CMT Blog: Archive

At first all I could hear was the percussive hand-clapping. I couldn't get over how cool it sounded at the beginning of Eli Young Band's "Gimme Three Steps" from the Sweet Home Alabama -- The Country Music Tribute To Lynyrd Skynyrd album out tomorrow (July 20) at Walmart stores. So that was my first question when I talked to James Young (the "Young" in Eli Young Band).

"You can't believe how funny it was to see all these grown men sitting around in a circle in the recording studio and clapping hands," he laughed. But the result is fantastic. True enough to the original Skynyrd tune, with its signature cowbell, but modern enough to keep the Southern rock sound alive with their own Texas spin on the 1973 hit, layering the claps with cowbell and tambourine.

Young also told me that they were so honored to be asked to join the album, and when it came time to choose a song to do, he said, "Everyone looked at me because I'm the classic Southern rock guy. And that opening riff on 'Steps' just popped in my head. Being a guitar player, so many Skynyrd songs are all about the riff," he said.

Young said it was cool for him to hear what the rest of the artists had done. "Ashley Ray's 'Sweet Home Alabama' is so slow it's almost a love song," he said. Other tracks include Eric Church on "The Ballad of Curtis Loew," Jamey Johnson on "Four Walls of Raiford," Randy Houser on "Simple Man" and Uncle Kracker on "All I Can Do Is Write About It."