The northern part of Mississippi has its own legacy that far outweighs its size and population. It’s ground zero for rock and roll, blues and country. Without northern Mississippi, including Columbus, those genres would not exist in Chicago. Nor would they exist in Los Angeles, Detroit, New York or even Texas.
Many singers and musicians from this “Bermuda Triangle” of rock and roll started here, both those who became famous and those who didn’t. And more often than not, Mississippi high schools actually encouraged them to a certain degree and allowed them to flourish.
S.D. Lee High occasionally held daytime rock and roll concerts, calling them “assemblies,” featuring student-created local bands. Keep in mind that this was a time when rock and roll, soul music and blues weren’t encouraged by most public schools.
Over decades, I have played in many bands in numerous places. But I have a very special place in my heart for the group that let me jump ahead and really develop to a higher level. S.D. Lee’s own version of Memphis: the Rogues.
The Rogues exposed me to the big bad world of blues and Southern soul music and forced me to dig deep to get there. Before that, it was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones — that sort of thing.
Rock and roll bands from the South tend to start in high school among groups of close friends, and some last a long time.
The same year, we were traveling around northern Mississippi playing at dances and occasionally in bars, while a similar batch of juvenile delinquents in Jacksonville, Florida, were doing the same. They used a twisted version of their gym coach’s name: Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Our typical weekend.
Friday night is approaching, and anticipation is growing among the band members.
We are booked back to back. Friday night: a dance in Amory. Saturday night: a dance in Meridian.
Everyone is preparing the instruments and equipment. I’m trying to memorize the lyrics to the Otis Redding song we just rehearsed. Jerry Warren is stocking the trunk of his car with six-packs of Budweiser.
He keeps up the strength in his left (and fretting) hand by dangling the cans from that plastic loopy thing. All day. All night. Better than a gym membership.
I have never seen a picture of him without the six-pack displayed prominently.
It’s two more school days until the first gig, and we are shadowing Eddie Jaynes to hopefully keep him out of one of his famous after-school fistfights. He would fight at the drop of a hat. That thing about the Irish? It’s true.
We sure didn’t need our trumpet player catching a stray right hook to the mouth. That would be a disaster. Our horns were our pride and joy.
The big night gets here, and we are on our way to Amory to set up in the typical “gymatorium” kind of building. Girlfriends are on board with us tonight: Cindy Smith, my girlfriend Denise, Judy Jernigan and Kathy McGuigan. We’ll need to make sure the “bar” is stocked.
Beer has been scored from someone’s older brother, but there is a special gift someone has obtained from their parents’ liquor cabinet. A bottle of sloe gin.
(It would later paint the side of someone’s white car.)
The dance went well, and somehow we made it home alive. Once again.
I spent the night at Mahlon Vickery’s house because we had a rehearsal the next morning for some event at MSCW.
In the morning, I realized I had run off without my change of clothes, and the audition was in an hour. The only clean shirt available was one of Mahlon’s.
I weighed about 130 pounds soaking wet, and he was a big, big boy. In his shirt, I looked as if I was wearing some kind of Taliban robe. Either that or go as Tarzan.
We headed for Meridian that evening, somewhat more sober and quiet. Mainly because we were out of beer money and the older brother couldn’t be found.
The “gym-a-whatever” in Meridian was a good-sized place with a surprisingly high wooden stage. Probably 4 to 5 feet off the ground. Made a mental note to myself to watch where I was walking.
Things were going well for the most part. Then they weren’t.
Jack Smith was our second guitar. That night, he was mighty proud of the new “curly” guitar cord he had just gotten. Looked like the one on a phone of that time.
And he was also showing off a Peavey amplifier and cabinet, hand-built by Hartley Peavey in his Meridian basement before the company became a worldwide giant. That equipment would eventually be worth a ton of money.
This big, heavy piece of equipment unfortunately was on wheels.
When Jack walked a bit too far, his cord was pulled too tight. The entire thing rolled past him, almost taking out Bill Love. Equipment worth $1,000 smashed into kindling wood.
Yeah. It’s true. Those were absolutely the days.
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.
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