For 45 years, The Allman Brothers Band took rock-n-roll and stretched it into the unlimited possibilities of blues and jazz. They were an empty canvas of melodic influences that encompassed broad, rich paint strokes of English hard rock pioneers Cream, jazz improvisation maestro John Coltrane, and Chicago blues master Muddy Waters.

One of the true beauties of living in the mountains of Western North Carolina is the sheer fact that you can’t throw a rock in any direction without hitting someone who is a picker and a grinner.

Catch him if you can. For the better part of the last 25 years, Scott Weiland has been a moving target within the music industry. Lightning struck twice for the singer, as a front man for both Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, two of the most successful rock acts in the modern era. And yet, with success, comes a price.

Are your ears playing tricks on you?

As you turn the radio dial to a country music station these days, all you hear is pop, rock and hip-hop. Surely, this can’t be the result of the sacred musical traditions of Nashville handed down through the generations by the likes of Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings?

It’s the soundtrack of America.

Forty-five years ago, The Allman Brothers Band burst onto the scene. With an intoxicating blend of squealing LA rock-n-roll, poignant Greenwich Village folk and bayou voodoo blues, the Macon, Georgia band plugged in and kicked off a whole new genre of sound — Southern rock.