Lynyrd Skynyrd

LYNYRD SKYNYRD

Formed: 1964, Jacksonville, Florida

Members: Michael Cartellone, drums; Ean Evans, bass; Rickey Medlocke, guitar; Billy Powell, keyboards (born 3 June 1952); Gary Rossington, guitar (born Jacksonville, Florida, 4 December 1951); Hughie Thomasson, guitar; Johnny Van-Zant, lead vocals. Former members: Bob Burns, drums; Allen Collins, guitar (born Jacksonville, Florida, 19 July 1952; died 23 January 1990); Steve Gaines, guitar (born Seneca, Missouri, 14 September 1949; died Gillsburg, Mississippi, 20 October 1977); Randall Hall, guitar; Larry Jungstrom, bass; Edward King, guitar, Artimus Pyle, drums (born Spartanburg, South Carolina, 15 July 1948); Ronnie Van Zant, lead vocals (born Jacksonville, Florida, 15 January 1948; died Gillsburg, Mississippi, 20 October 1977); Leon Wilkeson, bass (born 2 April 1952; died Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, 28 July 2001).

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: All Time Greatest Hits (2000)

Hit songs since 1990: "You Got That Right," "Red, White and Blue"

Lynyrd Skynyrd's driving three-guitar boogie attack made them the most prominent southern rock band of the 1970s. Although they dissolved in 1977 after a plane crash killed two core members, Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited ten years later. Lynyrd Skynrd has had to revamp their musical lineup several times, but their signature sound remains virtually untouched as they continue recording and performing into the new millennium.

Southern Rockin' Freebirds

After trying many other names, guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins took fellow founding member, singer Ronnie Van Zant's suggestion to use Lynyrd Skynyrd. The name was a sarcastic homage to a notorious and despised high school gym teacher named Leonard Skinner. Following the success of the Allman Brothers Band, a prolific southern group who found fame in 1970, Lynyrd Skynyrd quickly gained a regional reputation as a freewheeling southern rock act. In 1972 they added a third guitarist, Ed King, which rounded out the band's initial foundation that included Billie Powell on keyboards, Leon Wilkeson on bass, and Bob Burns on drums. Their debut album contains "Free Bird," a tribute to legendary guitarist Duane Allman, who died in a motorcycle crash in 1971. Lynyrd Skynyrd would soon grapple with similar misfortunes. "Free Bird" became one of rock's classic anthems, thanks mostly to a spirited live version on their multiplatinum-selling live release, One More for the Road (1976).

However, it was the band's hit song "Sweet Home Alabama" from the follow-up album Second Helping (1974) that defined their image as swaggering country boys who stood fiercely protective of their southern roots. They wrote "Sweet Home Alabama" in response to singer/songwriter Neil Young's "Southern Man" and "Alabama," which were interpreted as slights against southern life. In one of the verses Van Zant belted, "I hope Neil Young will remember, Southern man don't need him around anyhow, oh, sweet home Alabama." In actuality, the band's aura as rednecks was somewhat overblown. Closer inspection of several songs finds them siding on issues more in tune with liberal mind-sets, such as environmental preservation, gun control, and desegregation. Regardless, an undeniable aspect to their image was as hard-partying rogues. The wreckage that Lynyrd Skynyrd left in the wake of their 1970s substance abuse is legendary.

After scoring hits such as "Saturday Night Special," "Gimme Three Steps," "That Smell," and "What's Your Name?" and releasing their fifth studio album, Street Survivors (1977), the band's fate took a tragic twist. On October 20, 1977, en route to a concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a fuel miscalculation on their private jet caused the aircraft to crash in a marshy swamp near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines (who had recently joined the band while Rossington recovered from injuries sustained in a serious car accident) were killed, as was Gaines's sister, Cassie, a backup singer for the group. Also killed were the band's road manager and the aircraft's pilot and co-pilot. Almost every other member of Lynyrd Skynyrd was severely injured. Without Van Zant, the band dissipated. An offshoot featuring guitarists Rossington and Collins, called the Rossington-Collins Band, formed from 1980 to 1983. A car accident in which he was the driver paralyzed Collins from the chest down in 1986. His girlfriend died in the accident and Collins died of complications from pneumonia in 1990.

New Southern Faces, Same Sweet Sound

In 1987, the tenth anniversary of the crash, members of Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for a tribute tour. After some legal haggling with Van Zant's widow, wherein she relinquished use of the band's name as long as at least three founding members of Lynyrd Skynyrd remained, the band reformed. Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie's younger brother (and the only one who hyphenates his surname), took over on vocals. The younger Van Zant looks and sounds eerily identical to the prolific Ronnie Van Zant, who was a head-strong, free-spirited individual with an earthy blues voice. Although the rest of their musical lineup frequently changed hands, it remained true to its roots by sticking with a trio of lead guitarists. For the most part, the band's lineup has Ricky Medlocke and Hughie Thomasson joining Rossington in their trademark style where, at times, all three guitarists solo simultaneously, trading and feeding guitar licks off one another. Another guitar arrangement in Lynyrd Skynyrd is having one guitarist chugging rhythms while the other two play note-for-note harmonies. All three get their due in every song. However, even on long "jams" like the relentless "Free Bird" where the temptation to freely improvise is immediate, the new guitarists, for the most part, stay close to the note patterns set in the solos of original creators. This is a characteristic differentiating Lynyrd Skynyrd from their southern counterparts, the duel guitar-driven Allman Brothers Band, who thrive on free improvisation.

Their first "reunion" album release, Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 (1991), offers more of the lively blues boogie characteristic of southern rock in general and specific to the band's original sound. Lynyrd Skynyrd does not attempt to reinvent themselves in any of their following six studio releases, with the exception of an all-acoustic album, Endangered Species (1994), which contains softer reworkings of past hits.

Interspersed between new studio albums and concert appearances, Lynyrd Skynyrd has released a plethora of compilation albums. Wilkeson died in his sleep in 2001 and King retired due to recurring heart failure in 1995, leaving the band with only two founding members, Powell and Rossington. (Rossington underwent triple-bypass surgery in early 2003, but toured later that year.) Nevertheless, they continue playing and their release Vicious Circle (2003) includes their first big hit in years, "Red White and Blue," a patriotic paean in support of the United States' post–September 11 activities. Lynyrd Skynyrd's identity and sound is so well defined that it would be difficult—even if they wanted to—for the band to change musical directions. Hence, they seem most at ease rehashing the music of their past, which makes up a large share of their concert material.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd (Sounds of the South/MCA, 1973); Second Helping (Sounds of the South/MCA, 1974); Nuthin' Fancy (MCA, 1975); Gimme Back My Bullets (MCA, 1976); One More from the Road (MCA, 1976); Street Survivors (MCA, 1977); Skynyrd's First . . . and Last (MCA, 1978); Southern by the Grace of God/Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour—1987 (MCA, 1988); Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 (Atlantic, 1991); The Last Rebel (Atlantic, 1993); Endangered Species (Capricorn, 1994); Southern Knights (CBH, 1996); Twenty (CMC/SPV, 1997); Lyve (CMC/SPV, 1998); Skynyrd's First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album (MCA, 1998); Edge of Forever (CMC/SPV, 1999); Then and Now (CMC, 2000); Christmas Time Again (CMC, 2000); Collectybles (MCA, 2000); Vicious Circle (Sanctuary, 2003).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

M. Brant, Freebirds (New York, 2001); G. Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd: The Free Birds of Southern Rock (New York, 2003).

donald lowe