In the early 1970s, a wave of Southern rock groups, including Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, ZZ Top, Charlie Daniels Band, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, began to break the dominance of the invasion British band charts. These southern rockers, with their harder edge and deep blues roots, set themselves apart from more traditional country rock bands like Poco, Flying Burrito Brothers, and New Riders of the Purple Sage. The new anthems of southern rock were full of macho stereotypes, many of them related to drinking and fighting.
In 1973 the Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Charlie Daniels Band incorporated bars and fights into their debut singles. Rather than the arrogance you’d expect, both songs, CBD’s “Uneasy Rider” and Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps,” boasted of how they managed to stay out of Of fights.
“Gimme Three Steps,” produced by Al Kooper of the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat and Tears, was written by Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. The song tells the story of what happens to Ronnie when a jealous boyfriend catches him while dancing in a bar “with a girl named Linda Lou”.
“Gimme Three Steps” arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, during a visit to the WT West Tavern by Van Zant, Collins and guitarist Gary Rossington. A girl asked Van Zant to dance, which only became a problem when her boyfriend arrived and a fight broke out.
“The guy pulled out a gun and said it would blow Ronnie’s brains out,” Rossington said. “And Ronnie said, ‘Please let me go. I don’t know the girl. I don’t want to see her again. ‘ And he turned around and said, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, you’re going to have to shoot me in the ass or my elbows.
The three of them headed to the door and wrote “Give me three steps” on the car on the way home.
“Uneasy Rider,” written by Charlie Daniels, tells the funny story of a long-haired stoner whose car breaks down outside a redneck bar in Jackson, Mississippi. To get out of trouble, Daniels accuses one of the locals of being a spy. Daniels said he wrote “Uneasy Rider” while at a rock festival in Baton Rogue, Louisiana in 1969, right after the film’s release. Easy rider.
At the climax of the film, the long-haired motorcyclists who ride through Dixie are shot when some locals disliked their appearance. The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane members who performed at the concert believed that art could easily become a reality there at Baton Rogue.
“I was born and raised in the South and I thought that attitude was fun,” Daniels said. “And I think that’s what started me thinking in that direction.”
But the situation – and the bar – were pure fiction, although Daniels based the line, “I just reached out and kicked old Green Teeth in the knee” to someone he knew. “Actually, I once knew a guy who had green teeth. He had tartar on his teeth, and they actually turn green if you don’t remove it,” Daniels said. “And that’s where that came from.”