The Zac Brown Band

Country performers are frequently spotted saluting their forebears — from Waylon Jennings singing "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" to "Streets of Bakersfield," Dwight Yoakam's duet with Buck Owens. On its new studio album, You Get What You Give, the Zac Brown Band bolsters its image as a bunch of good-hearted party boys from Atlanta. Case in point: "Knee Deep," a song featuring guest vocals by the patron saint of middle-class hedonism himself, Jimmy Buffett. Despite the prominently featured fiddle, Brown and company's music owes more to '70s country-rock than hardcore honky-tonk. On the live album Pass the Jar, the band covered the Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See" with a vocal assist from Kid Rock, and it makes enough side trips into reggae to hint at a not-so-distant past playing frat parties. The Zac Brown Band is more than a twangy Sublime, though; the ten-minute "Who Knows" showcases some impressive instrumental chops.