Everything you need to know about Molly Hatchet you can learn from their first two albums, back when vocalist Danny Joe Brown delivered his throaty drawls on the subjects of whiskey, women and warfare. And gators, of course. They were the third outfit to continue Florida's Southern Rock winning streak, after the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Gator Country," off their 1978 self-titled debut, replicated exactly Dickey Betts' molasses guitar delivery, and if the Allman Brothers connection wasn't explicit enough, they threw in a cover of "Dreams" to dispel any doubts. The next album Flirtin' with Disaster really burned the barn down, delivering one shoot-out-the-lights, good ol' boy anthem after another. With the replacement of Danny Joe Brown by bearish Jimmy Farrar in 1980, Hatchet undeniably started to lose their drive. Brown later returned, but by then the dust had already settled on the band's name. They assumed their current status as hirsute has-beens by sporadically recapturing their glory days on outdoor concert stages across the South.
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