When you wake up and want to put a smile on your face, you think of the songs that always manage to reach down and touch your soul the moment you hear the first note. The Marshall Tucker Band is one such group that continues to have a profound level of impact on successive generations of listeners who’ve been "Searchin’ for a Rainbow" and found it perfectly represented by this tried-and-true Southern institution over the decades.
The Marshall Tucker Band came together as a young, hungry, and quite driven six-piece outfit in Spartanburg, SC in 1972, having duly baptized themselves with the name of a blind piano tuner after they found it inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space—and they’ve been in tune with tearing it up on live stages both big and small all across the globe ever since. Plus, the band’s mighty music catalog, consisting of more than 20 studio albums and a score of live releases, has racked up multi-platinum album sales many times over. A typically rich MTB setlist is bubbling over with a healthy dose of hits like the heartfelt singalong “Heard It in a Love Song,” the insistent pleading of “Can’t You See” (the signature tune of MTB’s late co-founding lead guitarist and then-principal songwriter Toy Caldwell), the testifying “Fire on the Mountain,” the wanderlust gallop of “Long Hard Ride,” and the explosive testimony of “Ramblin,’” to name but a few.
Indeed, the secret ingredient to the ongoing success of The Marshall Tucker Band’s influence can be seen and felt far and wide throughout many mainstream digital outlets (Netflix, Amazon, etc.). In essence, it’s this inimitable down-home sonic style that helped make the MTB the first truly progressive Southern band to grace this nation’s airwaves—the proof of which can be found within the grooves and ever-shifting gears of “Take the Highway,” the first song on their self-titled April 1973 debut album on Capricorn Records, The Marshall Tucker Band. “We had the commonality
of having all grown up together in Spartanburg,” explains Gray about his original MTB bandmates, guitar wizard Toy Caldwell and his brother, bassist Tommy Caldwell, alongside rhythm guitarist George McCorkle, drummer Paul T. Riddle, and flautist/saxophonist Jerry Eubanks.
The Marshall Tucker Band includes Doug Gray (lead vocals), B.B. Borden (drums), Ryan Ware (bass / vocals), Marcus James Henderson (keyboards/saxophone/flute/vocals), Chris Hicks (guitar/vocals), and Rick Willis (guitar/vocals).
The Outlaws
For The Outlaws, it’s always been about the music. For more than 40 years, the Southern Rock legends celebrated triumphs and endured tragedies to remain one of the most influential and best-loved bands of the genre. Today, The Outlaws have returned with new music, new focus, and an uncompromising new mission: It’s about a band of brothers bound together by history, harmony, and the road. It’s about a group that respects its own legacy while refusing to be defined by its past. But most of all, it’s about pride.
It’s About Pride was also the title of the band’s acclaimed 2012 album, universally hailed as their victorious comeback. “Because The Outlaws had been out of the public eye for so long, it was almost like starting over,” explains founding singer/songwriter/guitarist Henry Paul. “But because of the band’s history, we dig deeper, write better, perform stronger. Everything we do is to reinforce the notion that The Outlaws still matter, and that Southern Rock will always matter. It’s a message we’re proud to bring into the 21st century.”
Formed in Tampa in 1972, The Outlaws—known for their triple-guitar rock attack and three-part country harmonies—became one of the first acts signed by Clive Davis (at the urging of Ronnie Van Zant) to his then-fledgling Arista Records. The band’s first three albums The Outlaws, Lady In Waiting, and Hurry Sundown—featuring such rock radio favorites as "There Goes Another Love Song," "Green Grass & High Tides," "Knoxville Girl," and "Freeborn Man"—would become worldwide gold and platinum landmarks of the Southern Rock era. Known as ‘The Florida Guitar Army’ by their fans, The Outlaws earned a formidable reputation as an incendiary live act touring with friends The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Marshall Tucker Band, and The Charlie Daniels Band, as well as The Doobie Brothers, The Who, Eagles, and The Rolling Stones.
Henry Paul left after the group’s third album to form The Henry Paul Band for Atlantic Records, and later co-founded the multi-Platinum country trio BlackHawk. Over the next 20+ years, The Outlaws would experience rampant personnel changes, tonal missteps, ill-fated reunions, and bitter trademark battles that left fans, frustrated and saddened. And with the tragic deaths of co-founding members Frank O’Keefe and Billy Jones in 1995 and songwriter/vocalist/lead guitarist Hughie Thomasson in 2007, it was feared that The Outlaws’ trail had come to an end.
When Henry Paul took leadership of the band in 2008, he firmly put The Outlaws back on a path both trusted and celebrated by longtime fans. “Audiences discovered that The Outlaws have something to say that is as engaging as when we began,” says Paul, “which is why every night when we perform, we give nothing less than everything we’ve got.” Along with founding member Paul, the band features several of Southern Rock’s most respected players: Keyboardist/vocalist Dave Robbins is a co-founding member of BlackHawk and has written hits for artists that include Restless Heart, Kenny Rogers, and Eric Clapton. Longtime bassist/vocalist Randy Threet has performed with Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, and BlackHawk, and is familiar to audiences from USA Network’s Nashville Star. Lead guitarist Jimmy Dormire has played to millions with Confederate Railroad, Colonel Bruce Hampton, and The Luke Wheeler Band on the TV series Nashville. Drummer Michael Grando—who replaces the band’s retired/beloved co-founder Monte Yoho—has powered the beat for artists that include Joe Diffie, Jason Aldean, and Chris Knight. Vocalist/co-guitarist Jeff Aulich brings new fire to the band’s harmony arrangements and six-string pyrotechnics. The Outlaws have not only re-emerged as what fans now call ‘Southern Rock’s Last Band Standing,’ but as a dedicated band of brothers who still write, play, and perform with the skill, grit, and fire of acts a fraction of their age.
