Counting Down Southern Rock by C. Eric Banister

Author:C. Eric Banister
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

42. “Fire on the Mountain,” the Marshall Tucker Band (from Searchin’ for a Rainbow, 1975)

Three albums into the Marshall Tucker Band’s recording career, guitarist Toy Caldwell carried the songwriting burden completely, with only two exceptions: their recording of the blues standard “Everyday (I Have the Blues)” and “Now She’s Gone,” a cowrite with brother Tommy, both recorded for their third album, Where We All Belong. As they headed into recording their fourth album, his writing was showing no signs of weakening, but the confidence in other band members had grown. As such, Tommy brought in the song “Keeps Me from All Wrong” to the group as his first solo piece. Guitarist George McCorkle then brought a song that would become one of the band’s signature songs, though it wasn’t even intended for the Marshall Tucker Band.

With the sharing of often similar backgrounds and worldviews, there was a loose kinship between members of Southern Rock bands. One of the tightest relationships was the one developed between the members of the Marshall Tucker Band and Charlie Daniels. The two shared concert stages across the country, and Daniels had played fiddle on their second and third albums. Daniels had just teamed up with Paul Hornsby, who had produced the records of the Marshall Tucker Band, in an effort to focus the sound of the Charlie Daniels Band into something different than their earlier records. The first of several projects would be called Fire on the Mountain. For McCorkle, the title conjured up vivid images, and a story began to unfold in his mind. Putting pen to paper, he drafted a mysterious tale of a man who strikes out from his “Carolina home,” heading west in search of gold. Once done, he gave it to his friend for his new album, though, ultimately, Daniels decided not to record the song, encouraging McCorkle to take it to his band.

The Marshall Tucker Band’s songs always carried a strong sense of home, that being South Carolina, though Toy would often place that center in points west, telling stories that brought to mind western themes, such as their fourth album’s title track. So this song of westward travel fit right in with what the band was already doing.

Toy’s pedal steel opens the song with lush, gliding chords, drawing inspiration from the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me,” before McCorkle joins with a syncopated rhythm, raised up by Paul Riddle’s loping drums and Capricorn session percussionist Jerome Joseph’s congas emulating the steps of the travelers’ horses. Doug Gray takes McCorkle’s words and conveys them with the determination of someone who is taking their family on a cross-country journey into mystery. He sings of a six-month trip, his eye constantly on the prize represented by that fire on the mountain. At each chorus, Charlie Daniels provides a fiddle set low in the mix that adds a buoyancy to the lines, and after Gray’s first run through the chorus, McCorkle enters with a descending, double-tracked acoustic part that adds an air

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