Southern rock

It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals.

Allman's work on that album, Hey Jude (1968), got him hired as a full-time session musician at Muscle Shoals and brought him to the attention of a number of other musicians, such as Eric Clapton, who later related how he heard Pickett's version of "Hey Jude" on his car radio and called Atlantic Records to find out who the guitarist was: "To this day," Clapton said, "I've never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record.

"[4] Author Scott B. Bomar speculates the term "Southern rock" may have been coined in 1972 by Mo Slotin, writing for Atlanta's underground paper, The Great Speckled Bird, in a review of an Allman Brothers Band concert.

[6] Their blues rock sound incorporated long jams informed by jazz and also drew from native elements of country and folk.

"[7] Early 1970s, popular musicians in the southern area included Creedence Clearwater Revival (from California), Dale Hawkins, Delaney & Bonnie, Janis Joplin, Leon Russell, and Tony Joe White.

[8][9] Lynyrd Skynyrd of Jacksonville, Florida, is known for "Free Bird", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Saturday Night Special", and "What's Your Name".

Lynyrd Skynyrd played British hard rock influenced music until the deaths of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and two other members of the group in a 1977 airplane crash.

With the rise of MTV, new wave, funk, urban contemporary, and heavy metal, most surviving Southern rock groups were relegated to secondary or regional venues.

Rock musicians such as Molly Hatchet, Outlaws, Georgia Satellites, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Jimmie Vaughan, Point Blank,[18] Tom Petty, Bruce Hornsby, Steve Earle, Widespread Panic, and Kentucky Headhunters, emerged as popular Southern bands across the southeastern United States during the 1980s and 1990s.

During the 1990s, the Allman Brothers reunited and became a strong touring and recording presence again, and the jam band scene revived interest in extended improvised music.