Alabama is a country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and southern rock

Southern rock

Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...

 band from Fort Payne, Alabama

Fort Payne, Alabama

Fort Payne is a city in DeKalb County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 12,938. The city is the county seat of DeKalb County. It bills itself as the "Official Sock Capital of the World."...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The band was founded in 1969 by Randy Owen

Randy Owen

Randy Owen is an American country music artist. He is known primarily for his role as the lead singer of Alabama, a country rock band which saw considerable mainstream success throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Although Alabama only records new albums on occasion, Owen himself has maintained a career...

 (lead vocals, Rhythm Guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

) and his cousin Teddy Gentry (bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, background vocals), soon joined by Jeff Cook (Lead Guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

, fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

, keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

). In 1973, after Owen's graduation from Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville State University is a regional public coeducational university located in Jacksonville, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in four academic units leading to Bachelor's, Master's, and Education Specialist degrees, in addition to continuing and...

, they gave up their day jobs and weekend gigs. The group, formerly known as "Wildcountry", left Fort Payne and Lookout Mountain

Lookout Mountain

thumb|right|See seven statesLookout Mountain is located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southern border of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain, along with Sand Mountain to the northwest, makes up a large portion of the...

 to explore the possibilities of the club scene in surrounding coastal South Carolina.