Studio One had become a focal point for the Southern rock scene. A song about their hometown in Georgia, ‘Doraville’ also played a key part in defining the band’s identity and affiliations. ‘Doraville’, a single taken from their third album Third Annual Pipe Dream (1974), finally gave them a foothold in the US chart, reaching No.35. With Hammond on board, the band began to find its feet, but commercial success remained elusive. The title song of Back Up Against The Wall, a Buie/Cobb composition all about barroom brawls and last-ditch stands, plugged into the Southern “outlaw” mythology with a typically stylish flourish and was later covered by country singer Travis Tritt. Cobb, who co-wrote many of the songs which Hammond sang with deceptive ease and good-old-boy passion.
“He was largely responsible for a lot of our success,” said guitarist James B. The late Ronnie Van Zandt of Lynyrd Skynyrd is reported to have called Hammond the best singer he’d ever heard, a view echoed by many of those in and around the group.
Buie invited him to join ARS as the lead vocalist and Hammond obliged, announcing his presence in no uncertain terms with the band’s second album Back Up Against The Wall (1973). Ronnie Hammond was an assistant engineer at Studio One, who was also a multi-instrumentalist and an accomplished session singer. The band did not have to go far to find Justo’s replacement. After a tour supporting Deep Purple and Buddy Miles, the band returned to the day job in Studio One, but without Justo, who took off in search of more lucrative work on the New York session scene. Despite the great chops, the album was not a commercial success. Their songs were elegantly crafted with funky keyboard fills, creamy, virtuoso guitar licks and Justo’s melodic vocal lines well to the fore. But although geographically well-placed to benefit from the spotlight that was by then shining on regional stars such as the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and others, Atlanta Rhythm Section was not your typical Southern rock-a-boogie band. The album was produced by Buie who also co-wrote many of the songs on this and indeed all of the albums recorded by ARS.īuie’s plan was to spin a hit single from the first album and get the band out of their studio haunts and on to the road. Cobb (guitar), Paul Goddard (bass), Dean Daughtry (keyboards) and Robert Nix (drums).
The line-up which featured on the band’s first album, Atlanta Rhythm Section, released in 1972, comprised Rodney Justo (vocals), Barry Bailey (guitar), James B. The six-man band from Doraville, Georgia were not superstars like the Eagles or Steely Dan although they certainly tasted mainstream success with a string of US hit singles in the 1970s that included ‘So Into You’, ‘Imaginary Lover’ and ‘Spooky’, and a platinum album, Champagne Jam, which charted at US No.7 in 1978.īut they could write, sing and play as well as any of the melodic-rock giants, and in a recording career which stretched from 1972 to 1999, Atlanta Rhythm Section produced a significant catalogue of “hardcore muso” excellence, of which the chart hits were just the tip of the iceberg.Ītlanta Rhythm Section was assembled in 1971 by the producer, songwriter and manager Buddy Buie from a pool of session musicians who worked at Studio One, a recording facility in Doraville, near Atlanta, Georgia.
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