These 5 Songs Defined '80s Southern Rock

For some, the Southern rock label is a ridiculous moniker to give a genre of music. Scott B. Bomar, who wrote the definitive guide to Southern rock bands, explained to Folio Weekly, "Rock 'n' roll in general sort of belongs to the South from the get-go ... You have these traditions of country and blues music coming together to form rock 'n' roll. The roots of Southern rock ... as an idea, it goes back to the very genesis of rock 'n' roll, of how deep the roots and the history goes."

But there is no arguing that, starting with the Allman Brothers in 1969, Southern musicians began experimenting with a new sound, one steeped in their own traditions. While the songs that defined '70s Southern rock were breaking new ground, by the 1980s, the genre was well-established and had seen many crossover hits on the charts. The Southern rock anthems that would define its second decade were no longer asking to be accepted — they assumed they would be — but wrestling with that mainstream appeal was just another kind of difficulty for the musicians who were more used to not quite fitting in with other showbiz types. Here are five songs that deftly handled that contradiction and defined '80s Southern rock.

Destined to be one-hit wonders, arguably because their first hit was so good it was impossible to follow up on, the Georgia Satellites didn't realize they were a Southern rock band and even resisted the following they gained in that genre at first. Released in 1986, their song, "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart by February of 1987.

The song's writer, Dan Baird, told Rolling Stone, "We were going, 'This is a rock 'n' roll song; it's not a country song!' We love country music, we know what it is — we're not it." But a whole generation had listened to the Southern rock songs of the 1970s and knew it when they heard it. Baird explained, "We were a rock 'n' roll band that the NASCAR people picked up on. The death of Ronnie Van Zant left such a gaping hole ..." Note to musicians: If you can even remotely compare your music to that of Lynyrd Skynyrd, then you might be a Southern rock band.

"Keep Your Hands to Yourself" became a staple of honkey tonks and was covered by several other country music stars, including Hank Williams Jr. and the Charlie Daniels Band. Baird said, "Somebody made the comment that it was the song that saved rock 'n' roll and ruined country music at the same time. It meant, it brought rock 'n' roll back to its roots for a few minutes, but it turned the corner on country being afraid of dumb loud guitars."

Few Southern rock bands had the connections that 38 Special did. Co-founded by Donnie Van Zant, the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant, and originally working with Lynyrd Skynyrd's management company, there was no question what genre their music fit into. Founded in the 1970s, the group's breakout album was 1981's "Wild-Eyed Southern Boys," which included the single "Hold On Loosely." While it peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100, the song's video holds the distinction of being the 13th to air on the day MTV debuted that year.

Perhaps unexpectedly for a Southern rock band with such an illustrious pedigree, their breakout single was co-written by someone who was not a part of that world at all. Jim Peterik, a songwriter who also co-wrote Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," said in an interview with the Nashville Songwriters Association International (via The Tennessean), "The thing that's unique about the sound of 38 Special is you took a Southern rock band from Florida and a pop/rock guy from Chicago, and you put them together, and you got this hybrid that really didn't exist before." Something about the combination worked immediately. "Don Barnes and Jeff Carlisi sat at my kitchen table, and the first thing we wrote was [the intro to 'Hold On Loosely']. We caught lightning in a bottle. So we had a high bar to live up to after that."

Since he was born and raised in Florida, Tom Petty knew what he was talking about when he wrote the 1985 song "Southern Accents," released with his band the Heartbreakers. The song and the titular album it comes from were written at a time when Petty was bored with the kind of music he had been making and wanted to try to flex his artistic muscles a bit. He ended up making almost a concept album about the South and being a Southerner in America at that time. He told American Songwriter, "When I started working on it I had the title. Because that's what got me off on that trip, that title. I thought that this is a great idea, because the South is so rich. It's just this mythic kind of place."

Petty's story of writing the tune makes it seem like it was just out there in the universe waiting for him to find it: "I was all alone in the studio, everybody had gone, and I was playing the piano. And boom, here's this song. ... One of the best songs I ever wrote. It just appeared." He was not the only one to feel a deep connection to it. The song appealed to other Southerners as well — not always for the right reasons. It didn't help that Petty leaned into the more controversial Southern Pride aspects on his tour for the album, heavily featuring the Confederate flag. In 2015, Petty told Rolling Stone that the use of the flag initially was meant to accompany a song about a character from the Civil War, saying, "but the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do."

Based on looks alone, you would probably assume that the guys of ZZ Top were about to bust out some banjos rather than electric guitars. But the trio were chameleons, both in looks and in sound, so while the Texas natives are considered a definitive Southern rock band (it helps to have a deep understanding of that state's culture to fully understand their earlier work), in the 1980s, they found massive crossover appeal, starting with 1983's "Gimme All Your Lovin'," which cracked the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 37.

On MTV, however, the song saw a different level of popularity. When Frank Beard (the band's ironically beardless drummer) became obsessed with the music channel, he pushed for the group to make videos for their new album. The results were iconic. "Gimme All Your Lovin'" was one of the '80s music videos that defined MTV's bygone era, and ZZ Top followed it up with equally brilliant videos set in the same universe for "Legs" and "Sharp Dressed Man." Three women, meant to represent versions of the band themselves, rescue uncool young men from bad situations and make their lives epic, all while ZZ Top cheers them on from the sidelines of the videos.

Arguably, Hank Williams Jr. is a musician who only became famous because of his father, Hank Williams Sr., who tragically died when the younger Hank was just 3 years old. He has managed to move past his nepo baby status thanks to some big hits, including 1984's "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight," which hit No. 10 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

While Hank Jr. is a country artist, some of his work was heavily influenced by Southern rock and outlaw country, and in this case, the song blends rock and country and blurs the lines between the genres. The video really makes this standard of second-generation Southern rock stand out. In the guise of a party thrown by Williams Jr., it features a seemingly endless lineup of country celebrities: George Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Jim Varney, two members of The Oak Ridge Boys, just to name a few. Cheech and Chong even make an appearance. No surprise, then, that it became the first to win the CMA Music Video of the Year Award.

But the appeal of this Southern rock-tinged anthem extended beyond country fans. In a 2011 interview for the Arkansas Memories Project, the video's producer, John Ware, explained, "... it was the first country video to ever go on MTV. And then it got on heavy rotation on MTV. And it totally changed Hank's life. And then ABC got involved and wanted it for football." The song was altered slightly and became the famous Monday Night Football theme, "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over For Monday Night Football."