Tragic icons of the Deep South
Music, Myths & LegendsBy Martin Vengadesan
ONCE upon a time, there lived a stuffy American gym teacher named Leonard Skinner. The guy taught at the Robert E. Lee high school in Jacksonville, Florida, and exhibited a particular distaste for male students who chose to sport long hair. Back in the late 1960s, this was enough of an offence to get a student sent to the principal’ s office, and Skinner repeatedly targeted a group of would-be musicians.
In revenge, students Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington and Bob Burns decided to change their band’s name from One Percent to Leonard Skinner. What started off as a joke soon became serious, and to avoid legal complications, the boys changed the spelling to Lynyrd Skynyrd. They could hardly have known that they would go on to become cultural icons of the Deep South.
By the early ‘70s, Skynyrd had settled on a relatively stable line-up comprising Van Zant (vocals), guitarists Rossington and Allen Collins, keyboardist Billy Powell, bassist Leon Wilkeson and drummer Bob Burns. Van Zant, who put his strange blend of Southern bravado and bluesy melancholia into not just his music, but his life, was the driving force of the band at the time.
However, a failed attempt at recording a debut album disillusioned Wilkeson, who quit the group in 1972. Then legendary Blood, Sweat and Tears founder Al Kooper wandered into one of the band’s shows and was dazzled by the players’ potential. He hooked them up with session bass player Ed King (a former member of Strawberry Alarm Clock) and turned them loose in the studio.
The band’s debut album, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, was, in some ways, its finest achievement. The raw emotion of powerful ballads like Tuesday’s Gone and Simple Band and sassy stompers I Ain’t The One and Gimme Three Steps were actually eclipsed by Free Bird, a monumental tribute to the fallen Duane Allman.
Free Bird featured an aching melody that evolved into one of the most explosive rock jams captured on record. As it became a huge radio hit and Skynyrd’s career took off. The members demonstrated their family spirit by inviting Wilkinson back into the fold. Not wanting to leave Ed King without a gig, they moved him to guitar, thus the group’s unique triple guitar line-up. Al Kooper, as producer and organ player, rounded out the Skynyrd family.
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Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1973. From left: Ed King, Leon Wilkeson, Allen Collins, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Van Zant and Billy Powell. |
not detract from the power of songs like Sweet Home Alabama (which became a second Southern anthem), Swamp Music, Call Me the Breeze and the proto-metal Working For MCA.
By then, Skynyrd were challenging the Allman Brothers for supremacy on the Southern rock scene. The success
of the two bands paved the way for a generation of followers that included Molly Hatchet, ZZ Top, Black Oak Arkansas, Blackfoot and .38 Special (featuring Ronnie’s younger brother, Donnie Van Zant, as lead singer).
Amazingly, for a band that seemed poised to rule the world, Skynyrd never quite lived up to its initial promise. Its third album, Nuthin Fancy’, was, in many aspects, just a holding pattern, despite the excellent Saturday Night Special. The relentless touring schedules of 1974 and 1975 also claimed two victims – Burns (who left and was replaced by powerhouse Artimus Pyle) and Ed King, whose place was left vacant for awhile.
Gimme Back My Bullets, released in 1976, was ample proof that Skynyrd was running on empty. Years of hard living had left it a fine live band bereft of inspiration. This album was followed just three months later by the double live album, One More From The Road. Nonetheless, with the clean-living vegetarian Pyle threatening to quit because of fellow members’ drinking, Van Zant revitalised the band with new third guitarist Steve Gaines and a trio of back-up singers. It seemed to be a successful move: their fifth studio album, Street Survivors, was their strongest since Second Helping. Sadly, its cover, which showed the band in flames, proved to be prophetic.
On Oct 17, 1977, the private plane carrying the group to a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashed, killing Van Zant, Gaines and his sister Cassie, one of the back-up singers. Skynyrd literally disintegrated on the spot.
Over the years, more tragedies befell its members. Collins was paralysed in a car crash in 1986 and died in 1991. By then, Rossington, Powell, Wilkinson and King had reformed the band with Ronnie’s brother, Johnny, as lead vocalist. Johnny’s classic single, Brickyard Road, proved a touching tribute to his brother, and the ‘90s incarnation of Skynyrd actually went on to record more albums than the original gang, culminating in last year’s Vicious Cycle.
But the Skynyrd curse reared its head a few more times. In 1993, while on tour, Wilkinson woke up one day to find slashes on his throat. He finally died, of unrelated causes, in 2001 – 24 years after first being pronounced dead in the aftermath of the 1977 crash.
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