Molly Hatchet don’t get no respect, and to the extent that most people remember them at all, it’s for “Flirtin’ with Disaster,” a mad and power-chord crazy gallop towards self-destruction that deservedly stands as a classic of post-Skynyrd Southern rock. And that post-Skynyrd tells you everything you need to know. Southern rock was rapidly un-Southerning itself, and “Flirtin’ with Disaster” is the proof. (By 1981, Molly Hatchet were playing straight-ahead hard rock.) Not that it saved Molly Hatchet from being branded as a second-rate Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jacksonville late-comers aping their hometown betters.
But this is unfair, and Molly Hatchet’s eponymous 1978 debut is the proof. It’s an unapologetic Southern Rock album, and no wonder. Danny Joe Brown may sound too much like Ronnie Van Zant for his own good, but that “Hell yeah!” he opens the album with is almost as iconic (to fans anyway) as Van Zant’s “Turn it up!” And just like Jacksonville’s Finest, Molly Hatchet had themselves a three-guitar army, even if nobody is going to say they were capable of the heights of Rossington, Collins, King, or later Gaines. Still, they had their moments—check out “Boogie No More” on 1979’s Flirtin’ with Disaster. It’s deja vu all over again, a chicken-fried guitar rave-up by three guys you’ll need to consult the liner notes to name.
Molly Hatchet is an essential Southern Rock album for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that the band can do a variety of things and do them well. I’ve never heard any stories about them cutting their bones in a suffocatingly hot shack by an alligator-infested swamp with Danny Joe putting a gun to the drummer’s head as a kindly request to play a song for the twentieth time, but at their best they’re tight as Van Zant on a whisky tear, and sound just as inclined to break said whisky bottle over your head. At their best, these unreconstituted rednecks sound like a bar brawl in progress.
As of this date, every single member of the original band is deceased, which hasn’t deterred them from touring—like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet is proof that Southern rock bands never die, even when you want them to. I’m assuming we’re talking shameless ringers here, and not a band of the Undead. Although a zombified Molly Hatchet actually sounds like a good time. Watching Danny Joe eat the brains of a guy in the front row mid-harmonica solo would make my year.
But I digress, and I digress for a reason. Fans of bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet want to hear their favorites live, and they don’t much care who’s playing them. I don’t understand such people, and I never will. Perhaps it’s enough to hang out in the parking lot before the show, getting drunk and flying the Confederate flag from the back of your pickup truck. Nah, I’m being unfair. I’m sure Molly Hatchet’s fans are a fine bunch of people, upstanding felons and welfare recipients. Jesus, I just keep digging the hole deeper. If you’re a Molly Hatchet fan, I want you to know that my editor is almost certainly going to cut this paragraph, but if he doesn’t, I would just like to add that I’m joking—I’m practically a Southern Boy myself—unless you voted for Donald Trump. In which case, I hope the Undead Danny Joe Brown eats your brains mid-harmonica solo.
As for Molly Hatchet, it opens with the rambunctious “Bounty Hunter,” which goes a long way towards justifying the cover art of Frank “Godfather of Fantasy Art” Frazetta, which is entitled “Death Dealer” and depicts a Hun of the sort you wouldn’t want to meet on the back of a horse you wouldn’t want to meet. Frazetta designed the band’s first three album covers, after which he was replaced by some bozo named Boris Vallejo, another noted sword and sorcery guy, perhaps best known for his annual calendars. Don’t buy the Vallejo album. On principle. Don’t buy the third album either, on aesthetic grounds. Brown was gone, and the Creedence Clearwater Revival cover sucks.
Robert Christgau dismissed Molly Hatchet with the words “Only one thing missing: content.” But he’s wrong. “Bounty Hunter” may not be Skynyrd-worthy, in part because Van Zant was smart enough to always sing about himself and his life, and never would have considered singing from the perspective of anybody else, but the song has gitty-up galore, Danny Joe Brown sure can whistle, and when he ad libs “Did you know 500 dollars will get your head blown off? It will… ha, ha, ha,” he almost sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, all the other oat-fed hokum about his horse kicking up dust notwithstanding.
“Gator Country” has content galore, and stands as a Southern Rock standby because 1) it jumps like fish from a dynamited pond, 2) it is Southern Rock personified, and 3) it proves as much by providing a kind of history lesson on the genre. Molly Hatchet may be Johnny Rebs come lately, but they sure don’t show much respect for their elders, for the simple reason that if the land you’re standing on doesn’t have alligators on it, they want nothing to do with it. The chutzpah of the first stanza (and Danny Joe sings the whole thing with real swamp swagger) speaks volumes:
“I’ve been to Alabama, people ain’t a whole lot to see
Skynyrd says it’s a real sweet home, but it ain’t nothing to me
Charlie Daniels will tell you the good Lord lives in Tennessee, ha!
But I’m goin’ back to gator country, where the wine and the women are free.”
You hear that? Free women! Jacksonville emancipated them! Talk about Southern Enlightenment!
Molly Hatchet then go on to disrespect the home sweet homes of the Charlie Daniels Band, Richard Betts, Elvin Bishop (“out struttin’ his stuff with little Miss Slick Titty Boom”!), and the Marshall Tucker Band before finally saying nice things about the Outlaws, who don’t deserve it but have the good sense to live in Tampa where the tides are high and (presumably) the women are free as well, seeing as how Tampa is also a citizen of the Sunshine State.
Unfortunately, Molly Hatchet can’t keep the momentum going. “The Big Apple” is second-rate Skynyrd, and beyond Brown’s vocals, it doesn’t have much going for it. The guitars lack muscle, although the solo packs a punch, but the song’s real problem is its totally generic quality. Here you have some Southern boys playing the city they probably hate more than any other in the world, but the belligerence just ain’t there, with Brown spending more time singing about collard greens and “sweet little hill women” (what, are they mutants or something?) than about NYC. And when he sings, “Well, we look kinda freaky,” what is he thinking? This is New York City we’re talking about! They look like rubes! That said, he does deliver a challenge of sorts at the end, when he sings, “Well, we’ve heard of your punks and high-heeled steppers/We’re bad southern boys and don’t you forget us.” High-heeled steppers? Is he referring to the New York Dolls? Transvestites? The disco crowd? Just one of those mysteries, I guess.
“The Creeper” is both yet another sad attempt to recapture the risible menace of the Rolling Stones’ worst ever song and a blatant rip of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “The Hunt,” a double-whammy that the more than workmanlike hard-rock riffs can’t make up for. Call it mid-tempo derivative and avoid. “The Price You Pay” is lightweight swamp boogie, which doesn’t quite hold up despite or perhaps because of all of Brown’s moping and moaning about the hangman coming and how he has to share his hot little jail cell in Georgia with a water mocassin of all people because he shot a man in Macon over a poker game and another in Atlanta “just to build” his fame. You can only wonder what Ronnie Van Zant might have made of a title like that. Something deep about the price of fame, no doubt, and how it keeps getting in the way of his fishing.
But wait, I forgot the album’s other keeper, the band’s cover (by way of Buddy Miles’ cover) of the Allman Brothers’ classic “Dreams I’ll Never See.” Molly Hatchet nails it, with Brown summoning up enough muscle to match Gregg Allman on vocals and Jai Winding’s organ providing subtle flavoring. When it comes to the blues, the Hatchet comes through, and while nobody’s going to compare the guitar solo to the work of Brother Duane, it more than gets the job done. And the song never loses its inexorable momentum. Guitar solo No. 2 isn’t as good as guitar solo No. 1, but there’s more showboating involved, so I ain’t complaining. And when they kick into the jazzy fast and whiplash changes in the second half before slowing things down again, they do it like they cut their teeth playing with Miles. Nice.
“I’ll Be Running” is a hard-rocker with a thin but wiry lead guitar riff, and it has the appropriate acceleration, but other than the kick-ass (and very Skynyrd) guitar solos and Brown’s harmonica solo, the song is all grits and no groceries, and other than the chorus, it’s hardly there at all. Despite its banal title (and banal lyrics), “Cheatin’ Woman” is very much there, Southern Hard Rock with titanic riffs and a bottom big and deep enough to accommodate a sunken riverboat. Say what you will about the whole been-there-done-that conceit, the song itself is big, badass, and has probably started a lot of fights. It’s that kind of song. You listen to it and you feel a sudden inspiration to sucker-punch the guy at the next barstool over.
Closer “Trust Your Old Friend” is Skynyrd-derivative and comes complete (aptly enough) with some good advice from mama, but it’s tough and has enough boogie in its DNA to get the folks in the bar off their stools. In short, it’s a likeable number despite its lack of originality, and it boasts a slick gee-tar solo as well as some natty ensemble playing. And while Brown may as well be wearing Ronnie Van Zant’s voice box, he’s likable as well. You’re rooting for him. You’re saying, “You may not be Ronnie, but you can cut all six of his brothers, or however many he has.” I think the number is eight.
Can an album with considerable faults be an essential album as well? Can a B album be an essential album? Of course. I refer you to every Cream album ever made, and don’t even get me started on, say, the Rolling Stones. Molly Hatchet—and its follow-up, Flirtin’ with Disaster—are as good as post-Skynyrd Southern Rock gets. The Hatchet were only able to escape Skynyrd’s shadow by abandoning their Southern roots altogether, which was a wise move commercially but a bad move in every other respect. “Gator Country” and “Dreams I’ll Never See” are Southern Rock at its finest. And a couple of the others may win you over as well. And you can break a whisky bottle over Ronnie Van Zant’s head and he’ll agree. Or will, I’m sure, if you can find him.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
