Lynyrd Skynyrd The Early Years

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The Early Years

1 9 7 P h o t o RONNIE VA N ZANT

BY Dav i d Al e x a n d e r

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-

“Once in awhile a musical force wil

change that scene. Lynyrd Skynyrd

rested in Allen Collins, Gary Rossin

rest of the band can never be forgo

four and a half decades after the tr Skynyrd band, millions of fans still understand the power.”

http://www.lynyrdskynyrdhistory.com Page 4 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

ll burst on the scene and forever

d was such a force. The power that

ngton and Ronnie Van Zant and the

otten or underestimated. To this day,

ragedy that decimated the original buy the records, feel the songs,

m/ ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 5

The Essentyal Lynyrd Skynyrd Storys.10 x Lynyrd Skynyrd Stories told by Gary Rossington, and Ed King VIDEO CONTENT 1. Gary talks about The Summer of 1966 Ronnie Played on the Junior Baseball team “The Green Pigs” and one day at Criswell Park.

The Day Bob and Gary met Ronnie!

2. Gary talks about “I Ain’t The One” being a true story.

3,Gary talking about: “Leonard Skinner” (The Coach).” They were still called the One Percent then.

4, Gary talking, West Tavern. Gimme

Three Steps. It was “West Tavern” on Lenox Avenue (Gary says Beaver St, but is mistaken), where the “Three Steps” incident happened.

5. Ed King Talks about Strawberry Alarm Clock and Meeting Skynyrd and hearing “Need all my Friends.”

6. Gary telling the story of being discovered by Al Kooper in Md 1972. And Ed King talking about Al Kooper.

7. Ed King telling the story of recording “Simple Man,” Ronnie Van Zant escorted the Al Kooper (producer) outside to his car and ordered him to remain there

until the song was recorded.

8. The Real Story of writing Simple Man!! Written approximately second half of 1971. Gary tells the story of writing Simple Man in a 1987 radio interview, 9. Free Bird: Gary talks about writing it, and Ed talks about recording Free Bird.

10. Ed king and Gary Rossington talking 3 Guitars. “I couldn’t play what Allen could play, and I couldn’t play what Ed could, and they couldn’t play what I could.” - Gary Rossington.

A SKYNYRD STORY

“Ronnie calls me me one afternoon out of the clear blue. My mother didn’t even know where I was. I swear. I don’t know how he found out where I was.” He said, “Our bass player just quit. Why don’t you come and join the band.” -Ed King

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Ronnie Van Zant

(January 15, 1948 – October 20, 1977) Founder & Leader of Lynyrd Skynyrd

Ronnie Van Zant, told his band he will never live to see 30.

Van Zant’s father said when Ronnie was younger,”He said to me many times, ‘Daddy, I’ll never be 30 years old.’ I said, ‘Why are you talking this junk?’ and he said, ‘Daddy, that’s my limit.’ He died at the age of 29 in a plane crash; 87 days before his birthday. “Ronnie was the only one of my children who had second sight,” recalled his late father Lacy Van Zant in 1995.

Van Zant’s friends called him the Mississippi Kid. When asked why, he always replied that he had no idea. He eventually would lose his life in Mississippi when the band’s plane plunged into thick forest outside Gillsburg.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - Ronnie Van Zant/ 92 7 FM Radio Int

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terview

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N ZANT, GARY ROSSINGTON

Ed King, Leon Wilkerson, Alen Colins, Bob Burns, Gary Rosington, Ronie aV n Zant, Bily Powel

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t, Billy Powell

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Was Allen Collins & Gary Rossington Good Guitarist’s?

The solo for ‘Freebird’ was originally crafted to give Ronnie Van Zant a break in between sets, while letting the rest of the band shine.

Of all the guitarists in the Southern rock pantheon, Allen Collins was far and away one of the best! Where Duane Allman was the crown prince of the slide guitar, Collins dominated when it came to crafting solos. It’s performances like this that make us miss this once in a lifetime talent – there will never be another quite like Allen!

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington is one of the most fiercely respected guitar players in the Southern rock pantheon, a constant force to be reckoned with both as a musician and as a founding member of one of the greatest bands to walk the planet.

—Society Of Rock

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Phot: Michael Pu| OCTOBER tland ROCK LEGEND NEWS 2022 Page 17

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Lynyrd Skynyrd – Live At Knebworth August 21, 1976 (Trailer) On August 21, 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd took the stage at Knebworth as part of a daylong festival which also included Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, 10cc and The Rolling Stones. The show has gone down in Lynyrd Skynyrd history as one of the band’s greatest performances. The 1976 Knebworth show features Ronnie Van Zant’s iconic vocals and their famed triple guitar attack of Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Steve Gaines in front of a crowd estimated between 150,000 and 200,000. Their entire performance from that day is here for you to witness the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd in all its glory with cleaned up visuals and remixed audio, available on DVD+CD, Blu-ray+CD and DVD+2LP. ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 19

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“What song is it you wanna hear?”

—Ronnie Van Zant On Skynyrd’s first live album, 1976’s One More From The Road, Van Zant can be heard asking the crowd, “What song is it you wanna hear?” The calls for “Free Bird” led into a fourteen-and-a-half-minute rendition of the song. The song has sold 2,111,000 downloads in the digital era, as of 2013.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd Helped Save The Fox Alex Cooley helped bring Lynyrd Skynyrd to prominence and led the fight to save the Fox Theatre.

The list of musicians Cooley helped discover and promoted is almost endless. He was instrumental in the early careers of the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd (that’s Cooley who introduces them on their famed live album recorded at the Fox Theatre in 1976), Bruce Springsteen, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Kiss and many others.

On April 15, 1977, Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington, on behalf of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, were awarded honorary Atlanta citizenship certificates at city hall by mayor Maynard Jackson for their part in helping save the Fox Theatre. Skynyrd in turn, presented the Mayor and representatives of the Fox with gold albums of One More For From The Road and a check for $5,000 for the “Save The Fox” campaign.

Today, nearly two decades later, One More For From The Road remains a living testament to one of the legendary band’s of rock ‘n’ roll and the Atlanta cultural landmark they helped to preserve.

—Ron O’Brien, One More From The Road Page 24 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

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Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington present Atlanta Mayor Jackson with a gold record. Mayor Maynard Jackson (right), accepts on behalf of city of Atlanta, April 19, 1977. Mayor Maynard Jackson (right). Staff Photo: Billy Downs.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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For a show from the spring of 1975 in Pensacola, Florida Page 28 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 28 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

Fox Theatre, One More For The Road & Alex Cooley in Atlanta, Georgia

“Everything seemed to work right for Skynyrd,” said the Atlanta Constitution in describing their feverish performance. “The band’s special quality, the electric atmosphere stemming from it’s love of making music, was apparent from the first note. The performance was hypnotic.”

One More from the Road (styled as One More For From The Road) is a live album by Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, capturing three shows recorded in July 1976 at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.

Since 1974 Lynyrd Skynyrd had supported rock promoter Alex Cooley so that the theatre could be saved from demolition. This record was the band’s first live album, and the only live album from the band’s classic era of 1970 to 1977, prior to the plane crash that killed lead singer and songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing singer Cassie Gaines. The album was released in September 1976. It was certified gold by the RIAA on October 26, 1976, platinum on December 30, 1976 and 3× platinum on July 21, 1987.

In 1976, the Fox Theatre was facing the wrecking ball. The ornate, Moorish-style movie palace, which had stood on Peachtree Street in the heart of old downtown Atlanta since 1929, was in disrepair. Plans were afoot to demolish the proud old piece of Atlanta history until a public outcry led to the formation of the “Save The Fox Foundation.” The Lynyrd Skynyrd band, looking for a way to acknowledge their debt to a city that was largely responsible for their success, had joined the cause, hoping to draw attention to the Fox’s plight by making it the site of their upcoming live album, One More For From The Road.

Atlanta was Skynyrd’s town. The Jacksonville, Florida-bred “Whiskey Rock-A-Rollers” had first made a name for themselves at a rowdy Atlanta dive called Funochio’s in the early seventies. After being discovered there by Yankee slicker Al Kooper for his Atlanta-based Sounds of the South label in 1972, Skynyrd launched their MCA career with an explosive industry debut performance at Richard’s, Atlanta’s premiere rock club, in July 1973. The band’s biggest hits, “Free Bird,” “Sweet Home Alabama and “Saturday Night Special,” had all been recorded at Studio one in the Atlanta suburb of Doraville, and after the group’s sold-out headlining show at Atlanta’s gigantic Omni arena in July 1975, the bond between the Dixie band and the capital of the “New South” was cemented.

—Ron O’Brien, One More From The Road ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 29

Teaser, “If I Leave Here Tomorrow,” A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd This authorized documentary will explore the music and backstory of the legendary American band. With the songs from the first six Skynyrd albums driving the narration, the film focuses on the story of frontman Ronnie Van Zant - his upbringing, his roots, his work ethic and his contradictory persona as both as a mythic Southern rock poet Page 30 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

and notorious boozed-up brawler, as well as the relationships between his friends and fellow founding members Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, along with later bandmates Ed King and Artimus Pyle.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gone With The Wind Full Docum

The Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Directed by Tom

This film revisits the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd in a manner previously unatt from band members and those closest to the group, location shoots, new plane crash, this program is set to become the standard documentary wo

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mentary Film | Official Trailer

m O’Dell. With Bob Burns, Edward King, Al Kooper, Artimus Pyle.

tempted. Using a mixture of new and archive interviews, contributions ws reports and a fascinating first-hand description of the fateful 1977 ork on this legendary band.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd Magazine Ad December1987, 10 Years Later...The Music Continues. Sam Goody Music Land for CDs & Vinyl.

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Ronnie Van Zant said Allen wrote Free Bird 7-8 years before Gimme Back My Bullets was released February 2, 1976. Al Kooper “discovered” and signed Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1972 to MCA’s newly formed Sound of the South label, producing their first three albums. Free Bird was recorded April 3, 1973, Released November 1974. According to guitarist Gary Rossington, for two years after Allen Collins wrote the initial chords, vocalist Ronnie Van Zant insisted

that there were too many for him to create a melody in the belief that the melody needed to change alongside the chords. After Collins played the unused sequence at rehearsal one day, Van Zant asked him to repeat it, then wrote out the melody and lyrics in three or four minutes.

The guitar solos that finish the song were added originally to give Van Zant a chance to rest, as the band was playing ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 39 several sets per night at clubs at the time.

March 29, 1973: Lynyrd Skynyrd Hit The Studio An

Studio One, Doraville, GA | March 29, 1973 The guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd can tell a st (1971-1972) sharing the hilarious origins of their band or the late Ronnie Van Zant s Page 40 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

nd Struck Gold With “Gimme Three Steps”

tory like no one else! Whether it’s Gary Rossington or Rickey Medlocke spinning a yarn that left you laughing so hard you cried.

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1975 Page 42 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

Allen Collins (July 19, 1952 – January 23, 1990) Founder of Lynyrd Skynyrd

“If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?”

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Lynyrd Skynyrd

Allen Collins Larkin Allen Collins Jr. (July 19, 1952 – January 23,

1990) was one of the founding members and guitarists of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and co-wrote many of the band’s songs with late frontman Ronnie Van Zant. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida.

In the early days of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Collins used a black Gibson Flying V. This guitar got stolen, along with Gary Rossington’s white Gibson SG, when the band’s van was broken into after a gig. For most of his tenure in Skynyrd, Collins used a Gibson Firebird fitted with a chrome-covered, “dog-eared” P-90 pickup in the bridge position and a Gibson “teaspoon” nickel vibrato arm.

In 1976 he switched to a natural-finished korina 1958 Gibson Explorer that he had bought for about $3,000 and used that guitar throughout his tenure with the Allen Collins Band.

In late 1977 Collins began occasionally playing a Gibson Les Paul Special, with a double cutaway, P-90s, a sunburst finish, and modded with a Lyre Tremolo. He continued to use this guitar into the Rossington Collins Band as well. On “Gimme Back My Bullets”, “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Every Mothers Son” Collins used a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster after Ed King had left. Collins has also been filmed playing an all-black Stratocaster with a rosewood fingerboard, white pickups and white control knobs. In 2003 Gibson Guitars honored Allen with a limited edition Explorer. Like his original instrument these are made of African limba wood (korina) and feature an aged finish and a Maestro vibrola.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd/Allen Collins Price realized: GBP 3,750 Estimate: GBP 7,000 – GBP 9,000 Closed: 16 Dec 2014 Source a

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Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Allen Collins Was the Craziest Sumbitch I Ever Met

By Michael Ray Fitzgerald | June 11, 2021

The first time I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins was in 1969, when I went with a group of hippies to the Comic Book Club in downtown Jacksonville, where One Percent was the house band, to score some acid.

A few days later my friends and I ate the acid. It was Friday night. The five of us wound up at the Sugar Bowl, a teen club in a working-class subdivision called Cedar Hills, where several prominent musicians were raised, including Collins and future Skynyrd members Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell, guitarist Jeff Carlisi (of .38 Special), singer-guitarist Don Barnes (also of .38), and keyboardist Kevin Elson (later sound mixer, recording engineer and producer).

One Percent, soon to become Lynyrd Skynyrd, was performing that night. There was a scuffle; some local rednecks had invaded. They were harassing hippies and got into a battle with an off-duty cop who served as a security guard. SomePage 46 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

one pulled a knife. More cops materialized. Since we were just starting to get off on the acid, my friends and I hauled ass out of there.

I ran into Allen Collins again in 1978, a year after the infamous plane crash, when my second wife and I were living in a small house in Murray Hill.

We were eating at Church’s Chicken on Cassat Avenue and Plymouth Street, when in walks Collins, who gets in line behind me. He seemed to recognize me. I told him I knew Wilkeson, whom I had met at the Forrest Inn, while he was with a group called King James Version. Collins sat down with me and my wife, and as we were leaving he offhandedly asked if I knew where he could buy a junk car for about a hundred bucks. He said he liked to take them out in to the woods and roll them. This was his idea of fun.

Not long later, I met Marion “Sister” Van Zant up the street at Dunkin’ Donuts, where she worked as a waitress. This was a year after Skynyrd’s plane crash.

She invited me to the Van Zant house and introduced to sons Donnie and Johnny. I had already met Donnie in 1970 when I auditioned at Kevin Elson’s parents’ house for Sweet Rooster, a group that morphed into .38 Special.

I told Sister about meeting Collins at the chicken place. She said Collins was a disaster behind the wheel and told me a story Johnny Van Zant had related: he had been pulling out of the Krystal on San Juan Avenue recently and was run off the road, nearly hit, by a crazy driver coming around the corner too fast in the wrong lane. Johnny honked at the guy, and the guy gave him the finger.

The offending driver was Collins, of course.

In early 1985, I was working with Filthy Phil Price and drummer-singer Carl De Blasio at Mac’s Mustang Lounge.

One night Allen Collins came in the bar with his drummer-driver Steve Reynolds...

Read Full Article here > ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 47

Lynnyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd With Al Kooper Recording in Atl

With Kooper’s help, Skynyrd landed the support slot on the American leg of The Who’s Qua that has ever opened for The Who has ever gotten an encore,” Who manager Peter Rudge

lanta, GA

adrophenia tour. “No band remarked at the time.

Photo: Tom Hill

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“When we get on that stage it’s war,” Van Zant said in 1975. “There are no friends, no relatives.

We are there to win.”

By Jaan Uhelszki (Classic Rock) Published May 24, 2018 The members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were strangely united by one thing. The bandmates, almost to a man, had lost their fathers early on. Artimus Pyle’s dad had perished in a plane crash that chillingly resembled the one that felled the band, leaving from the same Greenville, South Carolina airport that the band did on that final flight.

Rossington was raised by a single mother, his father dying when he was just a tyke.

Ed King’s father had committed suicide. Allen Collins’ father had just begun showing up “about the same time the cheques did,” according to one member of the band. Leon Wilkeson’s father was alive, but was “the weirdest human being I had ever met in my life,” according to King. “He was abusive, a nasty, mean little man with the personality of a thumb.”

Ronnie Van Zant assembled this fatherless regiment, all in need of guidance and direction, and hammered them into a touring and recording machine.

“Ronnie had this here charm about him,” remembered his mother Marion in 1996. “He could charm anybody. But he was straightforward with everything he did. You could say he always knew his own mind. He never ever changed, either. He saw his old friends when he came off the road and he loved to fish would fish with anybody. One thing I surely remember is he was very protective of Allen. No one could mess with Allen. He was older than both Allen and Gary. He figured he was supposed to watch them when they were out on the road.”

He drilled his band mercilessly, driving out to Green Cove Springs, Florida to a little tin Page 52 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

shack on 90 acres north of Jacksonville. This sweltering shed, which quickly earned the nickname Hell House, became the boot camp where Van Zant moulded his raw recruits into musical men. He picked up his bleary-eyed and grumbling troops in his battered old ’55 Chevy truck every morning at 7.30am, stopping for jugs of coffee at the donut shop where his mother worked. By 8.30 he’d be putting his charges through their paces in workdays that regularly ran eight to 12 hours; sometimes they wouldn’t straggle back until the next morning. It paid off.

After the plane crash Leon Wilkeson suffered a broken jaw, a crushed chest and internal bleeding and was declared dead not once, but three times, waking up in the hospital only to say he had been sitting on a cloud-shaped log with Ronnie and Duane Allman. “Ronnie told me, ‘Boy get yourself out of here, it’s not your time yet, get on out of here,’” the bassist said in 1997. This would not be the last time the spectre of Ronnie Van Zant would pay a visit to friends and family. Read Full Article here > ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 53

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Gary Rossington

(Born December 4, 1951) Founder of Lynyrd Skynyrd

“You have to learn to live with the hard things in life and go on.”

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Gary Rossington & Steve Gaines 1976

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Ronnie Van Zant Baby Picture Ronnie Van Zant was born Jan. 15, 1948, in Jacksonville, Fla. Sixteen years later he formed Lynyrd Skynyrd with a group of friends and classmates, including Gary Rossington and Allen Collins.

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Allen Collins, Artimus Pyle, Ronnie Van Zant, Leon Wilkeson, Gary Rossi Page 62 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

ington 1975 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 63

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“The other bands are just as bad, but we go to jail more.”

—Ronnie Van Zant

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird (Live 21st of August, 1976 at Knebworth F

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Festival)

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird (Live 21st of Augu

Allen Collins’s girlfriend, Kathy, whom he later married, asked him, “If I lea question and it eventually became the opening line of “Free Bird.”

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ust, 1976 at Knebworth Festival)

ave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” Collins noted the ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 69

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“I don’t understand this phrase, ‘I’ve paid my dues.’ We didn’t have any mo and lived on peanut butter and jelly, and I loved it. I don’t regret any of it. W never expected to make it this far, but we worked hard to get here..”

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oney We

Phot: Richard McCfreya

“We put our music together, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Quotes by: Ronnie Van Zant

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - I Need You Written in June 1973 On the Album: Second Helping Rel Trivia: The Song “I Need You” was Written in the same s Songwriters: Edward King / Gary Rossington / Ron Van Page 76 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

Allen Collins with a Black Eye

leased April 15, 1974. session as Sweet Home Alabama!

Zant ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 77

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Honors In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the group No. 95 on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.”

On November 28, 2005, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that Lynyrd Skynyrd would be inducted alongside Black Sabbath, Blondie, Miles Davis, and the Sex Pistols. They were inducted in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan on March 13, 2006 during the Hall’s 21st annual induction ceremony. The inductees included Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Ed King, Steve Gaines, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, Bob Burns, and Artimus Pyle.

THE AMAZING STORY OF CAPRICORN RECORDS 6 May 2020 | Capricorn Records IT’S ONE OF THE GREAT STORIES of American music: the nexus between the record label Capricorn, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Lynyrd Skynyrd and Allman Brothers Band, soul legend Otis Redding, and three visionary mavericks who did as much as anyone to break down racial barriers in the South and launch the cultural phenomenon known as “Southern Rock” brothers Phil Walden and Alan Walden and South African immigrant Frank Fenter.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd Concert Newspaper Double Handbill September 12 – 26, 1975 Lynyrd Skynyrd Edgar Winter Labelle Johnny Winter Outlaws Marshall Tucker Band Roger McGuinn Journey UFO Montrose Caravan and more...

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“Ronnie ran Skynyrd like Stalin ran Russia,” —Leon Wilkeson

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“Eric Clapton had his hands full following Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he was well aware of it.”

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ARTICLE ABOUT LYNYRD SKYNYRD FROM SOUNDS, AUGUST 10, 1974 Skynyrd singe’s God`s beard in Memphis

Down in Memphis Lynyrd Skynyrd are hot property. Their recent gig at the Memorial Stadium was supporting their idol Eric Clapton on the last leg of his American tour and they made it tough for the guitar God. But, Clapton produced one of the best gigs he`s played to date and Sharon Lawrence was there to report on the fireworks.

This is a story about a steamy, hot, lazy Sunday afternoon in Memphis, Tennessee, and what happened when blues master Eric Clapton met up with an authentic, young Southern band named Lynyrd Skynyrd, the same Lynyrd Skynyrd who learned more than a few of their tricks from Eric Clapton records and a live Clapton gig or two when Skynyrd were punk kids playing for a few bucks a night and virtually starving, and Eric Clapton was God. UNFURLED Lynyrd Skynyrd are simply loved to death in Memphis, Tennessee. They were specifically put on the Clapton bill by promoters who weren’t quite sure how the “new” Eric Clapton would draw. Ross was the first act onstage, then Foghat. Ho hum.

Then the stirring strains of “Dixie” and the big Confederate flag behind Skynyrd`s drum kit was unfurled and the seven men of Lynyrd Skynyrd hit the stage and the tens of thousands of people who almost filled the big Memphis Memorial Stadium went wild.

Skynyrd are their boys, Southern boys whose most ingratiating ingredient is a certain strong spirit that encompasses pride, freedom and brotherhood. You can love `em even when the sound system is failing, and you can`t quite make out those three glorious lead guitars.

THRILLING Masses of people bunched together sweating in the hot sun and loving every minute of it… thousands of hands raised in applause to the skies.

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It was a thrilling sight, what the best of rock is all about, what all those hyped-up festivals seldom really are.

“You stop that fighting,” said Ronnie Van Zant, Skynyrd`s lead singer. “You stop it right now!”

Ronnie Van Zant commands his stage like a field marshal and two spaced-out people in the audience trying to kill each other are simply not going to be allowed to succeed if Ronnie Van Zant has anything to say about it.

Ronnie Van Zant likes to talk, especially if he`s had his whisky. And he`s an eloquent talker. Ronnie Van Zant is often someone well worth listening to, and as he introduced that Skynyrd stunner “Free Bird”, the audience listened well.

DEPOSIT “Three years ago my band and me collected enough Coke bottles to turn them in for the deposit money we needed to get down to Miami to see Derek and the Dominoes. Eric Clapton was one of our idols. And we`re happy we`re playing with him today. It`s a thrill.

“But now we`re doing a song for a hero who can`t be here today. Put your hands together for Duane Allman.”

Eric Clapton had his hands full following Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he was well aware of it. People in the Clapton camp had been quietly talking about Skynyrd for several days before the Memphis gig.

“Eric is up for Memphis,” was the word. His reputation was on the line, especially in Memphis, one of the homes of the blues.

Some of the Clapton band watched Skynyrd devastate the audience with “Free Bird”, then encore with “Sweet Home Alabama”, their first hit single currently climbing the American charts. The Clapton people seemed to like Skynyrd and they were impressed by the reception the band was given.

Eric stayed in the dressing room.

A few minutes later, Eric, his face looking pale, and drinking a tall Vodka and orange, received Skynyrd in his dressing room for a few minutes.

The Skynyrd boys were nervous and excited. Eric was gracious.

God knows it must have been a strange feeling to be with people with all that fresh young energy

who had learned their craft listening to his songs and who do a version of “Crossroads” that`s a killer.

Then, Ronnie Van Zant, feeling his whisky and never ashamed to speak his mind, started talking about Duane Allman. It made Eric nervous. Finally he nodded when Ronnie kept insisting, “You go out there and play for Duane.”

Clapton, as they say, did good, even after starting out with that diabetes-inducer “Smile”. Eric`s set built in momentum and bass player Carl Radle, the unsung hero of the Clapton tour, and the drummer Jamie Oldake kept it cooking. The audience liked all those reggae riffs Eric seems to be into these days, but they most liked “Badge”, “Crossroads” and “Blues Power.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd were up at the back of the stage watching intently. Eric had damn well better be playing for Duane.

the swamp and wait it out. And if it takes us three years of starving we`ll be back. And we`ll be better than we ever were. But we won`t be bought and sold like pieces of meat.

DIFFERENCE “And we won`t have people around us who are greedy and who don`t care about human beings.“We`re Southern rebels but more than that, we know the difference between right and wrong.”Skynyrd learned plenty from Eric Clapton a few years ago. He could learn from them now.

The day after the concert the two leading Memphis papers declared Lynyrd Skynyrd to be the champion of the Sunday gig. Lynyrd Skynyrd had delivered for the audience was the gist of the reviews Skynyrd were thrilled with those reviews.

But they`d be more than happy to play with their friend Eric Clapton again and let him blow them off the stage. That`s the kind of Southern boys Lynyrd Skynyrd are.

Skynyrd kicked Clapton`s ass and one had the feeling that after the gig in the back of his mind, he was grateful. It was one of the best dates on his American tour. He was on the spot to deliver.

Look at Eric Clapton and you see where rock has been. Look at a band like Skynyrd and you pray this is where rock is going. The arrogant, frightening, English guys who surround people like Eric Clapton don`t seem to be interested in the music.

Their pleasure comes from throwing people bodily off the stage for no apparent reason as often as possible.

Lynyrd Skynyrd know who their friends are. They have a crew who would and have worked for free when the band was starving. As Ronnie Van Zant says, “We`re the real brothers of the South.” Van Zant`s not bragging, simply stating a fact.

“We`ve gone through hell for seven years. We love each other and we`re not ashamed to say it. We know who we are and who we play for. I couldn’t work without our roadies. They couldn’t work without me.

“The sharks are moving in on us, but we`ll fool `em. Pressure us too much and we`ll go back to ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 93

ARTICLE ABOUT LYNYRD SKYNYRD FROM SOUNDS, MAY 31, 1975

By Andy McConnell

“Ronnie Van Zant kicked his Scotch habit: it`s wine now…”

It`s 4 P.M. at the Santa Monica Holiday Inn, five hours before the first of two sell-out Lynyrd Skynyrd shows at the Civic Auditorium, a mile down the Pacific promenade. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant lies head on pillow and guitarist Allen Collins sits talking to Al Kooper. He`s the New York slicker who discovered the Jacksonville, Florida, band in an Atlanta bar in 1972, and has gone on Page 94 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

to produce all three of their gold albums and their Top Ten singles – `Sweet Home Alabama` and `Free Bird.` Van Zant lifts his head. “Kooper,” he declares, “I just gotta Mercedes and I ain`t even seen it yet.

Ah jus` can`t wait to get back home an` see it.”

Kooper grins back at the gruff little singer whose cowboy hat wearing habit has left a permanent ridge pressed around his blond scraggly hair, like an invisible fallen halo.

“I just got an Excalibur,” replies the producer. “It`s called Lynyrd Skynyrd after the person that paid for it.” The room dissolves into a sea of laughter.

In contrast to their raucous high-decibel music, the Skynyrds are a quiet, unassuming bunch. Despite years of solid gigging, one feels they remain uncomfortable in many on-the-road situations; slightly out of sync with the rock and roll business in overdrive around them.

Their first album for Kooper, `Pronounced Lehnerd Skin-nerd`, was a collection of songs Van Zant had written with assistance from the guitar players over a four-year period. Recorded in Doraville, Georgia, the sound was a raw blend of blues, hillbilly country and British boogie packed with typically Southern flavour; moaning slide guitar, country pickin` mandolin, aggressive guitars, driving rhythm section in straight 4/4 and dry, thirst-parched vocals. Van Zant`s lyrics completed the geographical picture with tales of disapproving daddies, guns, train rides, ghettos, the Lord and getting high on dope and booze.

however, especially to Ronnie. “I was drinkin` a lotta Scotch,” admits the man credited with `vocals, lyrics and J&B` on the band`s first two album sleeves. “It was gettin` so I couldn`t feel it any more, I was pretty burnt out on it. The doc said I was doin` myself in so I quit.”

So confident was he of his ability to kick the demon alcohol that Ronnie took on a total of $4,000 in bets to that effect. It was no time at all before he was off the wagon. “It`s wine now,” he laughs in a mellow drawl taking a broken-ended knife to his fingernails. And the bets? “Oh, I ain`t gonna pay them mutherfuckers,” he declares.

“Ronnie stands in the shower singin` to himself and the songs just come out,” explains Allen scratching his meagre three-day growth. “Ma shower`s got the best acoustics in the world,” laughs Ronnie. “Ah always look for the melody first, then think up the words as ah go along. Ah memorise them, then take `em to one of the guitar players and we arrange everythin`.”

TATOOS Van Zant and Collins each proudly lift the right sleeve of their T-shirts to reveal Technicolor tatoos acquired the previous day in a moment of drunken madness. “Allen and I went stumblin` into this place in the boondocks and said `We want some tatoos`. The guy asked us which ones we wanted, we pointed up to designs on the wall and he was stickin` needles into us straight away,” giggles the singer.

The debut album hovered in the lower regions of the chart for five months; creeping into the sixties, dropping back into the eighties, back again into the fifties. By the time they went on the road for their first tour, supporting the Who on their 1973 tour, they had over 100,000 sales under their belts.

“The tour opened in San Francisco at the Cow Palace in front of 18,600. We walked out on stage and went `eeerrrc, God, what am I goin` t`do?` Everything was played ten times too fast. We were awful, but by the time we got to the third night everythin` was jus` fine,” says Gary.

Massive success finally arrived with `Second Helping` and its single `Sweet Home Alabama`, the South`s indignant reply to Neil Young`s `Southern Man`: “I heard Mr Young sing about it / I heard ol` Neil put it down / Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / Southern man don`t need him around.”

After all, it`s only three years since guitarist Gary Rossington had to jive neighbourhood blacks into street running races and place bets with the band`s last half-dollar to feed seven hungry mouths and pay for gas to get to gigs.

Their new-found affluence has caused problems,

“Your mama`s gonna whoop your hides when you get home,” says Kooper, narrowing his eyes behind dark shades. Ronnie simply holds his self-satisfied smile.

Skynyrd make no secret of their admiration and respect for Kooper. Chances are that without him they could still be playing tin-pot Southern bars and clubs like the one he found them in three years ago.

Of the original five-piece Skynyrd, Van Zant, Collins and guitarist Gary Rossington remain.

They named the outfit after their high school gym teacher Leonard Skinner, invariably the figure of authority who`d catch his pupils with hair reaching their ears and order a shearing. “He owns a real estate company now,” laughs Allen. “He did an interview in a Jacksonville newspaper and said he was expecting a royalty cheque from us for using his name.”

The current Skynyrd line-up is completed by Ed King as the third guitarist, Billy Powell on keyboards, bass player Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle who recently replaced Bob Burns on drums.

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nerd Skin-nerd`, was a collection of songs Van Zant had written with assistance from the guitar players over a four-year period. Recorded in Doraville, Georgia, the sound was a raw blend of blues, hillbilly country and British boogie packed with typically Southern flavour; moaning slide guitar, country pickin` mandolin, aggressive guitars, driving rhythm section in straight 4/4 and dry, thirst-parched vocals. Van Zant`s lyrics completed the geographical picture with tales of disapproving daddies, guns, train rides, ghettos, the Lord and getting high on dope and booze.

Kooper found the penniless outfit whilst recording in Atlanta. “I was going out every night to the clubs, checking out local bands,” he recalls. “I`d had the idea of forming a label as an alternative to Capricorn after seeing so many great unknown bands in the South. Just imagine how I felt when I walked into this club one night and saw the guys playing songs like `Free Bird` with nobody paying them the slightest attention.”

“The bars were really tough. One night we saw a guy get his head blown off,” grimaces Rossington. “But we didn`t mind playing them `cause we didn`t know nuthin` different. Hell, if three people clapped you`d feel so great you`d tear the place down.”

Kooper duly formed his Sound Of The South Records and signed Skynyrd as the first act. They had already recorded enough material for two albums at Muscle Shoals under Jimmy Johnson but nothing had seen the light of day. “We bought them tapes from Jimmy,” reveals Ronnie. “We`re gonna re-do the vocals, add some back-up vocals, touch them up a bit, sit on them for a while, then release them as an `Early Lynyrd Skynyrd` album.”

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“Ronnie stands in the shower singin` to himself and the songs just come out,” explains Allen scratching his meager three-day growth. “Ma shower`s got the best acoustics in the world,” laughs Ronnie. “Ah always look for the melody first, then think up the words as ah go along. Ah memorize them, then take `em to one of the guitar players and we arrange everythin`.”

The debut album hovered in the lower regions of the chart for five months; creeping into the sixties, dropping back into the eighties, back again into the fifties. By the time they went on the road for their first tour, supporting the Who on their 1973 tour, they had over 100,000 sales under their belts.

“The tour opened in San Francisco at the Cow Palace in front of 18,600. We walked out on stage and went `eeerrrc, God, what am I goin` t`do?` Everything was played ten times too fast. We were awful, but by the time we got to the third night everythin` was jus` fine,” says Gary.

Massive success finally arrived with `Second Helping` and its single `Sweet Home Alabama,` the South`s indignant reply to Neil Young`s `Southern Man`: “I heard Mr Young sing about it / I heard ol` Neil put it down / Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / Southern man don`t need him around.”

The Los Angeles Record Plant-produced album was considerably more slick than its predecessor.

With Leon Wilkeson returned to the band after a short leave, Ed King could concentrate fully on augmenting Rossington and Collins` guitars, instead of having to double on bass as he had done on the first. Skynyrd`s fortè became the ability to

balance the guitarists; two holding back for up to ten bars, then sweeping in at the perfect moment.

Both album and single turned gold. With `Free Bird` released as a follow-up single, Skynyrd rapidly emerged as an important headline attraction across the United States.

November and December found them outside their homeland for the first time; England, Scotland, Belgium, France, Germany and Holland. “It was real fine,” smiles Allen at the memory. “It`s very much like the South over there; the people seem much closer together, care for each other much more than they do on the West Coast or in New York.”

“It`s a much more sophisticated audience over there too,” adds Ronnie untangling his stained red T-shirt from underneath his back. “They don`t raise hell right when you go on stage like they do here. They make the band prove its worth.”

Skynyrd returned to the studio after Christmas, this time at Webb IV in Atlanta. Previously Van Zant and the guitarists had all their material written and rehearsed prior to recording sessions.

This was not the case for `Nuthin` Fancy`; though `Saturday Night Special` had already been recorded for the soundtrack to `The Longest Yard`, starring Burt Reynolds. Nothing else was prepared.

the Southern punk arrogance of earlier days, simply because the quality of their musicianship and professionalism has improved so dramatically.

OPPOSITION Unfortunately Kooper`s firm-set ideas and the band`s natural development have unintentionally set themselves up in opposition, with Kooper wanting a sound that Skynyrd really cannot provide today. The result is that the album occasionally feels stretched, lacking in the hotter-thanhell feel that hallmarked the debut albums. “The sessions were a battle between myself and the band,” admits Kooper. But he insists: “That`s the way it should be – it creates the best music.”

That aside, with manager Peter Rudge now in control of their affairs, a very healthy track record and healthy European experience behind them, Skynyrd seem set.

As Ronnie so delightfully put it: “I think we could record `Mary Had A Little Dick` and it`d sell.”

Many thanks to: https://geirmykl.wordpress.com/about/

“It was the best time I ever had in a studio,” raves Allen.

“It was awful,” groans Kooper who resumed smoking cigarettes during the recording after having given up for a year. “I nearly had a nervous breakdown and ended up in the looney bin. We`d get up at noon, have some breakfast, head into the studio and record straight through until six or seven the next morning. Then the same the next day… every day for three weeks.”

Kooper says the album is an attempt to recapture some of the rawness of the first effort, yet is only partially successful. The country-flavoured `Made In The Shade` and `I`m A Country Boy` certainly hark back to first album numbers like `Mississippi Kid`, but the rockers are far more lithe. From the outset there was no way Skynyrd could return to ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 97

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“If prisons, freight trains, swamps, and gators don’t get ya to write songs, man, y’ain’t got no business writin’ songs.”

—Ronnie Van Zant

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Driven & Disciplined “I just swung for the fence. That’s my whole philosophy in life.” —Ronnie Van Zant The documentary Gone With the Wind depicted Ronnie Van Zant as having a combination of different characteristics. From an early age, he had a reputation for being a tough, pugnacious individual and got into trouble for fighting. This was evident in the way Zant treated a couple of members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the interviewees on the documentary explained.

Apart from anything else, Ronnie Van Zant demanded 100% from the other band members and also from himself. During recording sessions, everyone had to have ideas for songs or there would be hell. By the same token, if Zant liked any ideas for lyrics and musical arrangements, he would be encouraging and supportive always.

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ways saw each day as a chance to make it better than yesterday and with it, mold himself and those around him into the greatness he saw in all of them – even if it meant wallets taking a hit or two! A year before tragedy struck Lynyrd Skynyrd, award winning writer and director Cameron Crowe got the chance to sit down with Ronnie Van Zant for an in depth interview where the two discussed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s past, present, and where they hoped to go in the future. Ronnie, as always, was full of the wisdom that prompted friends and bandmates to affectionately refer to him as “Papa Ronnie” as he shared his evolution as a musician and as a person – and more importantly, the singer’s tried and true method for stopping any and all misbehavior within Lynyrd Skynyrd!

Fighting each other was absolutely a no-no, as was trashing hotels while on the road and other sorts of shenanigans rock bands tend to get up to – so what’s a band to do to hold themselves and each other accountable when things get a little crazy?

“We just levy a fine,” said Ronnie.

“The best way to hit a man is in his pocket.”

Alcohol amplified Van Zant’s personality significantly. Sober Ronnie was said to be a very kindhearted and generous guy, and was also a far more intelligent guy than his exterior might imply, but Ronnie by nature was also a control freak and perfectionist who wanted things done his way, or else.

When sober, he usually used more diplomatic methods of making that happen. But drunk Ronnie often tended to get mean — very mean — and yes, violent.

But Ronnie wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t a villain, either. He was a complicated human like the rest of us. His friends and bandmates both loved him and, at times, feared him, and they had valid reasons for both.

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Ronnie Van Zant’s Lucky Belt & Lucky Pants

AUCTION MUSIC ICONS (#3261) 06/19/2020 10:00 AM PDT CLOSED! LOT #369 RONNIE VAN ZANT STAGE WORN BELT. A western-style black leather belt with five oval medallions with shell motif and a large buckle, stage worn by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant. No labels present. Accompanied by a copy of a letter from Tammy Van Zant, Ronnie’s daughter, stating that this was her father’s special belt that he always wore on stage; he thought that it gave him good luck when he played.

Length, 44 1/2 inches Lot Closed - Sold Price: $31,250 ESTIMATE: $6,000 - $8,000 (17 bids) Source Page 102 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

GWS Auctions, Inc., Says: “This museum worthy piece of rock n’ roll memorabilia are denim blue jeans which were personally owned and worn by Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Zkynyrd. According to our seller, he received these pants directly from Van Zant one day in the summer of 1974 prior to the band’s concert in Louisville, Kentucky.

In a highly detailed notarized letter of provenance our client details his experience on that day, when he decided to try to get a glimpse of his favorite band by going to the Holiday Inn which they were staying. He was able to locate the band along with his friend, as the friend was working for the limousine service that was catering celebrities.

Our seller brought a confederate flag in hopes that the band would agree to sign it for him, and he discovered Ronnie Van Zant who he states was “soaking wet, wearing only a towel and carrying an ice bucket.” Van Zant invited the friends to follow him to his room around the corner, where they discovered blood and broken glass everywhere from what Van Zant described as a fight between band members Allen Collins and Billy Powell. Although Ronnie explained “don’t worry, we do this all the time,” this particular event became the infamous fight which got the group a lifetime ban from Holiday Inn. The group began to sign the flag until Artimus Pyles stated that he couldn’t sign as it would be defacing the flag. The boys then decided to burn the flag, and followed Ronnie to his room where they proceeded to place the flag in the bathtub and burn it.

Ronnie came back from his bedroom bringing a pair of denim blue jeans and according to our client stated, “I was wearing these pants the day I signed with MCA Records, they’re my lucky pants and I take em with me on every tour.” The pair of friends eventually followed the group to the show following behind their limousine.”

AUCTION Lynyrd Skynyrd Ronnie Van Zant Personally Owned Blue Jeans Worn on MCA Records Signing Day GWS Auctions, Inc. (93) Internet Premium : 23% Shipping: Get Estimate See Special Terms for additional fees Location: Agoura Hills, CA “According to our seller, he received these pants directly from Van Zant one day in the summer of 1974 prior to the band’s concert in Louisville, Kentucky.”

Sold for: $9,500.00 to onsite Source

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This Lynyrd Skynyrd original concert archive for July 11, 1974 at the Savannah Civic Center include a Ronnie Van Zant signed contract, Dixie Outlaws contract signed by Henry Paul, expense reports, radio station receipts and a lease agreement for the venue. Also includes the original advertisement for the concert featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd and Poco from the local newspaper.

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Contracts

Lynyrd Skynyrd Original 1975 Concert Contracts, 70+.

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(Photo courtesy of Shari Graye) Letter from Birmingham Hyatt House You’ve heard that rock bands like to trash hotel rooms? Well, here’s a 1975 letter to Peace Concerts from the Birmingham Hyatt House, complaining about the aftermath of a stay by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Shari Graye said she won’t part with this document, which she finds amusing. “Richard said they were the nicest young men, when they weren’t drunk,” Graye said.

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(Photo courtesy of Shari Graye) Skynyrd contract signed by “Ronnie Van Zant” This 1974 contract for a concert in Savannah, Ga., bears the signature of “Ronnie Van Zant,” but was very likely signed by the band’s road manager, Shari Graye said. It’s a legitimate contract, however, and indicates the band fee for the show: $7,500 and 60 percent of the gross “over amount to be advised.”

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The Early Days

“Perhaps why so many bands emerged from this same small area (the South), all during the same period of time was that some theorize that Lynyrd Skynyrd started it all, and everyone else simply followed along Skynyrd themselves who were certainly influenced by Gregg and Duane Allman.

Over the years I have enjoyed books, interviews, documentaries and many conversations about the subject of “Southern Rock;” –the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and certain venues of the South. While I have always detested the term, largely because the majority of the bands classified as such were never rock bands to begin with, I’ve found most accounts to be fairly accurate depictions of what actually took place.

1967-68 The Comic Book Club

One Percent, now with keyboardist David Knight, had finally come into the fold, becoming an instant favorite at the club, playing Doors, Yardbirds, Creedence Clearwater and Blues Magoos covers. Just downstairs a new band called Fresh Garbage was being assembled, which included Rickey Medlocke on drums, Charlie Hargrett on guitar and Greg Walker on bass.

Read Full Article here >

b 1968 at The Comic Book Club “The One Percent”

L-R: Allen Collins, Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Larry Junstrom, out of shot ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 109

One Percent – Lynyrd Skynyrd By 1969, the ONE PERCENT were appearing regularly at FOREST INN, along with BLACK BEAR ANGEL, SWEET ROOSTER, FAMILY PORTRAIT, and later, the KING JAMES VERSION. Still, the bands all managed to maintain a regular schedule of one-nighters in and around the North Florida area.

It was also around this time that One Percent decided to change their name to LYNYRD SKYNYRD. Almost immediately, other things began to change for the band.

They recorded a single, “Need All My Friends,” which garnered a fair amount of airplay on local radio, and were able to parlay that into live television appearances. They began writing more songs, better songs; these to be added to an already impressive list of covers they were currently performing. Dean Kilpartick had appointed himself the band’s unofficial wardrobe coordinator, which helped provide for the band a more professional stage image. But what was most impressive of all was the band’s ability to demonstrate significant improvement with seemingly every performance.

The Night One Percent Became Leonard Skinner

The Comic Book Club in Jacksonville, Florida hosted concerts, like on the bill pictured here “The One Percent.” They came to Atlanta in 1967 and signed with Bill Lowery, who kept an eye on the Florida market and had success with another Jacksonville band “The Classics IV.” In the early 70’s “The One Percent” came back to Atlanta renamed “Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

“Hey, ya’ll. We’re thinkin’ about changing the name of the group. Whatch’all think if we change it to— uhhhhhhhhh—Leonard Skinner!”

The crowd went wild.

Apparently this was some sort of inside joke I didn’t get. I leaned over and asked this tall dude a few feet away, “Who’s Leonard Skinner?” “He’s the PE coach at Lee High who hassles them about their hair.”

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Three years later producer Al Kooper, who signed the group to his Atlanta-based Sounds of the South label—which launched the group into the stratosphere—also tried to get the boys to change it. But the name stuck.

There is the powerhouse rock of Lynyrd Skynyrd, whom he discovered and produced.

And along the line, Al played on recordings by Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Paul Butterfield, BB King, Tom Petty and dozens more. In 1972, Kooper moved to Atlanta, attracted by the music he heard there. He discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd at a favorite hangout.

Forming his own label (Sounds of the South) to put out their records, he produced their first three albums, which included the massive hits “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Saturday Night Special,” and “Free Bird.”

In 1974 he sold Sounds of the South to MCA Records and moved to Los Angeles.

Kooper’s initial encounter with the no-nonsense music of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the edgy, volatile* environment of Funochio’s was a pivotal moment. He’d been on the prowl for “three-chord” bands to fill what he perceived as a void in the prog-rock-laden

The One Percent /Lynyrd Skynyrd 1969

So change it they did. But the label execs disliked the new name even more, Markham said. He also said it was James Silverman, who managed the group for about 15 minutes, who suggested changing some letters to Y’s, and “Leonard Skinner” became “Lynyrd Skynyrd.” It was very hip and ironic in those days for a band to deliberately misspell its name.

music environment of the early 70s. At the same time, he was well aware that Phil Walden was onto something, and that Walden, at the time, pretty much had a monopoly on the emerging genre of Southern Rock. In his autobiography, Kooper recalls: “My business plan was thus: No record company but Phil Walden’s Capricorn Records based in Macon, Georgia, understood that something was going on in the South. If Capricorn turned a band down, they were pretty much doomed, because no other label understood this phenomenon. I decided I would start my own label as an alternative to Capricorn and base it out of Atlanta.”

By the end of that week, Al Kooper was sitting in with Lynyrd Skynryd at the club. On Saturday night he offered them a recording deal which included him as producer. Without any commitments in place, he then managed to convince MCA Records in LA to distribute his yet-to-be-launched “Sounds of the South” label. Kooper settled into his new home in Sandy Springs, another suburb of Atlanta’s sprawl.

At last, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s manager contacted him.

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“The only reason we used the Confederate flag was just because we were from the South, and we were proud of that.”

—Gary Rossington “I think people who really want to do something do it — No matter what. And they won’t quit until they do it.”

—Gary Rossington

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SOUNDS MAGAZINE OCTOBER 30, 1976 “You know the odds of us landing in a fight before the nights over are about even.”

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May 31, 1975 Lynyrd Skynyrd Hanging Out Pre-Concert From left: Al Kooper, Leon Wilkeson, Theresa Wilkeson, Gary Rossington, and Ronnie Van Zant.

Photographer: Arlene Muzyka Page 122 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

Date: May 31, 1975 Location: Buffalo, New York, United States Lynyrd Skynyrd setlist:

“Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)” “Whiskey Rock-a-Roller” “I Ain’t the One” “Saturday Night Special” “The Needle and the Spoon” “Gimme Three Steps” “I Got the Same Old Blues” “Call Me the Breeze” ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 123

AL KOOPER 1971 PHOTOGRAPHER JOE SIA

Small World

Their manager was none other than Alan Walden, Phil’s younger brother.

Capricorn had already passed on signing the band.

It took a couple of months, but a deal was eventually hammered out. In the meantime, Al Kooper signed his first band for Sounds of the South: Mose Jones, a popular, well-respected, extremely talented Atlanta group. (They changed their name from Stonehenge in 1972.) Kooper had a plan:

“In my mind, stylistically speaking, Mose Jones were my Beatles, and Skynyrd were my Stones.”

Read full article Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt, February 5, 1944) is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears, although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity.

Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, playing organ on the Bob Dylan song “Like a Rolling Stone”, French horn and piano on the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and lead guitar on Rita Coolidge’s “The Lady’s Not for Sale”, among many other appearances. Kooper also produced a number of one-off collaboration albums, such as the Super Session album that saw him work separately with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills.

In the 1970s Kooper was a successful manager and producer, recording Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first three albums. He has also had a successful solo career, written music for film soundtracks, and has lectured in musical composition.

As Musician

Kooper has played on hundreds of records, including ones by the Rolling Stones, B. B. King, the Who, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Alice Cooper, and Cream. On occasion he overdubbed his own efforts,

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Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington and Allen Collins work with producer Al Kooper on Pronounced Lynyrd Skynyrd with engineer Bob “Tub” Langford looking on at Studio I on May 6, 1973 in Doraville, Atlanta, Georgia

as on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper and other albums, under the pseudonym “Roosevelt Gook.”

After moving to Atlanta in 1972, he discovered the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and produced and performed on their first three albums, including the singles “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird.” http://alkooper.com/

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Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary talks Funocchio’s, Al Driving Man (Demo) Page 126 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

kooper and Sounds of the South / Truck ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 127

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Studio One Doraville, GA

STUDIOONEDOCUMENTARY.COM This a story about a magical recording studio built by people who wanted a home to create, write, and record music. This was the home to the Atlanta Rhythm Section and the recording place for bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, .38 Special, and more.

And now the story really begins of the legendary Studio One. This little studio, the brainchild of Buddy Buie, grows out of his wanting to have a place to rehearse, write music, jam, and eventually record for his band, The Atlanta Rhythm Section.

But what happened was something that aligned perfectly in the early 1970’s as the popularity of Southern Rock grew with bands such as ARS, Skynyrd, .38 Special, and others that recorded there, created magic there, and loved just making music in a little place called Studio One. Studio One, legend has it, began out of a disagreement between Buddy Buie and Mastersound manager Bob Richardson over recording time for Buddy’s new band, The Atlanta Rhythm Section (reprinted from Buddy’s Blog) From 66 thru 69, I recorded exclusively at Master Sound Studio in the old Brookhaven school building, owned by my mentor Bill Lowery.

One day I called Bob Richardson, the studio co-owner- manager and asked could I come in to cut a demo. He said “no, an ad agency has It booked” and I said “that’s fine, I’ll cut at another studio but I need to come by and pick up the bass,” Master Sound had an old Fender bass that Emory Gordy played on all my sessions. Richardson said, “that bass doesn’t leave this studio.” I asked him if he was using it on

the ad-agency session and he said “no, but the bass doesn’t leave the studio.’

I couldn’t believe that after helping put his studio on the map, he’d refuse me the use of that old bass. I begged him to reconsider and he repeated, “that bass doesn’t leave this studio”. I never recorded another note in that studio. Armed with backing from Bill Lowery, Buddy enlisted the help of LeFevre Sound engineer, Rodney Mills to build a recording studio. Studio One was born, but what happened there is something that legends are made of--this is that story!

Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington and Allen Collins working with producer Al Kooper on Pronunciation of Lynyrd Skynyrd with engineer Bob “Tub” Langford looking on at Studio One on May 6, 1973 in Doraville, Atlanta, Georgia.

ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 129

Scott Harmon: “From my days at Studio One as an intern and assistant engineer 85-88.

The engineer for Sweet Home Alabama, Rodney Mills attested to the fact that “Sweet Home Alabama” was recorded at Studio One, Doraville and NOT Muscle Shoals. Al Kooper took it to Los Angeles and added stuff to it and mixed in Los Angeles.” See Studio One Video

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Scott Harmon: “I graduated from the Atlanta Art Institute and had Greg Quesnel as my recording instructor. He awarded me “best mix” on our final project and invited me to intern at Studio One. While at Studio One I assisted on Johnny VanZant’s album “Van Zant” and the Swimming Pool Q’s album “Blue Tomorrow.” I learned a lot from the experience and Greg provided valuable guidance. Unfortunately due to the timing and a small market for beginning engineers I ended up pursuing a different career.”

Studio One was a recording studio located in Doraville, Georgia, a suburban hamlet northeast of Atlanta. The address was 3864 Oakcliff Industrial Court, Doraville GA 30340. It is now occupied by a non related business and used as a warehouse.

future Atlanta Rhythm Section manager Buddy Buie. Lowery and Buie, along with the latter’s songwriting partner J. R. Cobb and the Classics IV’s manager Paul Cochran, were the studio’s original owners.

The studio output included a diverse range of recordings by Journey, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe South, Atlanta Rhythm Section, .38 Special and Outlaws. Singer Ronnie Hammond also started his career at the studio, originally employed as an assistant audio engineer.

Atlanta Rhythm Section was formed from session musicians used at Studio One and utilized the facilities extensively for rehearsals.

Buddy Buie continued to run Studio One until 1986 when he sold it to Georgia State University.

The studio was designed and constructed in 1970 by audio engineer Rodney Mills, with the support of music publisher Bill Lowery and ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 131

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LYNYRD SKYNYRD - WOMAN OF MINE - MEMPHIS 10-30-73 The story behind how this ultra-rare recorded Lynyrd Skynyrd performance from forty-five years ago this week even exists is a real Southern Rock mystery. First, “Woman of Mine” is one of only two Leon Wilkeson collaborations with lyricist/ singer Ronnie Van Zant (that’s Leon in the big ten gallon hat), but had it not been performed live in Ardent Studio in Memphis on October 30, 1973 during a promotional broadcast on Memphis radio station WMC-FM, there is a real high probability that we would never have known of its existence. Though clearly available to record as much as six months prior to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s April 1974 release Second Helping, there is no evidence that it ever was.

Matter of fact, guitarist Gary Rossington and Wilkeson himself both told me that this performance may actually be the only recording of it anywhere until I gave the tape to the record company for Collectibles in year 2000. Major props to the two Memphis Jons- former deejay and veteran record promoter Jon Scott for making the original broadcast happen, and Recording Academy Executive Director Jon Hornyak for finding it and “Woman of Mine” in Dick Williams‘ closet! –In The Studio With Redbeard ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 133

Photo by Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images Page 134 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

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Spare Change The store where the guys would go in and bring cans and bottles with them to cash in.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd Riverside Recording Studio This is the Riverside recording studio that Lynyrd Skynyrd bought in ‘76, they used the one on the corner. .38 special bought the one just to the left of it to practice in.

This building has since been torn down and reconstructed into multi-level offices.

Thanks to: http://www.lynyrdskynyrdhistory.com/

ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 141

Lynyrd Skynyrd at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio Photos: Jimmy Johnson

MUST WATCH!

Muscle Shoals, Skynyrd And How Freebird Came To Be! Page 142 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

“There Was Something Different About This Band.”

—Jimmy Ray Johnson Jimmy Ray Johnson was an American session guitarist and record producer.

Johnson was a member of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section who was attached to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals.s, Alabama, for a period in the

Jimmy Ray Johnson was Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section member could be heard on hundreds of records and worked with Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Wilson Pickett and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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Muscle Shoals Sound Studio Lynyrd Skynyrd being interviewed by the local news station inside Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

A nine-song sampling from Skynyrd’s first-ever recordings-made at Muscle Shoals in 1970-was released as Lynyrd Skynyrd’s First and Last in ‘78. That went platinum, but this release is nearly twice as important-all 17 songs from the original Muscle Shoals sessions!

A nine-song sampling from Skynyrd’s first-ever recordings-made at Muscle Shoals in 1970-was released as Lynyrd Skynyrd’s First and Last in ‘78. That went platinum, but this release is nearly twice as important-all 17 songs from the original Muscle Shoals sessions! Includes the previously unreleased original versions of Free Bird; I Ain’t the One; Simple Man , and Wino , plus two never-released Skynyrd songs and more original recordings. This is their true debut album, complete for the first time.

Nine of the 17 tracks on this historical curio surfaced on the 1978 LP Skynyrd’s First and... Last, but more than a quarter of a century passed between the 1971/’72 sessions that produced these germinating tracks and their full appearance. Skynyrd’s First: The Muscle Shoals Album documents a group of young musicians finding their footing, but by no means is it an amateurish affair. While ongoing personnel shifts are in evidence (only Ronnie Van Zant, Albert Collins, and Gary Rossington from the classic lineup appear throughout), the playing and writing is surprisingly tight. It’s easy to see why veteran session man Jimmy Johnson, the producer of the sessions, insisted: “I had never heard a band that were that well rehearsed and had their songs together.” The excellent liner notes make this package all the more appealing to Lynyrd loyalists. --Steven Stolder

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T.V. interview at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio L-R: Producers Tim Smith & Jimmy Johnson, Ronnie Van Zant, Leslie Hawkins, Jo Billingsly, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd dedicated the song “Mad Hatter” from their 2003 album Vicious Cycle to Wilkeson’s memory.

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“We’re not a southern band, we’re a band from the South.”

—’Mad Hatter,” Leon Wilkeson (April 2, 1952 – July 27, 2001) Leon was the bassist of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1972 until his death in 2001.

Lynyrd Skynyrd signed with Al Kooper’s production company, Sounds of the South, a joint venture with MCA Records, in 1973.

Wilkeson returned to Jacksonville and his regular job stocking ice cream at Farmbest Dairy Products.

Former Strawberry Alarm Clock lead guitarist Ed King replaced Wilkeson during the recording of Skynyrd’s debut album, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, but just as sessions wrapped up, King and vocalist Ronnie Van Zant both agreed that King wasn’t suited to be a bassist. Van Zant subsequently visited Wilkeson and convinced him to rejoin the band, and King moved to lead guitar. Wilkeson acquired a “Fenderbird” bass from John Entwistle. The Fenderbird bass mated a custom made Gibson Thunderbird body to a Fender Precision Bass neck. Wilkeson can be seen playing this bass in a 1975 Lynyrd Skynyrd performance on the British TV series The Old Grey Whistle Test.

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Years of hard work and tough touring were finally paying off for Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1976 — and then it all threatened to come to a literal screeching halt.

The band was hit with a pair of near-tragedies over Labor Day weekend that year, when guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins were both involved in a pair of potentially disastrous car accidents. Collins emerged the better off of the two, but Rossington Page 150 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

was injured seriously enough that Skynyrd were forced to postpone some concert dates — leaving frontman Ronnie Van Zant ticked off enough to fine them $5,000 each.

“Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars,” Van Zant sings in the opening lines. “Oak tree you’re in my way / There’s too much coke and too much smoke..

Read More >

Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell - 7/13/1977 - Convention Hall (Official)

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Why Did Ronnie Go Barefoot On Stage?

“He didn’t like shoes, they always bothered him. He’d kick them off whenever we were practicing or anywhere else he could. I think because it was just always so hot where we were in Florida.

We noticed some people not wearing shoes on stage, like the singer from Three Dog Night and there were a few others. Shoes bothered Ronnie anyway. We all thought it looked cool.”

—Gary Rossington “Just the other night, right in the middle of one song…some person in the audience threw a whole package of firecrackers that was lit. And I play barefoot on stage, always have, and it landed about an inch from my toe, right in between Gary and I…it was kinda funny, but broke your concentration.”

—Ronnie Van Zant ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 155

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Lynyrd Skynyrd during the first album photo shoot in 1973, Page 158 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Jonesboro, Georgia.

(July 19, 1952 – January 23, 190)

Larkin Allen Collins Jr. was one of the founding members and guitarists of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and co-wrote many of the band’s songs with late frontman Ronnie Van Zant. Larkin was 6” 3.”

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“The One Percent”

Lynyrd Skynyrd 1973

Still known as “The One Percent” in 1969, Van Zant sought a new name after growing tired of taunts from audiences that the band had “1% talent.” At Burns’ suggestion, the group settled on Leonard Skinnerd, which was in part a reference to a character named “Leonard Skinner” in Allan Sherman’s novelty song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” and in part a mocking tribute to P.E. teacher Leonard Skinner at Robert E. Lee High School.

Skinner was notorious for strictly enforcing the school’s policy against boys having long hair. Rossington dropped out of school, tired of being hassled about his hair. The more distinctive spelling “Lynyrd Skynyrd” was being used at least as early as 1970.

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from

Atlanta Bands

Comment & Photographer by Bob Johnson This line up was called The 1% and signed with Bill Lowery (founder National Recording Corporation in Atlanta) in 1967.

This picture, with the same lineup, was taken circa 1970 or 1971, by Bob Johnson and they were called Lynyrd Skynyrd by then.

I am still looking for a 1% picture from 1967 or so with this line up. I have a copy of the contract they signed with Bill Lowery and each parent signed also because they were minors.

Collins, Rossington, Van Zant, Bob Burns, Larry Junstrom...replaced by Leon Wilkerson...he later played with .38 Special. This shot is one of my early LS pics. Taken down by the river in Rose Hill cemetery. Many think that this is a 1% shot. Not so. Very early LS. See signing photo in Scott Bombar’s book Southbound.

After Tom Markham and Jim Sutton signed a recording contract with a young Jacksonville band that would become Lynyrd Skynyrd, they arranged for a publicity photo at an Olan Mills Portrait Studio. From left to right are Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Larry Junstrom, Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. Before they were known as Leonard Skinner they were known as The Noble Five, One Percent, and My Backyard.

When they signed with Lowery Music the year before they were minors and their parents had to sign with them on the contract.

Alan Walden was managing them at this time.

This was before the Allman Brothers formed.

Jim Sutton, formed Shade Tree Records in the late 1960s. it was Sutton who in 1968 saw the potential in The One Percent, a Westside band led by a stocky, self-confident singer named Ronnie Van Zant. They signed them to a fiveyear contract, promoted them at grocery stores and shopping center openings, and got them in the recording studio at the Norm Vincent Studio off Beach Boulevard. They also got them airplay on local TV and the Big Ape, WAPE, the city’s powerhouse AM station.

References: https://www.facebook.com/atlantabands/photos/787336527992462/

Tom Markham still has tapes of the six Lynyrd Skynyrd songs recorded in his studio by the fledgling Jacksonville band, including the first recording of the band’s iconic “Free Bird.”

https://eu.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/10/23/jacksonville-iconreflects-recording-lynyrd-skynyrds-firstsongs/3713009001/ ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 163

Ronnie Van Zant - Lynyrd Skynyrd - The story Page 164 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

of Lynyrd Skynyrd ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 165

Allen Collins

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Hell House is no long existence. Hell House old cabin with a tin ro ed in the woods on a Green Cove Springs.

Skynyrd did alot of w there and is where th most of their first and albums.

ger in e was an oof locata farm in . Lynyrd writing hey wrote d second

If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd HELL HOUSE

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HELL HOUSE Simple Man

“And be a simple kind of man Oh, Be something you love and understand” Page 168 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

“Don’t you worry... yo Follow you heart and “Take your time... Don Troubles will come an

ou’ll find yourself. d nothing else.” n’t live too fast, nd they will pass.”

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The Man Who Produced Lynyrd Skynyrd & How They Rose to

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o Fame

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October 19, 1977: In Greenville, South Carolina, Lynyrd Skynyrd play their last show before the plane crash that kills three of their members. Nazareth was the opening act. This photo of Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington is believed to be from the concert at Greenville, SC on October 19, 1977.

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Last Show On October 19, 1977 at Greenville Memorial Auditorium (which was imploded in 1997) here in Greenville, the band Lynyrd Skynyrd (creators of the iconic song, Sweet Home Alabama) played their last show together, just two days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors. Nazareth is the opening act. The next day, the band boarded a plane at Greenville’s downtown airport that was headed to Baton Rouge, LA, where the band was supposed to play a show that night.

Lynyrd Skynyrd October 19, 1977 Setlist 1. Workin’ for MCA 2. I Ain’t the One 3. Saturday Night Special 4. Whiskey Rock-a-Roller 5. That Smell 6. Travelin’ Man 7. Ain’t No Good Life 8. Gimme Three Steps 9. Call Me the Breeze (J.J. Cale cover) 10. Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas) (Jimmie Rodgers cover) 11. Sweet Home Alabama 12. Free Bird

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“Ronnie, Allen And I Always Had This Dream…”

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 2006 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a long awaited dream come true. Decades of blood, sweat, and tears paired with an unrelenting dedication to hard work and creating music meant to last a lifetime culminated in the band finally taking their rightful place among some of the greatest rock acts to ever live, but there was just one problem: not everyone would be there for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s crowning moment. Read Full Article here > KID ROCK INDUCTS LYNYRD SKYNYRD AT THE 2006 ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY “LYNYRD SKYNYRD IS RONNIE VAN ZANT’S HOUSE AND IT WAS BUILT

BY A LOT OF HANDS, GREAT HANDS.” —KID ROCK Page 178 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

Inductee Ed King’s guitar was the note you heard first and what stuck out in a song. From co-writing “Incense and Peppermints” to the signature opening of “Sweet Home Alabama,” King’s riffs and arrangements completed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s distinct sound and continue to influence generations of guitarists.

“Lynyrd Skynyrd’s story is one of desire, fate, extraordinary talent, and survival. It’s also the tale of the intersection of history and one man’s vision: Vocalist and songwriter Ronnie Van Zant was the original man with a plan, and the long history of Lynyrd Skynyrd is largely the story of Van Zant, a man driven by inexplicable demons that demanded he not only change the landscape of rock history but secure his place in it. “ —Jaan Uhelszki, Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

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THE PLANE RAN OUT OF GAS....

Why was Ronnie Van Zant called the Mississippi kid?

Van Zant’s nickname foreshadowed his death.

Van Zant’s friends called him the Mississippi Kid. When asked why, he always replied that he had no idea. He eventually would lose his life in Mississippi when the band’s plane plunged into thick forest outside Gillsburg.

On October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-240

passenger aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed in a wooded area near Gillsburg, Mississippi, United States. Chartered by the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from L&J Company of Addison, Texas, it flew from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashing near its destination.

Lead vocalist/founding member Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve’s older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray all died as a result of the crash while twenty others survived. The tragedy abruptly halted Lynyrd Skynyrd’s career until Van Zant’s brother Johnny reformed the

band ten years later.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - October 20, 1977

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A Convair CV-240 similar to the accident aircraft

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At 6:42 PM on October 20, 1977, the pilot of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered Convair 240 airplane radioed that the craft was dangerously low on fuel. Less than ten minutes later, the plane crashed into a densely wooded thicket, cutting a 500 foot path through the swamp near McComb, Mississippi.

The plane had left Greenville, South Carolina enroute to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, his sister Cassie Gaines, their assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick and the pilots, Walter McCreary and William Gray were all killed.

Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson were seriously injured but eventually recovered. In 1990, Allen Collins died of complications from pneumonia. In 2001, Leon Wilkeson past away in his sleep.

The handwritten note (went to auction) reads: Leon Wilkerson – Critical; Allen Collins – Fair; Billy Powell – Fair; Artimus Pyle – Stable; Gary Rossington – Fair; R. Van Zant – Dead; Steve Gaines – Dead; Both Pilots – Dead; Cassie Gaines – Dead.

“Every night I have some kind of weird dream about it.”—Gary Rossington, August 21, 2021

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“If it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.” —Ronnie Van Zant We are Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument, Inc. (LSM) and we still remember October 20, 1977 because we were here... and we won’t forget. A seven-ton black granite monument, dedicated to the memory of those who died and those who lived through the crash over 44 years ago of our own Southern rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, is a lasting reminder not only of the band, but also the people who stepped up to help save the twenty crash survivors.

We are a non profit Mississippi Corporation dedicated to maintaining a lasting connection between the band and those that came to their rescue, the people that they continue to inspire throughout the world and this site. This memorial is just one part of what we are doing to keep these memories alive.

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“Boy don’t you worry. You’ll find yourself.

Follow your heart, and nothing else.”

“Simple Man” - Lynyrd Skynyrd Recorded April 30, 1973 at Studio One, Doraville, Georgia

ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022 Page 187

Ronnie Van Zant’s mausoleum in Jacksonville Memory Garden always has flowers and rememberences left by Skynyrd’s thousands of fans.

Steve and Cassie Gaines were interred right next to Ronnie’s crypt.

Due to the June 29th, 2000 vandalization of Ronnie’s original grave site, his casket was moved to a new location. Ronnie is now buried in the family plot at Riverside Memorial Park.

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“If I Leave Here Tomorrow...” Lynyrd Skynyrd Also M

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Members Of The Tomorrow Club - “See ya later”

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“KISMET WAY OF THE SWORD” A Rock And Roll Divine Comedy TAROCCHI KIT

Created By Londa R. Marks Inspired By Bass Legend & Songwriter Pete Way & Florence, Italy’s Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy

Complete Tarot Kit Includes 80 Tarot Cards & 5 Booklets Available at worldoftarot.com Facebook.com/groups/ etewaygroup Page 194 ROCK LEGEND NEWS | OCTOBER 2022

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Can contain video, text & graphics.

Provide URL to videos, images or text.

Submit your advertising information, png, jpg, gif at checkout.

Can contain video, text & graphics.

Provide URL to videos, images or text. Submit your advertising information, png, jpg, gif at checkout.

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Rock Legend News Classifieds

Double Page Spread Ad Starting at $439 per 1-issue.

Bulk Discounts.

Ad size: 17” x 22”

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

Can contain video, text & graphics.

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Need help? classifieds@rocklegendnews.com

TEXT AD

HIGHLIGHTED TEXT AD

Rock Legend News Classifieds

Rock Legend News Classifieds

Starting at $19 per 1-issue.

Bulk Discounts.

Starting at $22 per 1-issue.

Bulk Discounts.

Text Ad

Ad size: 2.5” x 2.5” Can contain: 90 text characters including bold title. Yellow highlighted box, linked URL or button.

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Highlighted Text Ad Ad size: 2.5” x 2.5” Can contain: 90 text characters including bold title. Yellow highlighted box, linked URL or button.

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KCOR DNEG L SWEN

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