38 Special
Rockin' Into The Night

I adore this band, not really caring that their southern rock doesn't quite have the sweat, old blues, dust, and whiskey flavor of the most orthodox and fascinating tradition of the genre. The two guitars are solid and cohesive, the rhythm section bombards considerably without overdoing it, the vocals are not transcendental but competent, the melodies are convincing, the riffs sharp and fun, the production perfect with rocky and yet clear sounds, creating great melodic hard rock with guts, more thought out than instinctive but impeccable.

After their first two albums, the most impetuous in their career but also the most anonymous, oscillating between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Atlanta Rhythm Section, the respective leaders of the genre's rough and gentle soul, with the third work released at the dawn of 1980, the sextet (two guitars, two drums, bass, and vocals) emancipates itself, focuses, finds its personality, showcasing its first native pearls to thread into the shiny necklace of southern rock.

There are two lead vocals alternating, sometimes pairing up behind the microphones: besides Donnie Van Zant (the family's second son, with the eldest being the late leader of Lynyrd and the youngest still replacing him in that band), we have one of the two guitarists, named Don Barnes, who is a frontman in every respect, performing half of the repertoire, with his tense and heartfelt tone, very little southern compared to the drawling, laid-back, and ironic voice of his colleague.

This alternation of vocal approach is what gives diversification and dynamism to 38 Special's offering. The more relaxed Van Zant raises the southern level of the songs, while the more brooding Barnes lowers it, tending to steer the band towards almost AOR destinations. Without the almost in the case of the opening track, which also titles the work and is authored by Jim Peterik and Frank Sullivan of Survivor, those of "Eye Of The Tiger". Naturally, it's the most accessible and disingenuous episode, at the time, unsurprisingly, their first successful single on the American market.

It's not bad... but better are the subsequent "Stone Cold Believer", with a beautiful instrumental interlude led by the guest Fender electric piano of Billy Powell (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and "Take Me Through The Night", soft and southern thanks to Van Zant's voice and the nonchalant slide guitar of the other guitarist, Jeff Carlisi.

Strong and convincing is the instrumental "Robin Hood", which, consistent with its title, opens with a guitar phrase reminiscent of ancient heraldic trumpets, then welcomes the rhythm section and starts galloping greatly, developing the "medieval" theme of the start through a series of evolutions, variations, overlays, and stop&go, with the two guitarists going wild harmonizing with each other, making their instruments sing in delightful and satisfying obligatos. In my opinion, it's undoubtedly the album's summit, but the subsequent "You Got the Deal" is also not bad, very straightforward yet equally vigorous in its well-known but highly catchy syncopated fourth chords game, a bit Who-like.

The southern rock of these Jacksonville, Florida, gunslingers is compact and song-focused. The tracks all last between three and five minutes, solos are few bars, and there is no room for instrumental escapes, psychedelic jams stretched to the limit, vocal trills and blues invocations for the audience's delight, improvisations in the spur of the moment. They are well-chewed and sharp arrangements, more or less pedantically repeated even in concert, in antithesis to certain free form aspirations that have inspired large and famous formations of this genre.

For this reason, 38 Special have also garnered quite a few detractors among American southern rock enthusiasts. For them, the typically pop synthesis they apply to the genre, never letting themselves go, never exaggerating, and always and in any case focusing on the overall balance and effectiveness of the pieces, constitutes reason for even cunningness, or at least disinterest. Not for me, I can say with certainty: among the folds of their disputed accessibility and inoffensiveness of good southern boys, I find many examples of class, inspiration, and good taste.