The electric guitar. The symbol of everything cool about rock music.

The looks, the sounds, the feels — from Strats and Teles by Fender to Les Pauls and SGs by Gibson, all wielded by the mighty gods of rock: Clapton, Hendrix, Page. It’s not surprising that occasionally someone might write a song about this holy matrimony between wood and electricity.

Here’s a long gone group called Stillwater. No, not that Stillwater, because as a good little music geek I would hope your first thought was the band from Cameron Crowe’s roman à clef Almost Famous, and if it wasn’t, because you haven’t seen the movie … well, now you’ve got homework.

The particular Stillwater we’re engaging with today gained a small measure of fame as a hard-working Southern rock band from Georgia. They signed with Capricorn Records (the leading purveyor of Southern-flavored rock) around 1976, immediately after declining an offer from major label Atlantic Records. They wanted to stick with their roots. Unfortunately, their roots dried up when Capricorn experienced a money drought and declared bankruptcy in 1979. But Stillwater did manage to record a couple of albums in that time, and toured the country with the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and countless others on the circuit.

They even scored a moderate hit in early 1978, just missing the Top 40 in America, with a tall tale about an unusual guitar, named “Mind Bender.”