Shuffle It All: 'pride & glory'

An ongoing series where I revisit a favorite album. This time: When Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist went 'Wylde' on Southern Rock 30 years ago and created one of the great one-offs of the 1990s.

The early to mid-1990s stand as the second golden age of Southern Rock; something I’ll address in an upcoming piece right here on the Mixtape. In the meantime, consider this to be Exhibit A: 1994’s pride & glory, the self-titled first - and only - album by the trio led by Ozzy’s axman, Zakk Wylde.

Wylde, né Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt, is no more a southerner than California-born Ed King (composer of the most southern of all guitar riffs). Wylde hails from the swamps of New Jersey (Bayonne, to be precise), and honed his guitar skills until he was noticed by the Prince of Darkness to replace Jake E. Lee. (Lee had replaced Brad Gillis in a drama-filled mess that’s probably best described elsewhere, but it involves George Lynch, a lot of bitterness, and a heaping helping of hurt feelings. Ah, boys will be boys.)

Zakk Wylde lost in the 80s.

Wylde was initially featured on Ozzy’s albums No Rest for the Wicked and No More Tears in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He then embarked on the No More Tours tour, which was, as the name indicates, slated to be the Ozzman’s last. During that tour, Wylde put together the first incarnation of what would become Pride & Glory, but (thankfully) briefly settled on the vile and juvenile moniker, “Lynyrd Skynhead.” He recruited the rhythm section from - of all bands - White Lion: bassist James LoMenzo and drummer Greg D'Angelo. This lineup contributed the instrumental “Farm Fiddlin’” for the 1992 comp, Guitars that Rule the World, and a version of “Baby, Please Don’t Go” on the LA Blues Authority project (which featured a bunch of shredders of the day and their takes on blues/rock standards - interestingly, Brad Gillis was among the contributors…and this signifies the most I’ve ever spoken about Brad Gillis in an article).

It’s obvious from these two tracks that Wylde was much more than a metalhead. “Farm Fiddlin’” especially was more Steve Morse/Dixie Dregs than Black Sabbath. He was also an avid fan of the Allman Brothers Band. So much so that he was called to pinch hit for Dickey Betts one night in 1993 at Great Woods while Betts was in jail.

As Wylde shared with Alan Paul in Paul’s fantastic book One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band:

I got there at seven in the morning, listened to the tape they had for me, and jammed a couple tunes. Warren and I went through some stuff before the show, but no one told me much about what we would do. We just had a soundcheck/rehearsal, which was hilarious. Butch Trucks asked if I knew how to play “Dreams” and I said, “What, that Molly Hatchet song?” And they all cracked up. Gregg said, “Brother Zakk, keep talking like that and we’re gonna have to send you home.”

Reviews for the show were mixed, to say the least. You be the judge. Zakk’s first solo starts around the 3:30 mark…

While inserting metallic shredding into a well-established, legendary jazz and blues-inflected outfit may not have yielded the best results, it did prove that the spirit was there. Wylde was better suited to his own brand of souped-up southern rock anyway. So he turned his attention back to his band, now christened Pride & Glory. By 1994, D’Angelo was out and Brian Tichy joined on drums, solidifying the Pride & Glory lineup that would record one of the great hard rock/southern rock/redneck metal/whatever albums of the 1990s.

The Pride and the Glory

Released on Geffen in the late spring of ‘94, pride & glory (the album name was stylized in all lower-case) was a throwback to a time before Nirvana and Pearl Jam, yes, but also before the glam metal of the mid to late ‘80s. Although Wylde’s overdrive and chorus pedals, hammer-ons, and pinched harmonics were the tools and tricks that time-stamped the sound to the post-metal years, song and performance-wise, much of pride & glory follows in the footsteps of groups like Blackfoot, especially Wylde’s vocals.

It’s as if Wylde spent hours upon hours listening to the phrasing of Rickey Medlocke and Gregg Allman. From “Sweet Jesus” to “Machine Gun Man”, pride & glory hosts some of the best Southern rock sounding songs since the subgenre’s ‘70s heyday. Not lifeless and soulless facsimiles, but true, bone-deep songs that hit you where it hurts.

The album offered a lesson on southern rock for metalheads that found it through Wylde’s Ozzy connection, while old-school southern rock fans got a taste of shredding not found anywhere else in that style. Still, it all came down to the songs and pride & glory delivered. Choruses ring and linger, like on the Creedence-leaning “Cry Me a River” (below in a cowbell-happy alternate take) and the down-home “Lovin’ Woman”.

It wasn’t all classic rock and country soul ballads, though. At least a third of pride & glory bludgeoned you over the head with metallic muscle that could grow hair on both your chest and back at once.

It wasn’t perfect. Closer “I Hate Your Guts” is just awful and its lyrics sound like they were written by an obnoxious 13-year-old. Its placement at the end leaves a sour and unfortunate lingering aftertaste.

Mostly though, pride & glory is about a vibe: it’s the sound of muscle cars cruising through small towns. Of drinking Ol’ Granddad and Everclear behind the Fast Fare on Friday nights. Of passing around a joint at the end of a dead-end road in the moonlight while “Found a Friend” cuts through the humidity from the tape deck of a gold Camaro, drowning out the tree frogs. And maybe, just maybe, getting lucky with someone that will spawn nothing but regret the next day.

Pride & Glory only lasted one album. They toured with Lynyrd Skynyrd in ‘94, who by then had been seven years into their second act and were backing their current album, Endangered Species, an “unplugged” (it was all the rage at the time) album with some fan favorites, some new stuff, and a couple of covers. I saw that tour when it rolled through Raleigh. Ronnie Van Zant’s little brother Johnny led the old boys through a set of acoustic songs in the spirit of that album at the start of the show before plugging in and doing their usual gig the rest of the way. They were professional (read: boring). They were the antithesis of the band that reportedly blew The Who and the Rolling Stones off their respective stages 20 years before. This night, however, the hunger was in the eyes of their openers. Pride & Glory took no prisoners and Wylde stomped and prowled the stage with the conviction and determination the headliners once had.

For a taste of the good ol’ days, here’s priceless footage of a pre-album Pride and Glory, in their original incarnation, rocking out at a strip mall.

In the ensuing years, Tichey would work with everyone from Foreigner and Billy Idol to the great Sass Jordan and Whitesnake; LoMenzo toured with John Fogerty, David Lee Roth, and Megadeth; while Wylde would go on and record a solo album (Book of Shadows), form Black Label Society, and rejoin Ozzy off and on for decades to come. But for one brief shining moment, a boy from Jersey resurrected the pride and glory of good ol’ Southern rock’n’roll and mixed it with heavy metal thunder; an unholy mix that could’ve just as easily been called Lynyrd Sabbath.

Sweet Jesus, indeed.

More from the ‘Shuffle It All’ series:

Shuffle It All: Todd Snider's 'Viva Satellite'