Molly Hatchet

Fall Of The Peacemakers 1980-1985 HEAR NO EVIL

Box set of high-proof southern rock – with added Free Bird!

In the wake of the disaster in 1977 that cut down Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime – the plane crash that killed six people, including singer Ronnie Van Zant – a young band, closely tied to Skynyrd, emerged among the new standardbearers for southern rock. Molly Hatchet formed in Skynyrd’s home town of Jacksonville, and had been mentored by Ronnie Van Zant. Shortly before his death, Ronnie had signed up to produce Hatchet’s debut album.

This new box set, named after the group’s greatest song, features three studio albums released between 1981 and

1984, and the following year’s career-defining Double Trouble Live. The bonuses, for connoisseurs, are an earlier live set from 1980, previously issued as a promo-only LP, and a rowdy cover of Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, featuring Ted Nugent.

The earliest of the studio albums, Take No Prisoners, was the band’s fourth, and the second of two to feature vocalist Jimmy Farrar. Among some solid material is the classic Bloody Reunion. On 1983’s No Guts No Glory, the band’s original singer Danny Joe Brown returned, and in Fall Of The Peacemakers, a eulogy for John Lennon, the band had its Free Bird-sized epic. With 1984’s The Deed Is Done, a little AOR gloss was added, but Double Trouble Live was the real deal, filled with smoking boogie, although their version of the original Free Bird, while heartfelt, was ultimately self-defeating.

For all the great music Molly Hatchet made, they always remained in the long shadow cast by the greatest Southern rock band of them all.