Outlaws – The Outlaws (1975):  Any number of American bands and recording artists, particularly those from Southern California have been identified over the years as playing “country rock”; but Outlaws strike me as being the real thing, although they are typically classified as a Southern rock band due to their Florida origins.  Outlaws were the first band signed to the new record label Arista Records that was founded in 1974 by the legendary Clive Davis, previously the President of Columbia Records.  The Outlaws is the band’s first album and features the Top 40 hit “There Goes Another Love Song” and the closing track that is even better, “Green Grass and High Tides”.  I later acquired their 1980 album Ghost Riders that features a fabulous hard rock cover of “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” (although it omits the final verse), one of the most chilling and dramatic country music songs ever written and originally a huge hit for Vaughan Monroe in 1949.