Nothing is as sleepy as a one-highway Southern town, particularly on Sunday, when the dry laws postpone any serious public drinking until after sundown. The landscape is dusty and dry, still shimmering with midday heat. At an intersection near the Ramada Inn—where I'm due to join Lynyrd Skynyrd for the last leg of their deep South tour—a solitary Texaco station squats in the shade, adorned with cracked yellow paint, dented gas pumps and faded advertisements for minnows and worms.

Half an hour after their Dothan, Alabama, concert, the Skynyrd troupe roamed the Ramada Inn parking lot looking for double-trouble. Twentyfour thousand dollars of road receipts, cash and valuables were stolen the night before in Savannah, Georgia, and tonight's audience offered up only the most lukewarm applause. The band would prefer to forget their problems and enjoy themselves. How they accomplish this is another matter entirely. If your tastes run towards fear and loathing, fights and rot-gut liquor, then you're tuned in to the right channel.