Hatchet was a year or so later, this time with the return of Danny Joe Brown. However, instead of performing at a sparsely filled 8,000-seater, they were at Wolfgang's, a 500-cap room in downtown SF. It still rocked pretty hard, but they were never able to rise above this tier of venue, at least not on the coasts. As with so many brand-name acts with zero, one, or two original members, it's become little more than a form of employment, and they'll stay out on the road until people stop coming.
Niels Schroeter
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In 1982 I was going to college in upstate NY. Me and some pals had tickets to see Blue Oyster Cult. and stopped at a bar near the venue for a pre-show beer. The bartender couldn't stop talking about how the members of Molly Hatchet had been drinking there the night before, and that each member had ordered a bottle of Jack Daniels - and not a drop left before leaving. He was... impressed?!
I was in college then = not working in the music business. This story could have been made up, but it sure felt real. And seeing how young most of the band members were when they passed, it makes me wonder if the bartender was giving it to me straight all those years ago.
Jeff Pachman
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So ironic that I had just finished my guitar warmups playing this song (the guitar solos are just so good and melodic), and when I finished playing I got your email.
I'm an Iranian that grew up in Maryland playing guitar, so probably one of the less likely fans of 'southern rock', which I think today is the only surviving form of rock for the most part?
When we were inundated with all the fantastic music in '78, '79, ranging from Bill Bruford to Boston to Rush, this band was a great complement to everything else. The album cover art, the whistles, the tip of the hat to Marshall Tucker musically in this song at the end, and the lyrics to Gator Country (Old Richard Betts will tell ya Lord he was born a 'Ramblin' Man; Well, he can ramble back to Georgia, but I won't give a damn). So good, so much FUN.
What makes this song stick out is the lyrics and guitar solos- the best line IMO…
Just one more morning
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself out of bed, yeah
Put on my walking shoes
Climb up on a hilltop, baby
See what I could see, yeah
Whole world was fallin' down, baby
Right down in front of me
Feels like every day with the news these days…
Thanks for the call out to these great guys. We are of a certain age, for sure, and finding balance between nostalgia and finding the great new music that is there (but harder to find in all the noise) is so much fun. We ARE the A&R people of our age- we have to listen to all the demo tapes to find the good stuff. It could be worse!
Thanks again Bob,
Merdad Parsey
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thanks for that. I LOVED this band. as a teenager in Long Island in mid to late 70s, southern rock was huge. saw them all, multiple times. charlie daniels, marshall tucker, outlaws, blackfoot, 38 special, henry paul band, didnt see LS but the follw up, rossington collins in 1980. I had a jean jacket and in high school I paid some guy to paint the back with the firt MH LP cover, the guy on the horse, and when I got to Uni people thought it was so cool. But in my first year at univeristy, somebody stole it in the bar. saw them warm up for the Stones at the Carrier Dome in 1981 and a few other times recall goign to binghamton to see them and blackfoot. Those were the days
Brian Barry Esq.
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Molly Hatchet - my first ever rock concert. They were the real deal. I remember the jeans, the boots and the bright lights.
Danny Joe Brown - in the tradition of Gregg Allman, Bonnie Bramlett, Ronnie Van Zant, Jimmie Hall, Don Barnes, etc. - was the last of that 70's generation of great Southern Rock frontmen. Although I think they considered themselves more of a hard rock band that happened to come from the south rather than be pigeonholed with the "Southern Rock" tag.
He and Dave Hlubek were a killer classic rock 'n' roll pairing and had they been able to keep it together longer (they never regained their commercial/artistic momentum after Danny Joe left for a couple of years in the early 80's) could have been as lethal as a Petty and Campbell, Bowie and Ronson or Benatar and Giraldo.
It was Hatchet's debut album that introduced me to "Dreams" - I didn't catch up with The Allman Brothers until I was a little older. I still like what they did with the song - Hatchet's version sounded great blasting out of the windows of a 1978 Camaro.
As an aside, check out Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "First Flash Of Freedom" from their 2010 album Mojo - it's a brilliant deconstruction of the Allman Brothers' "Dreams" and The Zombies "I Want You Back Again".
I'd put those first two Molly Hatchet albums up against any one-two punch by any blues-based hard rock band you can name - Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Mountain - even Skynyrd themselves - and as the legend goes it was Ronnie Van Zant who was working with Hatchet in '77 and planned on producing that first album.
Great point about the music being inescapable - I saw the Talking Heads the same year.
Vince Welsh
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Thanks for this one after the week we've had. Nice to step back for a moment. Molly Hatchet first hit when we were juniors in high school. The album cover was foreboding scary—perfect high school boy fodder. The feeling you captured in your story was dead on—there was no pretense in their music and they helped fill up the rock n' roll side of my power pop brain. Elvis Costello was my new hero, but Molly Hatchet was welcome to play the courtyard.
A few years ago, Billy Joel was playing Target Field. Midway through the show, he picked up a guitar and introduced Axel Rose to the stage. What song did they sing? Highway to Hell by AC/DC! I watched as an entire stadium of Piano Man fans sang every word at the top of their lungs. In that era, you owned albums by Joel, Hatchet, Costello and AC/DC and loved them all. Thanks again.
Gary Judson
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Big fan of Molly Hatchet , Holland, Europe. May I suggest 2 MH tunes that are over the top great?? Fall of the peacemaker and I can't be watching you. Makes skynyrd look like a saturdaynight coverband.
Grtz. Joop
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You've captured the essence of the lifestyle perfectly in this Molly Hatchet piece, Bob. I remember driving down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1979 in my beat to sh*t Country Squire station wagon loaded with my drums on the road to our next band gig with 'Flirtin With Disaster' blaring from the speakers, chuggin' a Genesee Cream Ale at 8am, having not slept and driving straight from our last gig that had ended at 3am. This was rock and roll. Thank God someone out there is still keeping the memory and essence of this time alive. Love your writing and interviews, Bob. You aren't afraid to speak truth, blowback be damned... whether it's politics or music. I appreciate your courageous voice, it's a beacon of truth in the darkness of delusion. Keep doing what you do. F*ck em all.
Mark W. Curran - West Coast Performing Arts Concerts - Los Angeles
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Total f*cking banger, Bob.
Capitol Passaic or Port Chester?
Best Regards,
Eric Seifert
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It went like this for me:
1. Flirtin' With Disaster (one hit s**t)
2. Found the Frank Frazetta cover in the record store (instant buy - Heavy Metal magazine!)
3. The Allman Brothers
4. Took a while to 'get' Dreams. I was still like 10 at this point. But eventually did.
5. The Capitol Theater!
Best place ever IMO to see a show. But I was too young to ever go to the FIllmore. Little known fact: One of the reasons the Capitol had such a great vibe is when the Fillmore East closed, some of the staff came across the river to work at the Capitol in Passaic (The Armpit of NJ as my Uncle put it in the car on our way to my first show there). Great, great folks. It also had the multiple act bills of its predecessor (this video was Molly Hatchet / Outlaws 11/10/78)
Then there was its origin as a golden age movie theater, with sound-proofed walls making for exceptional acoustics. If I remember correctly, for a while it remained a movie theater too. Pornos by day, Rock n Roll at night.
I would love it if you did a piece on the Capitol someday. I still have (latter day) t-shirts of the venue. I love to wear them to shows in the Northern NJ/NYC area. Why? Because people literally come up to me, eager to tell stories of the great, great times they had there. It's wonderful. There is such good vibes attached to the place that the shirt even got me backstage once!
By the way, the theater also had an early video system. With screens! That's why you can see almost everything online. Apparently whoever owns them never monetized them. Maybe more proof why the Capitol was such a special place, filled with special people. Wear a Capitol shirt to a show. You'll likely meet some of them.
Phil Nazzaro
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when Danny Joe Brown came back to Molly Hatchet,
it was a hush-hush medium launch at the Hallandale Agora.
you have to understand, South Florida in the '80s was disco, but it was hard redneck, too --
the reason the Miami Herald tapped a college kid to cover country music, they needed it done, no staff writer was willing.
Eric Schabacher, who owned BeeJay Recording in Altamonte Springs, Florida where the band recorded, listened to me doing mornings my freshman year at Rollins. we became friends, even though I was a pretty preppy kid, because I loved music so much.
when I heard Molly Hatchet was coming -- in tact -- I called Eric to get the exclusive.
nobody wanted it. the University of Miami Hurricane took it, though my editor at the Herald took a review of the show
if you didn't drive a Camaro or Trans Am, have feathered hair, a Stars'n'Bars t-shirt, Jordache jeans or a big belt buckle,
you wouldn't understand. I was raised by Southern golf pros. Hatchet was religious.
"Flirting With Disaster," but also "Gator Country," "Whiskey Man," and yes, "Dreams I'll Never See."
macho in extremis, big stones, big swagger, big, big thrust when it came to the guitars and Brown's vocals.
got jerked around by the tour manager... Eric got Danny Joe down to the bar.
nobody wants to disappoint a kid; i probably looked 12, sitting in the lounge of the 2nd tier sheraton (or was it a hilton)
here's what people don't realize and you scratch at... the man who showed up was that sweaty, snorting, paw the ground hunk of blue collar frustration who would hit you over the head w a pool cue, but was also raised by a strong Southern mama, so he spoke like a gentleman, really thought about his answers and occasionally, admitted he had no idea.
back when, working class white kids enlisted or landed in dead end factory jobs, but they worked... there was no choice
the wild haired, the screw ups, the rebels needed another plan
so when DJB hit that stage, he wasn't flirting with disaster, he was shrieking for his life.
and to show you the "oh, yeah" of this era, this genre...
once DJB was in the bar, answering my intently focused questions about cultural dynamics, working class rock expressions and sexism, Eric Schabacher called David Hlubeck to inform him the new return was in the bar... with the girl... and, btw, your road manager's an a&&h*#e
right around the time, DJB was telling me he should stop and save his voice, the girthy Hlubeck shows up in a duster at 3 pm, hair wet and falling down his back, shades on, clearly miffed, but not being left out of the story. the look on his face when he scanned me was priceless... and other than his garble about the Book of Revelations, he was shocked at how hard I leaned into the valiant piece of Southern rock, the culture and the notion they're bikers whether they wear leathers or not.
like them? I liked Patti Smith. But I knew a good story, and that young, this was a scoop -- even if no one wanted it
ironically, when I turned my review in at the Herald, my editor was nowhere to be found. I left it on his chair.
when I got back to my dorm, there was a message to call him.
"Holly," he said when he heard my voice. "Is this a joke?"
"Joke, Doug?"
"I mean. it's powerful writing, but is it a joke?"
"Why would it be a joke?" I asked, a little annoyed.
"You actually liked them?"
"Liked might be too strong a word, but I respect them. They came, they raged, they slammed and went hard. It's not my thing, but damn, they left blood all over the stage..."
"Wow," said my sanguine editor.
"I know. Last thing I saw coming... Promise"
"Okay, then we're good."
That's the thing about the ones with dirt under their nails, sweaty arm pits, angry about how Yankees see them, they seethe. Not because they care what others think, but because they're gonna burn off all that judgement to stand equal. Crazy, but that's what Capitol Theater 1978 or Hallandale Agora 1985 was all about.
Holly Gleason
Nashville, TN
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Bob, those guys could play them guitars!
-Bob Carey
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