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The Chuck Davis African-American Dance Ensemble creates sounds of African folk songs as part of the Southern Accents Festival
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By CHRIS CAIN
Staff Writer
There was a time when Southern
Rock V Roll meant Lynyrd Sky
nyrd, Molly Hatchet, maybe the
Allman Brothers.
But times they are a changin' in
ways Mr. Dylan might appreciate,
and a different sound is coming from
below the Mason-Dixon line. "It's the
new Southern sound," says Bill Davis
of the New Orleans band Dash Rip
Rock, "(It's) heavy on what's called
clean guitar, jangly guitar."
Davis and his group, along with
Love Tractor and Guadalcanal
Dairy, will bring their spotless,
jangling guitars to the Great Hall on
Friday afternoon for a performance.
The band is playing in Chapel Hill
courtesy of the "Southern Accents"
Fine Arts Festival, and it is therefore
no mistake that all three bands hail
from the South.
The new sound of the South, more
pop-rock than anything done by the
likes of ZZ-Top, has been made
nationally and internationally pop
ular by bands such as REM and
Jason and the Scorchers. Many of
today's critics have praised Southern
bands who draw on folk or blues
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that has caught on in Yankeeland as
well as Dixie. All three groups
playing the Great Hall have made
tours throughout the United States.
John Poe, drummer for Guadal
canal Dairy, sees one main theme
running throughout the new South
ern music: "It's played with a real
kick-up-your-heels style .... It calls
you to jump up, hoot and holler, turn
out the big jar with the XXX."
The Southern bands started out by
playing for parties instead of in clubs
or bars. This tends to create what
Glenn Chitlick, manager of the
Athens, Georgia band Love Tractor,
calls "front porch music" with a real
Southern feel.
"All the bands started playing
parties," he says. "Athens is a
Southern town and most houses have
front or back porches which they play
from. People are playing live music
and making people happy."
Chitlick emphasizes that all the
members of Love Tractor grew up
in the South, either in Richmond, Va.
or Athens. "Geography has more to
do with it than anything else. They
are Southern."
Poe says the same for Guadalcanal
Diary: "Number one, we certainly
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because we were all born and raised
here." The band members, with the
exception of Poe, are from Marietta,
Ga., and are now based in Athens.
"Something about the humidity and
bugs that sort of gets to us," he says
slowly, taking a break from a sweaty
morning of chain-sawing in the
backyard.
Members of Dash Rip Rock grew
up in New Orleans and therefore see
themselves as different from their
Georgia and North Carolina neigh
bors. Says lead guitarist Bill
Davis:"We're not only Southern,
we're New Orleans . . . we're Deep
South. We try to set ourselves apart;
we're down here on the Gulf Coast
and it's a world apart down here."
He sees the group's music as insep
arable from the Louisiana Bayou,
where the band began. "We call it
a mixture of swamp rock and
swampy blues," he said.
New Orleans lies equadistant from
Georgia and Texas, and Davis says
Dash Rip Rock received influences
from Athens to Austin. The group
combines the new pop sounds he sees
as coming out of Athens bands such
as REM and Guadalcanal Dairy with
the straight-ahead rockabilly of
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Dash's first album, "Dash Rip
Rock" ("Well get creative later," says
Davis), was released this week, and
on it are specifically Southern lyrics.
"We relate with the Southern thing
by writing lyrics which are ethereal
. .. we relate back to Creedence
Clearwater Revival the mysteries,
the swamp," Davis says. He describes '
it as "Southern mystic." Many of the
band's lyrics are also based on
Southern literature, he says.
Poe says he and the other members
of Guadalcanal Dairy are big fans
of Southern writers. Their lyrics are
often influenced by such writers as
Flannery O' Connor and Eudora
Welty. There are-certain Southern
themes he sees as unavoidable for
anyone growing up in the South, as
the band members did. Two
members, in fact, grew up "in the
shadow of Kennesaw Mountain," the
site of a famous Civil War battle.
"Half the town is Civil War mon
uments and cemeteries. They've
grown up with it in their blood," Poe
says.
Songs such as "Pray for Rain" and
"Fear of God" on Guadalcanal
' Dairy 's most recent album ("Jambo
ree") reveal another aspect of life in
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able in the Southern Bible Belt," Poe
savs. "The fear of God is inctillpH in
us all. I have a neighbor who
apologizes to me for hanging out her
laundry on Sunday."
Love Tractor began its career by
playing tunes without lyrics and, says
manager Chitlick. "once they got
comfortable playing together they
started singing." Their new album,
"This Ain't No Outerspace Ship,"
includes only two instrumental
pieces. The band sings upbeat songs,
such as a remake of the Gap Band's
"Party Train," along with some that
have a certain Southern flavor, such
as "Small Town" or "Outside the Big
Star."
Words are perhaps not Love
Tractor's forte, however. anH Chi
tlick says he believes the Southern
Rock" classification may be unreal
istic. "With communication and
radio and TV regional things arent
regional anymore." he says:
"Southern Rock is a bastardized
term," he adds. "Not too long ago
it meant Molly Hatchet. Now when
vou DUt REM. Love Tractor, the
Connells up there it just doesn't fit.
"But the fact is. we are Southern
Rock: We're rock and roll and we're
Southexnajitbat's, thewa is." .
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