September 27, 2025 • 40 mins
Did Ozzy bite the head off a bat? Is there a political message in Sweet Home Alabama? Bob Crawford sits down with music critic and author Mark Kemp to dissect some rock legends and myths.
We'll dive into Lynyrd Skynyrd’s iconic Sweet Home Alabama, unpack the band’s response to Neil Young’s critiques of the South and talk about Ozzy Osbourne's propensity for biting the head off winged creatures.
Mark Kemp also helps us understand the intersection of Southern rock and American politics of the1970s, including Lynyrd Skynyrd's references to controversial figures like George Wallace, the Confederate flag and the Watergate scandal.
Discover the real stories behind the music (and some fake ones). RIP Ozzy and Ronnie Van Zant.
GUEST: Mark Kemp, award-winning music journalist, former Rolling Stone editor, former vice president of music editorial at MTV, and author of the book: Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South.
Correction: In this episode we say that Black Sabbath's first album was Paranoid. In fact, their first album was the self-titled Black Sabbath, which came out in February of 1970. Paranoid came out later that fall.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, there are American History Hotliners. I need to make
a correction to today's episode. You'll hear me say that
Black Sabbath's first album was Paranoid. In fact, their first
album was the self titled Black Sabbath, which came out
in February of nineteen seventy. Paranoid came out later that fall.
(00:21):
Thanks today for sending in that correction. We love hearing
from all of you, even when it's about me getting
something wrong. Okay, on with today's show.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The dove and the bad incident aren't even the only
winged creature. Oh story, my god.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay, Mark, what else you got? You've reached American History Hotline.
You asked the question, we get the answers. Leave a message. Hey,
there are American History Hotliners. Bob Crawford here, thrilled to
be joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline,
(00:59):
the show where you ask the questions, and the best
way to get us a question is to record a
video or a voice memo on your phone and email
it to Americanistory Hotline at gmail dot com. That's American
History Hotline at gmail dot com. And remember we are
American History Hotline. If you want to talk about the
(01:22):
Beatles Liverpool days, we may not want to do that,
but if you want to talk about their nineteen sixty
four tour of the United States, we can definitely do that.
And with that, our show today is about rock legends
and myths. Here to help me answer this question is
a bit of a legend himself. It's Mark Kemp, an
(01:45):
award winning journalist who served as music editor at Rolling Stone,
vice president of Music Editorial at MTV, and author of
the book Dixie Lullaby, A story of music, race and
new beginnings in a New South Mark. How's it going
this morning? It's going well, Bob. It's good to hear you. Oh,
(02:06):
it's good. I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking.
It's great, always great to speak with you. And it's
great too. Our audience can't, but it's nice for me.
I can see you. So yeah, very very nice. Well Mark,
When I heard this question, I immediately thought of you. It
comes from Trevor in Kansas City. He says, I've heard
(02:27):
so many different stories about Ozzy Osbourne biting the head
off a live bat while on stage. What the heck
actually happened? Trevor, I'm with you. I can't tell you
how many times I heard the story, especially growing up
in the nineteen eighties, like this was a high school legend,
you know, like did this really happen? We believed it
(02:50):
at the time. And if you look at the cover
of Bark at the Moon, you know you think that's
the guy. It's kind of guy who might bite the
head off of a live bat. So excited to get
to the bottom of this rock and roll legend. And
by the way, we have another legend slash myth to
debunk or confirm. I want our listeners to know that.
(03:11):
Later on in the show, we're going to talk about
the feud between Leonard Skinnard and Neil Young, so stick
around for that. But first let's jump into the Ozzy story. Mark,
can you set the scene when and where is this
all said to have happened?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, and he is the kind of guy who with
my head off of a bat. He's the kind of
guy who did a whole lot of things on stage
and off and that story is true. During a concert
in Des Moines, Iowa, and January of I think nineteen
eighty two, he infamously bit the head off of what
(03:51):
he thought was a rubber bat thrown on stage. It
turned out to be a real one and he was
rushed to the hospital for rabets, but the moment became immortalized,
as you say in rock folklore. But that's not the
first time he bit the head off a winged creature.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, well, so this isn't the first time something like
this happened.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think it was nineteen eighty one. The bad incident
was nineteen eighty two. But in nineteen eighty one he
bit the head off of a live dove during a
meeting with CBS Records about the album Blizzard of oz Sharon,
his wife, had suggested releasing the doves as a publicity stunt,
(04:35):
but Ozley decided he wanted to go a step further,
and he bit the head off of one during the meeting.
It was meant to get attention, and it did pretty much,
along with immediate ejection from the building.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So was this like a press conference or a boardroom?
I mean, I've been in some of those music record
label boardroom meetings, and I got it tell you, sometimes,
you know, you do feel like biting the head off
of a live animal while you're in those meetings. But
was this a meeting or a press conference. Were they
working there was a deal, it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Was a meeting, and I'm not sure what they were
working on in the I think they were they were
working on publicity for the album, and or they were
discussing the publicity of the album because Sharon had was had,
you know, brought the doves in to possibly use releasing
them for the you know, as a publicity stunt.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Was it Diary of Madman? No, it's buligers oz a
blizzard oz Okay, yes.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So yeah, and he just on the on the spur
of the moment, decided he would bite the head off
of the dove. So that's I think probably why the
next year somebody brought a bat uh and threw it
on stage and and Ozzie thought it was a rubber
one and he bit that head off. So yep, not
the first time.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So many questions. So getting back first to the dove incident,
I mean, had he had he done this before? Like
do we know? Do we know? Like what what was
it in his in his makeup, in his personality that
I mean, because he could argue, like the bat in
(06:19):
Des Moines, he thought it was a rubber bat. That
makes perfect sense it's it's part of the shtick. But
this was a live dove that he actually been off
and he didn't even do it to get mass attention.
He did it like in a in a meeting. So
what is it about Ozzie? Do we know anything about
his youth and his upbringing that would would kind of
(06:42):
preclude this?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, you know, as he started out, you know, as
something of a juvenile delinquent, and way back in nineteen
sixty five, I guess, about three years before Black Sybus started,
he stole a television and attempted to climb over a
wall with it and was arrested and wound up in
(07:03):
a British prison for I think six weeks. So, I mean,
we know Ozzie was a troublemaker from day one, and
then you know, in seventy three, almost a decade later,
he had such a bad drug and alcohol problem that
he was fired from Black Sabbath. I mean, you have
(07:24):
to have a pretty bad alcohol problem to be fired
from black you know, a band like Black Sabbath. But
then that's not even the dove and the bad incident
aren't even the only winged preacher story.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Okay, Mark, what else you got.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The first, the first winged creature story was in nineteen
seventy six, about three years after he was fired from
Black Sabbath. He was living in the country countryside, I
think it was Staffordshire, England, and he was drunk and
got became angry and shot a bunch of chickens in
(08:06):
his backyard coop, then burned the coop while while throwing
live ammo into the flames. So there are no shortage
of Ozzy crazy Ozzie stories.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And and so if you if we fast forward back
to the to Des Moines, Iowa, this this concert was
and he thought he he claims that he thought it
was a rubber bat. But what's the difference for Ozzy? Right?
Like so had he had he kind of reformed himself
by this point, I don't.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Think so he claimed he thought it was a rubber bat,
But I mean, based on the other two winged creature stories,
one would think that he would probably have bitten the
head off of it, except that it was a bat
and their little more dangerous than doves or chickens.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh man, bird flew. You know, That's that's all I
can think of thinking about it. And so you know,
let's talk about this time period, right, the early eighties,
heavy heavy metal. When I when I was reflecting on
when Assie passed there the end of July or early August,
I went back and listened to Black Sabbath for a
(09:27):
week and I listened to their first album, and war
Pigs is the first song on the first album, and
I'm thinking to myself, Wow, Vietnam war. This is the
time of the hippies, you know, and here here you
have an anti war anthem, right, but it is this
(09:48):
is not flowers and see you down in San Francisco
with a flower in your hair and and and free
love and all that kind of stuff. This is this
is something completely dif.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yet not at not at all. It's more like goth.
I mean, it's pre goth goth. Yeah, he was not
a hippie. He looked like a hippie, but it was
definitely not a hippie Mark.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I'm just thinking about the culture of this moment that
Ozzie kind of grew out of, and that kind of
I want to put this in a historic perspective. Okay,
So Black Sabbath starts in nineteen seventy I think their
first album, correct me if I'm wrong. Comes out in
nineteen seventy. Yes, because that first the first song, first
(10:36):
album is war Pigs, And if our listeners haven't heard it,
maybe iHeart will pay for us to play a clip
of it in the fields of Bodies Burning as the
war machine keeps turning and hated two men kind, poisoning, brainwashed,
(11:02):
mahinds o logic. When you think about the late sixties,
early seventies, you think about the Doors, you think about LSD. Worsack,
you know, Jefferson Airplane. It's psychedelia, it's anti war, and
(11:23):
this is anti war, but it is it is completely
like something that no one has ever heard before, a
sound no one had ever heard heard really before. The
only other antecedents cousins to the sound of Black Sabbath.
I think of like led Zeppelin, and that's like nineteen
(11:44):
sixty eight.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Right, or Blue Cheer maybe. I mean they were kind
of like hard rocking at a time when nobody was
hard rocking, but not like Black Sabbath or Right or
Deep Purple or any of those. Really, you know, proto
metal bands basically, and.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Proto metal bands. So in a lot of ways, Black
Sabbath is the beginning of metal.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, I think you can safely say metal proper started
with Black Sabbath. It had everything. It had the really
the minor chord sound. It had the lurching sort of
slow sludgy you know, and and yeah, right we think
the chunk Yeah, the chunkiness. And then it also had
(12:28):
those those dark lyrics that you know you're just talking
about and war Pigs. I think the only other band
that you could say would be that that would have
been that gothy at the time, would be The Doors.
But even they weren't. They didn't have that slow, lurchy,
crunchy you know, Black They.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Were more romantic. The Doors were more romantic. Jim Morrison
was a poem right right.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
They were a little more intellectual, and Sabbath was not.
They were just you know, in your face dark.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So biting the head off of live at a bat
or dove.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That comes out of a darkness it made sense, I mean,
you know, inasmuch as it could make sense. But yeah,
I mean, the whole thing, you know, from you know,
from shooting chickens to biting doves' heads off to the
bat the ultimate bat incident makes sense in the chronology.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So now we're like your early eighties, like eighty you
said it was eighty or eighty one?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Eighty one was the dove incident. Eighty two with the bat.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yes, and a young man brought a bat, yeah to
a Cozzi concert, which that how did you get out?
How did it?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, you would never get a bat into a concert
in twenty twenty five. But I don't know how he
got it. I mean, who knows. I mean he was
a metal fan. He figured it out, and.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
So uh Alice Cooper. I remember some similar story about
Alice Cooper.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Do you know that all the cutting baby dolls during
dead babies?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh no, no, no, not that one.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
The chicken, Oh right, the chicken. I'm not as familiar
with sad as I am.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The bat incident or someone brings a live chicken to
the Alice Cooper con right, and oh yes, I've seen
he throws it back into the crowd.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Who think there may even be video of that? Isn't
there on YouTube?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But yeah, that's right. I remember that now. And there
are other Alice. I mean there were a lot of
antics back then, like really dark and antics, like you know,
him getting hung and his head chopped off and all
that stuff. So all of this makes sense, you know,
in the given the times to to.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
To put to put a nice button. This up with
with Ozzie. He passed away, you know, a few weeks
before we recorded this. How do you rank him? You know,
with your vast knowledge of rock music, late twentieth century,
early twenty first century rock music, where do you rank
(15:16):
him in the in the anamals of rock history? Is he?
Is he top twenty if we can even play that game?
You know? What is his lasting contribution?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean he's important. He's hugely important. I mean, particularly
since he went on to become this you know, almost
lovable uncle on the show. You know, who knew that
that was going to happen. It's kind of like Alice
Cooper playing golf with Bing Crosby or something.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
It just you didn't know that, you know, or or
Donald Trump becoming or you know you saw that and who.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Saw that coming exactly? So, you know, given that and
given these and given the fact that he was in
the pre eminent proto metal band uh and and continued
through the eighties being a super important front man and
always in the news for more than just these things.
(16:11):
I mean, he got arrested for pissing on the Alamo.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You know, in Texas.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
There's so many stories and that's just stories in terms
of his you know, and his voice is you you
you know Ozzy when you hear him, nobody sounds like Ozzy.
None of those hair metal bands that followed sounded like Ozzy.
He has this voice that's just unmistakable. All these things
(16:37):
make him super important. Top twenty. I don't know, You've
got a lot of people like Chuck Chuck Berry and
Bo Diddley and the Stones and the all them brothers,
and you know, there's so many, you know, great rock
and roll bands, but he certainly is way up there.
(16:57):
And certainly culturally he made a back massive impact because
when I was in school, when I was junior high
in the early seventies, Black Sabbath was the band. You know,
I loved Black Sabbath. That first three albums were my
you know, I loved him, as did most of my
missed it, you know, twelve thirteen year old friends. So
(17:19):
culturally he made a massive impact. Uh, he's important. He's
much more important than rock critics of the period gave him.
They were kind of, you know, so used to analyzing
Dylan lyrics and looking for cultural significance and more a
more heady way that when Black Sabbath came out, these
(17:39):
rock critics of the day were like, what the hell
is this. It's just a bunch of noise and an
idiot front man. But it turns out he made much
more of an impact. He was much more than that.
You know, Nirvana called, you know the Kirk Cobaine said,
you know, it's the biggest influences were the Beatles in
Black Sabbath, you know, in those days. So in retrospect
(18:00):
a massively important figure in rock.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I would say that Black Sabbath is hugely influential in
the Seattle scene of the early Lady. Oh yes, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
About Allison Chane, Sound Garden, mud Huney Nervona, I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
All these mans. Yeah. Quick side note. My new book,
America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick,
is coming out soon now. If you are as excited
as I am, please show some love and pre order
your copy today, available wherever Fun books are sold. This
(18:47):
is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Today
my guest is Mark kemp An award winning journalist who
served as music editor at Rolling Stone. He's also the
author of a book, Dick See Lullaby, a story of music, race,
and new beginnings in a New South. We're myth busting
some rock and roll legends today and hey, do you
(19:09):
have a question about American history? It can be about
American music. We love it. If so, record yourself using
the voice Memo app on your phone and email it
to American History Hotline at gmail dot com. That's American
History Hotline at gmail dot com. Now back to the show, Mark,
there's a myth that Ronnie van Zandt, the lead singer
(19:31):
of LYONYRD SKINNERD was buried in a Neil Young T shirt. Now,
there's a lot to this story. Can we go back
to the beginning of the relationship of these two artists?
What was going on between Neil Young and Leonard Skinner?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Okay, well, first, Rynie van Zant was not buried in
a Neil Young T shirt, although that is MythBuster, that
is a myth. But there's a lot uh there. There's
a lot to say about the relationship between Ronnie van
Zant and Neil Young. Leonard Skinner's biggest song, well, arguably
(20:10):
their biggest song. There's Freebird, but Sweet Home Alabama. Ronni
van Zant name checks Neil Young, and that came out
of a couple of songs that Neil Young had recorded
just a few years earlier that criticized heavily the South
(20:35):
for its uh, segregation and racism and all that stuff.
Southern Man was the first one, and then there's Alabama. Alabama,
you got the weight the weight of something. I forget
(20:58):
the lyrics, but both of them severely criticize the whole
South for, you know, what was going on in terms
of race relations at the time, and Neil Young was
rightly criticizing the South for that. Ronnie van zan basically
came along and said, wait a minute, you are criticizing
(21:19):
the whole South for something only some Southerners are guilty of. Also,
you know, there's a lot of guilt to be shared
by both the North and the South. There's a line
in the song that goes, Watergate does not bother me?
Does your conscience bother you? And I think he was
kind of saying, you know, everybody's criticizing the South for
(21:41):
a lot of stuff that's going on politically in our country.
But there's a lot going on in our country that
doesn't have anything to do with the South. Everybody's guilty.
So there's a whole lot of subtext to Sweet Home
Alabama that I don't even know that Ronnie van Zane
was completely, you know, cognizant of it. He was just
writing a song and really, to a great extent, the
(22:05):
song was kind of a joke, but it wasn't a joke.
It was a joke, but not a joke. He was
kind of trying to put Neil Young in his place
for writing these songs with you know, wholesale criticizing the South.
At the same time, he loved Neil Young. He would
wear Neil Young t shirts and concert and Neil Young
(22:25):
loved them. I mean, he liked that song. He played
that song in concert.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, Neil Young playwee.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
He's played Sweet Home Alabima Mamma and concerts. So they
had It's just like any kind of lighthearted feud that
sometimes rockers have with each other. And there are response songs.
That response songs go all the way back to it
wasn't God who made honky tonk Uh. It wasn't God
who made honky tonk Angels, the song that was an
(23:00):
answer to Honky tonk Angels, an earlier song that criticized
women who went out to Honky Tong's and hooked up
with men.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So there's a long history of these answer songs, of
these response songs, and Sweet Home Alabama was one of
those songs. In the years since it's you know, it's
become fighting words. I mean Leonard Skinner, I mean not
Leonard Skinner, but Neil Young. I think once when he
tried to play somewhere down South, he got death.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Threats because people took it so seriously that they.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Were angry at Neil Young. But Ronnie van Zant and
Leonard Skinner were never angry with Neil Young.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
They did they take up for each other, like I
mean you talk about them admiring each other and Neil
Young doing Sweet Home Alabama, which as soon as we're
done recording on going to be searching on YouTube. But
did did Ronnie van zandt kind of like come out
like in magazines or newspapers or in the media and
(24:05):
take up for Neil Young?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yes, he did, very very clearly. He said, we love
uh Neil Young.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
There's one line I think, he said in a radio interview.
You know, we love Neil Young. He just we just
felt like he was shooting all the ducks to kill
just one or some some Southern and Neil Young likewise
has said, I you know, I'm a big fan of
Leonard Skinnard He said that he had performed Sweet Home
(24:34):
Alabama before, and he also wrote a couple of songs,
one of which was powder Finger, specifically for Leonard Skinner
to record, but sadly the they never got around to
it before. Uh they're the tragic plane crash that killed
Van Zant. But yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, so let's let you you you mentioned the plane crash,
which is which is a as much a part of
the myth and the legend as this competition between Neil
Young and Leonard Skinner. To talk about that plane crash.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Well, I mean it came for one thing. It came.
It came right during the period when Leonard Skinner was
going from band that had hit with Sweet Home Alabama
to band that had concert anthem with Freebird, to band
(25:31):
that was about to make a mainstream and make it
into the mainstream with their Street Survivors album. They were
on tour for Street survivors and were about to really
really blast off. What year is this, That was nineteen
seventy seven. Yeah, so they were about to blast off
and really become you know, a very well known I
(25:54):
mean they are now, but more well known back then
mainstream rock band. What's that Smell was big? I mean
there were there were a few songs on that album
that were huge, and some of them became huge after
the plane crash, which often happened, you know, when people die.
But yeah, I mean they were they were really that
they were really taking off of that time. I remember
(26:17):
thinking that that was you know at the time, that
this is their best album, really tight. They sounded great,
all the songs were good. So it was it was horrible.
It was really tragic. It was like, you know, I
suspect young people felt, you know, when they heard that
Kirk Cobain had killed himself. You know, it was it
(26:37):
was like, oh, we're just getting started and and this
band is now gone.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And so this was one of these situations where the
plane in county, it was a small plane and it
encountered like bad weather.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, and I think it was Mississippi and they were
coming a belief either from South Carolina or to South Carolina.
I have all this, but I don't have it in
my head right now, but it was down there in
that area.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
When I think about Southern Rock and then trying to
give us a historic cultural background, I see in my
head Almond Brothers with the Confederate flag behind them. I
remember interviewing someone about the Almond Brothers a few years
ago and the writer said, you know, you had, you know,
a black man in the Almond Brothers that was not
(27:28):
the Confederate flag in the in the Southern rock culture
was not a race a racial icon, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And I think that's true to a great extent. I mean,
you there's even a photograph of the Velvet Underground with
a Confederate flag behind them, and you know they have
nothing to do with They had nothing to do with
the South. And I mean it's really kind of weird
to see a Confederate flag behind Lou Reed because you know,
(27:58):
it has nothing to do so I think the Confederate
flag at that time pretty much for white people signified
you know, rebelliousness. But it still even back then, was
not very cool, you know for black people. I mean,
it still was a slap in the face for black people,
and it only and I think it only became after
(28:20):
like the seventies, the dialogue started and black people were going, no,
this is so not cool, you know, and some artists
I think remained rebellious and said, well, we're going to
use it anyway. It represents our heritage blah blah blah.
And then most said oh okay and stopped using it.
(28:41):
And even you know, as far as Leonard Skinnard went.
Ronnie van Zandt said before he died that, uh one,
it was MCA's idea to put the rebel flag behind
them because they were a Southern band. They were marketing
the band that way as rowdy Southerners. But Ronnie and
Then didn't like it, and they stopped using it because
(29:04):
he thought it was stupid, he said. But then they
started back when fans wanted it back. I think after
the next phase of Leonard Skinner, after the plane crash,
they started using it again and it became an issue.
And then at some point the newer Leonard skinnerd stopped
using it, and then their fans balked and they brought
(29:27):
it back again. So it's gone back and forth. It's
pretty offensive to use a competitive flag, and I think
we all kind of can say that now, but at
the time, absolutely it didn't have the meaning for white
people that it does now. White people just weren't aware
of the pain that it costs, I don't think.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So we started out today talking about metal Ozzie and
that culture and from the nineteen from nineteen seventy to
the early eighties. And here we have Leonard Skinnyard you know,
and Neil Young, different sides of the musical spectrum, same
(30:10):
historical moment. So on the one hand, we have this
cultural debate, literal cultural debate in song between you know,
about criticism of Southern historical culture, Southern history Chris is
about slavery really and then a defensive Southern culture on
(30:32):
Leonard Skinnerd's side. And then the other ended the rebelliousness
of what Southern rock was just a rebellious It was
a rebellion, right, yes, And so it was metal, right,
Metal was rebellion, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And when you you just said, we've we've gone from
this to this, and you know, the common denominator there
is Leonard Skinner. So you have proto metal on one side,
you have kind of folky Americana what we call Americana
now on the other side with Neil Young and then
if you have a Venn diagram, Lennard Skinner's somewhere in
(31:10):
the middle there. They were kind of metal. They had
metal aspects to them, but they weren't metal like Sabbath,
and they had Americana aspects to them. So we've kind
of come full circle with a nice little Vin diagram.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Freebird has a lot of attributes of metal in it, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
For sure, the last part of it just screams, and yeah,
there are some other songs that do to Saturday Night Special.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Sweet Home Alabama does name check one of the state's
most controversial leaders, George Wallace, who was the governor when
the song was released. He also went on to be
a really legitimate, almost third party candidate. It really tore
apart the Democratic Party in the late nineteen sixties and
early seventies. He meets a few runs for the presidency,
(31:58):
was ultimately show by would be assassin and and left
to serve out his days in a wheelchair. But the
lyric in Sweet Home Alabama is George Wallace is famous
(32:19):
for saying, I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?
Can you kind of put that in context?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Two? Such an important thing for us to talk about,
because that is the spot in that song if there's
any him. There's several where people go, WHOA this is?
This is messed up? Are they racist? What's going on?
Why are they defending George Wallace? Are they defending George Wallace?
(32:50):
It's really kind of it's kind of vague in a way.
And I'll talk about why in a second. And sadly,
Ronnie van Zandt isn't here to say what he actually meant.
So everybody and their brother has analyzed that song, and
a lot of people come up with analysis that just
(33:13):
fits the narrative that they want to tell. And I
dealt with this extensively in my book. Some people will
say that they say in Birmingham they love the governor
boo boo boo, and that's the defense of oh no,
they're not. They're they're criticizing Governor Wallace in that one.
(33:37):
So those are the ones who who their agenda is
to make Leonard Skinner out to be a little more progressive.
And then now there are others who say, uh no,
I mean they're they're defending the governor, including Ed King,
the guitarist, the first guitar or one of the first
guitarists of Leonard Skinner. I had along conversation with him
(33:59):
and Nashville. He said, no, no, those guys really respected
George Wallace. In fact, Wallace made the band honorary lieutenant
colonels in the state militia, and according to King, they
were thrilled with that honor. They liked it, they liked
the fact that he did it. King also said that,
(34:20):
you know, so George, there's George Wallace in the early
sixties segregation now, segregation forever, and then there's George Wallace
of the early seventies in which he had a good
percentage of the black vote. Because George Wallace became less
of a racist firebrand, I mean, he was an opportunist, whatever,
(34:40):
but he became less of a racist firebrand and more
of a working class you know, for the working class.
So a lot of blacks voted for George Wallace later on,
you know, in the in the later sixties and early seventies.
So King said that was the Wallace that skinnered, that
the member of skinnered respected. So there are those including
(35:03):
Ronnie van Zant's wife who go with the boo boo
boo argument, and there are those including Ed King the
original guitars to go. No, no, those weren't boo boo boos.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
We need to when we're thinking about when we're thinking
about Neil young on progressive, very California, well Canadian, but
probably associated with California at this point in his life, right, progressive.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well kind of, and there was that time in the
eighties that he all of a sudden became a Reagan guy,
but then he went back to progressive, So there's even
ambiguity there.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Well, yeah, but what I'm thinking about here here, well,
these guys are all rebels, right, But what I'm thinking
about here is nineteen sixty eight and the fight for
the Democratic presidential nomine right, and Bobby Kennedy seen here,
is assassinated right after winning the Democratic primary. Right, and
(36:07):
his voters, many of his voters go.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
To George Watts, right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And that's the working class.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The working class.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, that's the work.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It wasn't really about race at that time. It was
about working class issues. And that's what that's kind of
where we are today. We're just well, I also argue
in the book that that you know, the the and
I'm not the only one obviously, the divide and conquer
thing that you know, the the powers that be, you know,
(36:40):
from the time of slavery in this country, you know,
to now have sought to divide poor blacks and poor
whites so that you know, the elite, the powers that
be can prevail with whatever agenda is going on. So
that that's how that's where we were at that time too.
I think people have a hell of a lot more
(37:01):
in common with each other than they do any you know,
political party or leader who's in office.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Right, there have been a few times in our nation's
history where we've had the fusion, right, they call that
the fusion between the poor blacks and the poor whites.
And and uh here in North Carolina, Uh, at one
point we had that and it ended in a massacre
and a coup in Wilmington. But that's a whole that's
a whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
But boy, is that a good one to have. Yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
So just to to to kind of give the context,
there's the Birmingham lyric. Right in Birmingham, they loved the governor,
Boo Boo boo. I looked it up online. I haven't
written now they wrote out boo boo boo. Now we
all did what we could do. Now, now watergate does
(38:03):
not bother me? Uh huh? Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth? So they do those two kind of
political Yeah. On this side, we we love our governor.
Uh and then on the other side, it's like, but
he's saying watergate doesn't bother him.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
See, I think I think he was being sarcastic when
he said, now watergate does not bother me. Isn't that
the lyric? Now watergate does not bother he does not
bother me? Thank he's being kind of sarcastic there is
Does your conscience bother you? In other words, are you
projecting your your guilty feeling you being people who aren't Southern?
(38:42):
Are you projecting your feelings of guilt onto us because
your conscience is bothering you? I mean, you're every you
all are the people who voted for, you know, mister Nixon,
And he's a he's a crook. You know, That's how
I read it. But again, Ronnie, it's dead. He can't
answer these questions.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Mark, this has been wonderful Thank you so much for
your time. Today. I've been talking with Mark Kemp, an
award winning journalist who served as music editor at Rolling Stone,
vice president of Music Editorial at MTV, and the author
of the book Dixie Lullaby, A story of music, race,
and new beginnings in a new South Mark. We'll have
(39:26):
to do this again some time.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Oh, I'd love to Bob. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You've been listening to American History Hotline, a production of
iHeart Podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show is executive
producer is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are
Jordan Runtaal and Jason English. Original music composed by me
Bob Crawford. Please keep in touch. Our email is American
(39:55):
History Hotline at gmail dot com. If you like the show,
please tell your friends and leave us a review in
Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Feel free to
hit me up on social media to ask a history
question or to let me know what you think of
the show. You can find me at Bob Crawford Base.
(40:17):
Thanks so much for listening. To see you next week.
Hey, there are American History Hotliners. I need to make
a correction to today's episode. You'll hear me say that
Black Sabbath's first album was Paranoid. In fact, their first
album was the self titled Black Sabbath, which came out
in February of nineteen seventy. Paranoid came out later that fall.
(00:21):
Thanks today for sending in that correction. We love hearing
from all of you, even when it's about me getting
something wrong. Okay, on with today's show.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The dove and the bad incident aren't even the only
winged creature. Oh story, my god.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay, Mark, what else you got? You've reached American History Hotline.
You asked the question, we get the answers. Leave a message. Hey,
there are American History Hotliners. Bob Crawford here, thrilled to
be joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline,
(00:59):
the show where you ask the questions, and the best
way to get us a question is to record a
video or a voice memo on your phone and email
it to Americanistory Hotline at gmail dot com. That's American
History Hotline at gmail dot com. And remember we are
American History Hotline. If you want to talk about the
(01:22):
Beatles Liverpool days, we may not want to do that,
but if you want to talk about their nineteen sixty
four tour of the United States, we can definitely do that.
And with that, our show today is about rock legends
and myths. Here to help me answer this question is
a bit of a legend himself. It's Mark Kemp, an
(01:45):
award winning journalist who served as music editor at Rolling Stone,
vice president of Music Editorial at MTV, and author of
the book Dixie Lullaby, A story of music, race and
new beginnings in a New South Mark. How's it going
this morning? It's going well, Bob. It's good to hear you. Oh,
(02:06):
it's good. I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking.
It's great, always great to speak with you. And it's
great too. Our audience can't, but it's nice for me.
I can see you. So yeah, very very nice. Well Mark,
When I heard this question, I immediately thought of you. It
comes from Trevor in Kansas City. He says, I've heard
(02:27):
so many different stories about Ozzy Osbourne biting the head
off a live bat while on stage. What the heck
actually happened? Trevor, I'm with you. I can't tell you
how many times I heard the story, especially growing up
in the nineteen eighties, like this was a high school legend,
you know, like did this really happen? We believed it
(02:50):
at the time. And if you look at the cover
of Bark at the Moon, you know you think that's
the guy. It's kind of guy who might bite the
head off of a live bat. So excited to get
to the bottom of this rock and roll legend. And
by the way, we have another legend slash myth to
debunk or confirm. I want our listeners to know that.
(03:11):
Later on in the show, we're going to talk about
the feud between Leonard Skinnard and Neil Young, so stick
around for that. But first let's jump into the Ozzy story. Mark,
can you set the scene when and where is this
all said to have happened?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, and he is the kind of guy who with
my head off of a bat. He's the kind of
guy who did a whole lot of things on stage
and off and that story is true. During a concert
in Des Moines, Iowa, and January of I think nineteen
eighty two, he infamously bit the head off of what
(03:51):
he thought was a rubber bat thrown on stage. It
turned out to be a real one and he was
rushed to the hospital for rabets, but the moment became immortalized,
as you say in rock folklore. But that's not the
first time he bit the head off a winged creature.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, well, so this isn't the first time something like
this happened.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think it was nineteen eighty one. The bad incident
was nineteen eighty two. But in nineteen eighty one he
bit the head off of a live dove during a
meeting with CBS Records about the album Blizzard of oz Sharon,
his wife, had suggested releasing the doves as a publicity stunt,
(04:35):
but Ozley decided he wanted to go a step further,
and he bit the head off of one during the meeting.
It was meant to get attention, and it did pretty much,
along with immediate ejection from the building.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So was this like a press conference or a boardroom?
I mean, I've been in some of those music record
label boardroom meetings, and I got it tell you, sometimes,
you know, you do feel like biting the head off
of a live animal while you're in those meetings. But
was this a meeting or a press conference. Were they
working there was a deal, it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Was a meeting, and I'm not sure what they were
working on in the I think they were they were
working on publicity for the album, and or they were
discussing the publicity of the album because Sharon had was had,
you know, brought the doves in to possibly use releasing
them for the you know, as a publicity stunt.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Was it Diary of Madman? No, it's buligers oz a
blizzard oz Okay, yes.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So yeah, and he just on the on the spur
of the moment, decided he would bite the head off
of the dove. So that's I think probably why the
next year somebody brought a bat uh and threw it
on stage and and Ozzie thought it was a rubber
one and he bit that head off. So yep, not
the first time.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So many questions. So getting back first to the dove incident,
I mean, had he had he done this before? Like
do we know? Do we know? Like what what was
it in his in his makeup, in his personality that
I mean, because he could argue, like the bat in
(06:19):
Des Moines, he thought it was a rubber bat. That
makes perfect sense it's it's part of the shtick. But
this was a live dove that he actually been off
and he didn't even do it to get mass attention.
He did it like in a in a meeting. So
what is it about Ozzie? Do we know anything about
his youth and his upbringing that would would kind of
(06:42):
preclude this?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, you know, as he started out, you know, as
something of a juvenile delinquent, and way back in nineteen
sixty five, I guess, about three years before Black Sybus started,
he stole a television and attempted to climb over a
wall with it and was arrested and wound up in
(07:03):
a British prison for I think six weeks. So, I mean,
we know Ozzie was a troublemaker from day one, and
then you know, in seventy three, almost a decade later,
he had such a bad drug and alcohol problem that
he was fired from Black Sabbath. I mean, you have
(07:24):
to have a pretty bad alcohol problem to be fired
from black you know, a band like Black Sabbath. But
then that's not even the dove and the bad incident
aren't even the only winged preacher story.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Okay, Mark, what else you got.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The first, the first winged creature story was in nineteen
seventy six, about three years after he was fired from
Black Sabbath. He was living in the country countryside, I
think it was Staffordshire, England, and he was drunk and
got became angry and shot a bunch of chickens in
(08:06):
his backyard coop, then burned the coop while while throwing
live ammo into the flames. So there are no shortage
of Ozzy crazy Ozzie stories.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And and so if you if we fast forward back
to the to Des Moines, Iowa, this this concert was
and he thought he he claims that he thought it
was a rubber bat. But what's the difference for Ozzy? Right?
Like so had he had he kind of reformed himself
by this point, I don't.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Think so he claimed he thought it was a rubber bat,
But I mean, based on the other two winged creature stories,
one would think that he would probably have bitten the
head off of it, except that it was a bat
and their little more dangerous than doves or chickens.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh man, bird flew. You know, That's that's all I
can think of thinking about it. And so you know,
let's talk about this time period, right, the early eighties,
heavy heavy metal. When I when I was reflecting on
when Assie passed there the end of July or early August,
I went back and listened to Black Sabbath for a
(09:27):
week and I listened to their first album, and war
Pigs is the first song on the first album, and
I'm thinking to myself, Wow, Vietnam war. This is the
time of the hippies, you know, and here here you
have an anti war anthem, right, but it is this
(09:48):
is not flowers and see you down in San Francisco
with a flower in your hair and and and free
love and all that kind of stuff. This is this
is something completely dif.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yet not at not at all. It's more like goth.
I mean, it's pre goth goth. Yeah, he was not
a hippie. He looked like a hippie, but it was
definitely not a hippie Mark.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I'm just thinking about the culture of this moment that
Ozzie kind of grew out of, and that kind of
I want to put this in a historic perspective. Okay,
So Black Sabbath starts in nineteen seventy I think their
first album, correct me if I'm wrong. Comes out in
nineteen seventy. Yes, because that first the first song, first
(10:36):
album is war Pigs, And if our listeners haven't heard it,
maybe iHeart will pay for us to play a clip
of it in the fields of Bodies Burning as the
war machine keeps turning and hated two men kind, poisoning, brainwashed,
(11:02):
mahinds o logic. When you think about the late sixties,
early seventies, you think about the Doors, you think about LSD. Worsack,
you know, Jefferson Airplane. It's psychedelia, it's anti war, and
(11:23):
this is anti war, but it is it is completely
like something that no one has ever heard before, a
sound no one had ever heard heard really before. The
only other antecedents cousins to the sound of Black Sabbath.
I think of like led Zeppelin, and that's like nineteen
(11:44):
sixty eight.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Right, or Blue Cheer maybe. I mean they were kind
of like hard rocking at a time when nobody was
hard rocking, but not like Black Sabbath or Right or
Deep Purple or any of those. Really, you know, proto
metal bands basically, and.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Proto metal bands. So in a lot of ways, Black
Sabbath is the beginning of metal.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, I think you can safely say metal proper started
with Black Sabbath. It had everything. It had the really
the minor chord sound. It had the lurching sort of
slow sludgy you know, and and yeah, right we think
the chunk Yeah, the chunkiness. And then it also had
(12:28):
those those dark lyrics that you know you're just talking
about and war Pigs. I think the only other band
that you could say would be that that would have
been that gothy at the time, would be The Doors.
But even they weren't. They didn't have that slow, lurchy,
crunchy you know, Black They.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Were more romantic. The Doors were more romantic. Jim Morrison
was a poem right right.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
They were a little more intellectual, and Sabbath was not.
They were just you know, in your face dark.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So biting the head off of live at a bat
or dove.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That comes out of a darkness it made sense, I mean,
you know, inasmuch as it could make sense. But yeah,
I mean, the whole thing, you know, from you know,
from shooting chickens to biting doves' heads off to the
bat the ultimate bat incident makes sense in the chronology.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So now we're like your early eighties, like eighty you
said it was eighty or eighty one?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Eighty one was the dove incident. Eighty two with the bat.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yes, and a young man brought a bat, yeah to
a Cozzi concert, which that how did you get out?
How did it?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, you would never get a bat into a concert
in twenty twenty five. But I don't know how he
got it. I mean, who knows. I mean he was
a metal fan. He figured it out, and.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
So uh Alice Cooper. I remember some similar story about
Alice Cooper.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Do you know that all the cutting baby dolls during
dead babies?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh no, no, no, not that one.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
The chicken, Oh right, the chicken. I'm not as familiar
with sad as I am.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The bat incident or someone brings a live chicken to
the Alice Cooper con right, and oh yes, I've seen
he throws it back into the crowd.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Who think there may even be video of that? Isn't
there on YouTube?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But yeah, that's right. I remember that now. And there
are other Alice. I mean there were a lot of
antics back then, like really dark and antics, like you know,
him getting hung and his head chopped off and all
that stuff. So all of this makes sense, you know,
in the given the times to to.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
To put to put a nice button. This up with
with Ozzie. He passed away, you know, a few weeks
before we recorded this. How do you rank him? You know,
with your vast knowledge of rock music, late twentieth century,
early twenty first century rock music, where do you rank
(15:16):
him in the in the anamals of rock history? Is he?
Is he top twenty if we can even play that game?
You know? What is his lasting contribution?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean he's important. He's hugely important. I mean, particularly
since he went on to become this you know, almost
lovable uncle on the show. You know, who knew that
that was going to happen. It's kind of like Alice
Cooper playing golf with Bing Crosby or something.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
It just you didn't know that, you know, or or
Donald Trump becoming or you know you saw that and who.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Saw that coming exactly? So, you know, given that and
given these and given the fact that he was in
the pre eminent proto metal band uh and and continued
through the eighties being a super important front man and
always in the news for more than just these things.
(16:11):
I mean, he got arrested for pissing on the Alamo.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You know, in Texas.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
There's so many stories and that's just stories in terms
of his you know, and his voice is you you
you know Ozzy when you hear him, nobody sounds like Ozzy.
None of those hair metal bands that followed sounded like Ozzy.
He has this voice that's just unmistakable. All these things
(16:37):
make him super important. Top twenty. I don't know, You've
got a lot of people like Chuck Chuck Berry and
Bo Diddley and the Stones and the all them brothers,
and you know, there's so many, you know, great rock
and roll bands, but he certainly is way up there.
(16:57):
And certainly culturally he made a back massive impact because
when I was in school, when I was junior high
in the early seventies, Black Sabbath was the band. You know,
I loved Black Sabbath. That first three albums were my
you know, I loved him, as did most of my
missed it, you know, twelve thirteen year old friends. So
(17:19):
culturally he made a massive impact. Uh, he's important. He's
much more important than rock critics of the period gave him.
They were kind of, you know, so used to analyzing
Dylan lyrics and looking for cultural significance and more a
more heady way that when Black Sabbath came out, these
(17:39):
rock critics of the day were like, what the hell
is this. It's just a bunch of noise and an
idiot front man. But it turns out he made much
more of an impact. He was much more than that.
You know, Nirvana called, you know the Kirk Cobaine said,
you know, it's the biggest influences were the Beatles in
Black Sabbath, you know, in those days. So in retrospect
(18:00):
a massively important figure in rock.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I would say that Black Sabbath is hugely influential in
the Seattle scene of the early Lady. Oh yes, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
About Allison Chane, Sound Garden, mud Huney Nervona, I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
All these mans. Yeah. Quick side note. My new book,
America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick,
is coming out soon now. If you are as excited
as I am, please show some love and pre order
your copy today, available wherever Fun books are sold. This
(18:47):
is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Today
my guest is Mark kemp An award winning journalist who
served as music editor at Rolling Stone. He's also the
author of a book, Dick See Lullaby, a story of music, race,
and new beginnings in a New South. We're myth busting
some rock and roll legends today and hey, do you
(19:09):
have a question about American history? It can be about
American music. We love it. If so, record yourself using
the voice Memo app on your phone and email it
to American History Hotline at gmail dot com. That's American
History Hotline at gmail dot com. Now back to the show, Mark,
there's a myth that Ronnie van Zandt, the lead singer
(19:31):
of LYONYRD SKINNERD was buried in a Neil Young T shirt. Now,
there's a lot to this story. Can we go back
to the beginning of the relationship of these two artists?
What was going on between Neil Young and Leonard Skinner?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Okay, well, first, Rynie van Zant was not buried in
a Neil Young T shirt, although that is MythBuster, that
is a myth. But there's a lot uh there. There's
a lot to say about the relationship between Ronnie van
Zant and Neil Young. Leonard Skinner's biggest song, well, arguably
(20:10):
their biggest song. There's Freebird, but Sweet Home Alabama. Ronni
van Zant name checks Neil Young, and that came out
of a couple of songs that Neil Young had recorded
just a few years earlier that criticized heavily the South
(20:35):
for its uh, segregation and racism and all that stuff.
Southern Man was the first one, and then there's Alabama. Alabama,
you got the weight the weight of something. I forget
(20:58):
the lyrics, but both of them severely criticize the whole
South for, you know, what was going on in terms
of race relations at the time, and Neil Young was
rightly criticizing the South for that. Ronnie van zan basically
came along and said, wait a minute, you are criticizing
(21:19):
the whole South for something only some Southerners are guilty of. Also,
you know, there's a lot of guilt to be shared
by both the North and the South. There's a line
in the song that goes, Watergate does not bother me?
Does your conscience bother you? And I think he was
kind of saying, you know, everybody's criticizing the South for
(21:41):
a lot of stuff that's going on politically in our country.
But there's a lot going on in our country that
doesn't have anything to do with the South. Everybody's guilty.
So there's a whole lot of subtext to Sweet Home
Alabama that I don't even know that Ronnie van Zane
was completely, you know, cognizant of it. He was just
writing a song and really, to a great extent, the
(22:05):
song was kind of a joke, but it wasn't a joke.
It was a joke, but not a joke. He was
kind of trying to put Neil Young in his place
for writing these songs with you know, wholesale criticizing the South.
At the same time, he loved Neil Young. He would
wear Neil Young t shirts and concert and Neil Young
(22:25):
loved them. I mean, he liked that song. He played
that song in concert.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, Neil Young playwee.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
He's played Sweet Home Alabima Mamma and concerts. So they
had It's just like any kind of lighthearted feud that
sometimes rockers have with each other. And there are response songs.
That response songs go all the way back to it
wasn't God who made honky tonk Uh. It wasn't God
who made honky tonk Angels, the song that was an
(23:00):
answer to Honky tonk Angels, an earlier song that criticized
women who went out to Honky Tong's and hooked up
with men.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So there's a long history of these answer songs, of
these response songs, and Sweet Home Alabama was one of
those songs. In the years since it's you know, it's
become fighting words. I mean Leonard Skinner, I mean not
Leonard Skinner, but Neil Young. I think once when he
tried to play somewhere down South, he got death.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Threats because people took it so seriously that they.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Were angry at Neil Young. But Ronnie van Zant and
Leonard Skinner were never angry with Neil Young.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
They did they take up for each other, like I
mean you talk about them admiring each other and Neil
Young doing Sweet Home Alabama, which as soon as we're
done recording on going to be searching on YouTube. But
did did Ronnie van zandt kind of like come out
like in magazines or newspapers or in the media and
(24:05):
take up for Neil Young?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yes, he did, very very clearly. He said, we love
uh Neil Young.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
There's one line I think, he said in a radio interview.
You know, we love Neil Young. He just we just
felt like he was shooting all the ducks to kill
just one or some some Southern and Neil Young likewise
has said, I you know, I'm a big fan of
Leonard Skinnard He said that he had performed Sweet Home
(24:34):
Alabama before, and he also wrote a couple of songs,
one of which was powder Finger, specifically for Leonard Skinner
to record, but sadly the they never got around to
it before. Uh they're the tragic plane crash that killed
Van Zant. But yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, so let's let you you you mentioned the plane crash,
which is which is a as much a part of
the myth and the legend as this competition between Neil
Young and Leonard Skinner. To talk about that plane crash.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Well, I mean it came for one thing. It came.
It came right during the period when Leonard Skinner was
going from band that had hit with Sweet Home Alabama
to band that had concert anthem with Freebird, to band
(25:31):
that was about to make a mainstream and make it
into the mainstream with their Street Survivors album. They were
on tour for Street survivors and were about to really
really blast off. What year is this, That was nineteen
seventy seven. Yeah, so they were about to blast off
and really become you know, a very well known I
(25:54):
mean they are now, but more well known back then
mainstream rock band. What's that Smell was big? I mean
there were there were a few songs on that album
that were huge, and some of them became huge after
the plane crash, which often happened, you know, when people die.
But yeah, I mean they were they were really that
they were really taking off of that time. I remember
(26:17):
thinking that that was you know at the time, that
this is their best album, really tight. They sounded great,
all the songs were good. So it was it was horrible.
It was really tragic. It was like, you know, I
suspect young people felt, you know, when they heard that
Kirk Cobain had killed himself. You know, it was it
(26:37):
was like, oh, we're just getting started and and this
band is now gone.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And so this was one of these situations where the
plane in county, it was a small plane and it
encountered like bad weather.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, and I think it was Mississippi and they were
coming a belief either from South Carolina or to South Carolina.
I have all this, but I don't have it in
my head right now, but it was down there in
that area.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
When I think about Southern Rock and then trying to
give us a historic cultural background, I see in my
head Almond Brothers with the Confederate flag behind them. I
remember interviewing someone about the Almond Brothers a few years
ago and the writer said, you know, you had, you know,
a black man in the Almond Brothers that was not
(27:28):
the Confederate flag in the in the Southern rock culture
was not a race a racial icon, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And I think that's true to a great extent. I mean,
you there's even a photograph of the Velvet Underground with
a Confederate flag behind them, and you know they have
nothing to do with They had nothing to do with
the South. And I mean it's really kind of weird
to see a Confederate flag behind Lou Reed because you know,
(27:58):
it has nothing to do so I think the Confederate
flag at that time pretty much for white people signified
you know, rebelliousness. But it still even back then, was
not very cool, you know for black people. I mean,
it still was a slap in the face for black people,
and it only and I think it only became after
(28:20):
like the seventies, the dialogue started and black people were going, no,
this is so not cool, you know, and some artists
I think remained rebellious and said, well, we're going to
use it anyway. It represents our heritage blah blah blah.
And then most said oh okay and stopped using it.
(28:41):
And even you know, as far as Leonard Skinnard went.
Ronnie van Zandt said before he died that, uh one,
it was MCA's idea to put the rebel flag behind
them because they were a Southern band. They were marketing
the band that way as rowdy Southerners. But Ronnie and
Then didn't like it, and they stopped using it because
(29:04):
he thought it was stupid, he said. But then they
started back when fans wanted it back. I think after
the next phase of Leonard Skinner, after the plane crash,
they started using it again and it became an issue.
And then at some point the newer Leonard skinnerd stopped
using it, and then their fans balked and they brought
(29:27):
it back again. So it's gone back and forth. It's
pretty offensive to use a competitive flag, and I think
we all kind of can say that now, but at
the time, absolutely it didn't have the meaning for white
people that it does now. White people just weren't aware
of the pain that it costs, I don't think.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So we started out today talking about metal Ozzie and
that culture and from the nineteen from nineteen seventy to
the early eighties. And here we have Leonard Skinnyard you know,
and Neil Young, different sides of the musical spectrum, same
(30:10):
historical moment. So on the one hand, we have this
cultural debate, literal cultural debate in song between you know,
about criticism of Southern historical culture, Southern history Chris is
about slavery really and then a defensive Southern culture on
(30:32):
Leonard Skinnerd's side. And then the other ended the rebelliousness
of what Southern rock was just a rebellious It was
a rebellion, right, yes, And so it was metal, right,
Metal was rebellion, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And when you you just said, we've we've gone from
this to this, and you know, the common denominator there
is Leonard Skinner. So you have proto metal on one side,
you have kind of folky Americana what we call Americana
now on the other side with Neil Young and then
if you have a Venn diagram, Lennard Skinner's somewhere in
(31:10):
the middle there. They were kind of metal. They had
metal aspects to them, but they weren't metal like Sabbath,
and they had Americana aspects to them. So we've kind
of come full circle with a nice little Vin diagram.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Freebird has a lot of attributes of metal in it, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
For sure, the last part of it just screams, and yeah,
there are some other songs that do to Saturday Night Special.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Sweet Home Alabama does name check one of the state's
most controversial leaders, George Wallace, who was the governor when
the song was released. He also went on to be
a really legitimate, almost third party candidate. It really tore
apart the Democratic Party in the late nineteen sixties and
early seventies. He meets a few runs for the presidency,
(31:58):
was ultimately show by would be assassin and and left
to serve out his days in a wheelchair. But the
lyric in Sweet Home Alabama is George Wallace is famous
(32:19):
for saying, I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?
Can you kind of put that in context?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Two? Such an important thing for us to talk about,
because that is the spot in that song if there's
any him. There's several where people go, WHOA this is?
This is messed up? Are they racist? What's going on?
Why are they defending George Wallace? Are they defending George Wallace?
(32:50):
It's really kind of it's kind of vague in a way.
And I'll talk about why in a second. And sadly,
Ronnie van Zandt isn't here to say what he actually meant.
So everybody and their brother has analyzed that song, and
a lot of people come up with analysis that just
(33:13):
fits the narrative that they want to tell. And I
dealt with this extensively in my book. Some people will
say that they say in Birmingham they love the governor
boo boo boo, and that's the defense of oh no,
they're not. They're they're criticizing Governor Wallace in that one.
(33:37):
So those are the ones who who their agenda is
to make Leonard Skinner out to be a little more progressive.
And then now there are others who say, uh no,
I mean they're they're defending the governor, including Ed King,
the guitarist, the first guitar or one of the first
guitarists of Leonard Skinner. I had along conversation with him
(33:59):
and Nashville. He said, no, no, those guys really respected
George Wallace. In fact, Wallace made the band honorary lieutenant
colonels in the state militia, and according to King, they
were thrilled with that honor. They liked it, they liked
the fact that he did it. King also said that,
(34:20):
you know, so George, there's George Wallace in the early
sixties segregation now, segregation forever, and then there's George Wallace
of the early seventies in which he had a good
percentage of the black vote. Because George Wallace became less
of a racist firebrand, I mean, he was an opportunist, whatever,
(34:40):
but he became less of a racist firebrand and more
of a working class you know, for the working class.
So a lot of blacks voted for George Wallace later on,
you know, in the in the later sixties and early seventies.
So King said that was the Wallace that skinnered, that
the member of skinnered respected. So there are those including
(35:03):
Ronnie van Zant's wife who go with the boo boo
boo argument, and there are those including Ed King the
original guitars to go. No, no, those weren't boo boo boos.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
We need to when we're thinking about when we're thinking
about Neil young on progressive, very California, well Canadian, but
probably associated with California at this point in his life, right, progressive.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well kind of, and there was that time in the
eighties that he all of a sudden became a Reagan guy,
but then he went back to progressive, So there's even
ambiguity there.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Well, yeah, but what I'm thinking about here here, well,
these guys are all rebels, right, But what I'm thinking
about here is nineteen sixty eight and the fight for
the Democratic presidential nomine right, and Bobby Kennedy seen here,
is assassinated right after winning the Democratic primary. Right, and
(36:07):
his voters, many of his voters go.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
To George Watts, right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And that's the working class.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The working class.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, that's the work.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It wasn't really about race at that time. It was
about working class issues. And that's what that's kind of
where we are today. We're just well, I also argue
in the book that that you know, the the and
I'm not the only one obviously, the divide and conquer
thing that you know, the the powers that be, you know,
(36:40):
from the time of slavery in this country, you know,
to now have sought to divide poor blacks and poor
whites so that you know, the elite, the powers that
be can prevail with whatever agenda is going on. So
that that's how that's where we were at that time too.
I think people have a hell of a lot more
(37:01):
in common with each other than they do any you know,
political party or leader who's in office.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Right, there have been a few times in our nation's
history where we've had the fusion, right, they call that
the fusion between the poor blacks and the poor whites.
And and uh here in North Carolina, Uh, at one
point we had that and it ended in a massacre
and a coup in Wilmington. But that's a whole that's
a whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
But boy, is that a good one to have. Yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
So just to to to kind of give the context,
there's the Birmingham lyric. Right in Birmingham, they loved the governor,
Boo Boo boo. I looked it up online. I haven't
written now they wrote out boo boo boo. Now we
all did what we could do. Now, now watergate does
(38:03):
not bother me? Uh huh? Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth? So they do those two kind of
political Yeah. On this side, we we love our governor.
Uh and then on the other side, it's like, but
he's saying watergate doesn't bother him.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
See, I think I think he was being sarcastic when
he said, now watergate does not bother me. Isn't that
the lyric? Now watergate does not bother he does not
bother me? Thank he's being kind of sarcastic there is
Does your conscience bother you? In other words, are you
projecting your your guilty feeling you being people who aren't Southern?
(38:42):
Are you projecting your feelings of guilt onto us because
your conscience is bothering you? I mean, you're every you
all are the people who voted for, you know, mister Nixon,
And he's a he's a crook. You know, That's how
I read it. But again, Ronnie, it's dead. He can't
answer these questions.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Mark, this has been wonderful Thank you so much for
your time. Today. I've been talking with Mark Kemp, an
award winning journalist who served as music editor at Rolling Stone,
vice president of Music Editorial at MTV, and the author
of the book Dixie Lullaby, A story of music, race,
and new beginnings in a new South Mark. We'll have
(39:26):
to do this again some time.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Oh, I'd love to Bob. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You've been listening to American History Hotline, a production of
iHeart Podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show is executive
producer is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are
Jordan Runtaal and Jason English. Original music composed by me
Bob Crawford. Please keep in touch. Our email is American
(39:55):
History Hotline at gmail dot com. If you like the show,
please tell your friends and leave us a review in
Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Feel free to
hit me up on social media to ask a history
question or to let me know what you think of
the show. You can find me at Bob Crawford Base.
(40:17):
Thanks so much for listening. To see you next week.
Host
Bob Crawford
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