Calling a genre "southern rock" is a bit redundant, if you ask Gregg Allman, whose group, the Allman Brothers Band, is part of the movement. His feeling was that most rock music comes from south of the Mason-Dixon anyway, so the geographical qualifier is unnecessary. But if, like many rock fans, you do buy into the idea of "southern rock" � an unpretentious, working class, guitar and piano driven brand of rock music primary played by guys whose long hair just about covered their rednecks � you can make the argument that ground zero is right here, on 1973′s Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd.

Think of it like this: Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin preceded Black Sabbath, but Sabbath is attributed with creating heavy metal with their 1970 debut. Similarly, even though the Allmans and ZZ Top had already released some classic albums by '73, the aforementioned were more like blues bands making rock music. With Lynyrd Skynyrd and Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, the south had its own radio and arena-ready act.

Let's get "Freebird" out of the way first. Along with Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven," it was one of the epic deep-ballad-that-morphs-into-deep-rocker songs that dominated the radio in the '70s and continues to be a staple on classic rock stations to this day. Depending on where you sit, "Freebird" either symbolizes everything you love or everything you hate about Skynyrd and '70s rock. Four decades later, the song has become one of music's biggest cliches, inescapable at concerts and large events thanks to The Most Annoying Dude In The Crowd. But if, somehow, you haven't heard the song in, say, five years and you return to it with open ears, you might be surprised by how well it holds up. "Freebird" would not have become so irritatingly legendary were it not a great song.