The Bottle Rockets: Insert with Care

Like an intelligent Lynyrd Skynyrd but with a punk-like attack.

One of my all-time favorite "undeservedly unknown" bands, the Bottle Rockets:

 

Festus, Missouri's Bottle Rockets became one of the leading lights of the 1990s roots rock/alt-country revival, thanks to a sound that bypassed the punk heritage proudly upheld by most of the band's contemporaries in favor of a full-bodied fusion of Southern boogie, country-folk, and crunching rock & roll. (AllMusic)

If Neil Young had played guitar and written songs with Lynyrd Skynyrd, it might've come out something like the (1993) eponymous debut by Festus, MO's own Bottle Rockets. Raw and spirited, with a guitar attack that burns furiously, this record was recorded and mixed in a couple of days. (AllMusic)

Sometimes I wonder if we could go back
I guess it's just too late for that
There's not much left to hold on to
These days my heart's better than broken
Not as good as new

For about two years in the mid-'90, it looked like the Bottle Rockets were going to break out of the alt country underground and take their ragged-but-right Dixie-fried hard rock to the larger audience they deserved. But after Atlantic Records dropped the promotional ball.... (AllMusic)

Brian Henneman (born July 17, 1961) is an American musician best known as the frontman of the alt-country/roots rock band the Bottle Rockets, with whom he has been active as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter. Artists such as John Prine, Neil Young and Merle Haggard have influenced his songwriting style. Henneman began his musical career in the mid-1980s with the bands The Blue Moons and Chicken Truck, and also spent time as guitar tech/additional musician with peers Uncle Tupelo from 1990 before forming the Bottle Rockets in late 1992 (Wikipedia)

A documentary:

A concert:

Check out the band doing Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” in Germany. 

Then there's “If Walls Could Talk,” which deserves to be a country classic.