38 Special

40-year-plus veteran Southern-rock power staple 38 Special, with special guest Molly Hatchet, are getting us out for a classic rock-charged outdoor opportunity to stretch out and live the devil-may-care, sun’s-out/guns-out amphitheater life, as they make a stop at Murfreesboro’s Hop Springs Brew Park amphitheater on Saturday, May 15.

“The music keeps our wheels on the road,” says 38 Special lead guitarist and vocalist Don Barnes. “We started out with nothing but bold determination to make our own history and to endure. Looking back now, it has been our greatest pride to have preserved and attained that level of success and longevity. For us, it’s the ultimate validation.”

Even 38 Special and Molly Hatchet, both relentlessly touring bands who can each play up to 250 shows a year, couldn’t escape the blockade the pandemic presented. Shuffled and paused schedules could feel ominously uncertain.

But, no matter how bumpy the road . . .

Both bands hail from Florida where 38 Special begins the tour in Panama City on May 8. Molly Hatchet won’t be hopping on the Historic 2021 Hope and Validation Tour wagon (there’s not an official name for the tour, but, man, that works) until their May 14 show in Huntsville, Alabama, a day before their Hop Springs show on May 15. These two shows are the only ones on which Molly Hatchet is scheduled to join 38 Special before “travelin’ down the road” (and flirtin’ with disaster) in another direction. However they roll, the current Hatchet lineup includes Bobby Ingram on lead guitar and slide (electric and acoustic), Tim Lindsey on bass and background vocals, John Galvin playing the keys, Sean Beamer on drums and Phil McCormick on the band’s iconic lead vocals as they grace the tour with their Southern-rocked mix of early ’70s-influenced blues, country, gospel and English-rock invasion.

38 Special’s lineup has changed plenty in its 47-year career. A hot 10-year run made their name between the band’s 1977 self-titled debut through ’86’s Strength in Numbers. Founding member Donnie Van Zant retired from the band in 2013 due to health issues.

38 Special is currently on a two-year run with the only connection to the original sextet being the relentless Don Barnes on lead vocals, guitar, mandolin, keys and harmonica.

“For 38 Special onstage, it is a celebration of camaraderie and brotherhood, a precision unit bringing the dedication and honesty to a long history of classic songs, as well as surprisingly fresh new material,” says Barnes. “We never wanted to be one of those bands that had maybe gotten a little soft or complacent over the years. We’re a team, and it’s always been kind of an unspoken rule that we don’t slack up, we stack up. We go out there every night to win.”

Bobby Capps on keys and vocals, Barry Dunaway on bass, drummer Gary Moffatt and the addition of virtuoso guitarist/vocalist Jerry Riggs comprise the current 38 Special lineup. 2021 marks the 40th anniversary celebration of 1981’s Wild-Eyed Southern Boys, from whence come the hits “Hold On Loosely,” “Fantasy Girl” and “Back Alley Sally.”

“Caught Up in You” came out the following year, off of the 1982 album Special Forces.

“Timeless hits that remain a staple at radio, immediately recognizable from the first opening chord, and paving the way to their present day touring regimen,” Craig Campbell of Campbell Entertainment Group, part of the publicity team for 38 Special, said of the band.

2004’s Drivetrain, which gave us the forcibly detaining hit “Trooper With an Attitude,” used for the introduction of Super Troopers, is the group’s freshest studio album to pull from and was followed by its latest live album, 2011’s 38 Special Live from Texas, which stands as a solid set list for warm May nights, no matter which state we’re in.

Tickets for the May 15 show at Hop Springs can be found through 38special.com and mollyhatchet.com, or through ticketmaster.com.

Hop Springs Beer Park is located at 6790 John Bragg Hwy. (out towards Woodbury) in Murfreesboro. Directions and information pertaining to all of the worthwhile outdoor attractions they have on their huge tract of land, can be found at hopspringstn.com.