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There's a good-natured affability common to musicians from the Magnolia State.

Cary Hudson of Blue Mountain ... the brothers Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars ... singer-songwriter Dave Barnes ... quirky blues-rocker Webb Wilder -- all were born or spent time in Mississippi.

Guitarist George McConnell is no different. The man who served as guitarist for Widespread Panic from 2002 to 2006, he's now flying solo, having more fun than ever and planning a trip to Patrick Sullivan's in Knoxville's Old City tonight.

And, during a recent phone interview with The Daily Times, he's drinking a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon and enjoying some spring sunshine while the rest of the South suffers under unseasonably cold conditions.

"You can't help but be where you're from, and I'm from Mississippi and the Delta -- I grew up with blues music," said McConnell, who resides in Vicksburg, Miss. "All through the South, we grew up with blues lyrics. They were our nursery rhymes. And when you factor in the Memphis thing -- Al Green and Stax Records and Sun Records and all of the incredible world-shaking artists who came out of that -- there's an influence on this region of music and on me.

"Look at Elvis and those guys -- they started out as some truck drivers who wanted to get on the radio and ended up being influential on the nation and the whole world. Then you've got the Delta -- every famous blues artist you can name came from that region. I grew up with that as well because it's a part of the culture down here. I just love the geography of music."

McConnell first started playing guitar as a teenager, throwing himself into mastery of the instrument. A few years earlier, he found his inspiration working on the back of a beer truck, delivering suds around the Mississippi Delta. During his travels, he was exposed to jazz, country and rock; he heard the mournful howl of the blues pouring out of Delta juke joints and soaked up the jittering licks of jazz that drifted over from New Orleans.

As he got older, he played lead guitar in the bands Beanland and the Kudzu Kings; when Widespread Panic guitarist fell ill to cancer in 2001, McConnell was asked to fill in on select Panic dates. After Houser's death, he was named as the band's new guitarist, a post he held for four years.

"The best thing about playing with those guys was the audience," he said. "They're the best fans I've experienced, and they know the material so well -- way better than I knew the material. I've always been friends with those guys, and I knew the first two records, but I didn't keep up with the music as much after that. So when I got in the band, I had to learn 200 damn songs, and the fans knew them better than I did.

"To me, that was the best thing about it -- the fans and the people I met. When I first started playing my solo stuff, a few Panic fans would come and request some Panic songs, but very quickly they realized it was new material and a new band. The guys who were interested in my guitar playing and liked the songs I wrote for Panic were very accepting of what we're doing."

With his new outfit -- billed as George McConnell and His Rocking Teen Combo at first, later changed to George McConnell and The Non-Chalants (Formerly The Chalants) -- the music is faster-paced than the languid jamming made famous by Widespread Panic. There's more of an emphasis on straight-ahead rock, and any extensive jamming is strictly improvisational, done in the heat of the moment when the song and the mood summons it.

"Jamming isn't talking about it and picking out five songs to really stretch out; it comes out of circumstances of it being a really great song and you just extend it," he said. "With these songs, it's just become so much fun live. We just got off a 9-shows-in-10-days run, and each show kept getting better and better. It's just turned into a complete monster.

"Plus, we don't take a break; we just play straight through. If you get an audience that's really into it, you don't want to lose them, so I'll just say, 'Keep playing, boys!'"

His independence as a solo artist has given him greater latitude in the compositional process as well. No longer does he have to craft any songs he writes with Widespread Panic in mind; he can draw on any of his early influences or go completely out on a limb. His new material, in fact, pays homage to another Mississippi native -- Elvis Presley. There's a distinctive rockabilly swagger to the songs that could only come from a guy who knows what it means to grow up in the Deep South.

"Right off the bat, I quit censoring myself when it came to songwriting," he said. "For most of the bands I played in, certain songs didn't seem right for that band, so I would just hold them back. Now, I just let the hounds loose, throw it at the boys and we run it through to see if it flies or not. I love being open to the creative process and letting each song grow its own legs.

"We have fun with it, and sometimes, they grow two heads and go climbing up the curtain and everybody's shooting at it and yelling, 'Kill that thing!' But that doesn't stop me. There are no restrictions for me now as far as songwriting goes."