Lynyrd Skynyrd bandmates talk about Ronnie VanZant and life on the road as the real Lynyrd Skynyrd

the first tune of any that i really can remember actually being there you know how you can picture yourself 25 years later with sweet home alabama that was the first day of rehearsal with leon back on base my first day on guitar and no sooner i guess gary got there before i did and i'd no sooner walked into hell house and gary was playing this guitar riff and i picked up my stratocaster and i just started bouncing down right off of him you know and then ronnie said don't stop that keep that going and within 10 minutes ronnie had the first the second verse of alabama written and and after i heard the first second verse i just man i rolled with the ball i wrote the you know the chorus going into that whole thing and then he immediately came up with a chorus and yeah i remember very clearly and after it was done that day ronnie looked at me and goes well he goes there's our rambling man you know the allman brothers had rambling man it's their big hit and that was our rambling man we just knew it was a hit record you know it was funny mca didn't release that first they didn't i guess hear it as a hit they released i guess don't ask me no questions off the second helping album first and of course alabama was a clear-cut hit off that record now in alabama's alabama was an exception because here he had gary who just had this riff and i walked in and then of course if it wasn't for that riff i wouldn't have bounced off my dana riff okay and then ronnie put the lyrics on top of that but basically after i heard gary's riff i pretty i wrote the rest of it and just rolled with it but you know you got to give credit where credit's due if gary hadn't started off with that riff the song never would have been written if we were we'd be working on a song there in the house and let's say after a song was written well if i was playing bass it was it'd be me maybe allen would stay behind and the drummer and we just work up our parts three-piece to get ourselves tight and ronnie and gary and at that time billy i guess would go down to the water and just either fish or kind of wait for us to get our stuff together and of course they'd be able to hear us real well from down in the water by the way music and water go real well together i don't know if you noticed but like it's like this venue out of jones beach new york how there's all this water is right by the stage and water and music just go real well so anyway they'd be uh listening to us play and ron and have a suggestion he'd run up to the house you know and go hey why don't you put this in there and when we finally get tight then one by one they'd filter back in and and sing you know sing and play their parts i can remember being the first one ever to hear the lyrics to saturday night special we were we were playing it all together in this room and you know ronnie's kind of huddled over in a couch over in the corner with his head down and he never wrote anything down he's always in his head after about 20 minutes he gets up and walks over to me he says keep playing don't stop and everybody's playing he gets right in my ear and cups you know cuts his mouth to my ear and sings me the first verse to saturday night special i could have died i went man i said to myself you know how does he come up with stuff that's so cool like that i think some of his best lyrics were like needle and spoon uh now how he came up with the subject matter he did or his angle on the subject matter is just he was just a raw genius that's all there is to it ronnie always knew what he wanted you know when he came in he knew what he wanted it was mostly thirst uh first thirds fifths you know simple harmonies um there were a few songs that were a little more complicated more gospely but we all just did that naturally anyway you know we'd throw out a part and if it wasn't you know see if it clicked uh just maybe do a couple of adjustments here and there but usually everything was pretty simple um i worked with steve on some of his stuff on some of his songs were a little more a little more complicated bluesier and that was a lot of fun so cass and steve and i worked out the parts for a couple of his songs but ronnie just generally knew what he wanted keep it simple and strong and of course sweet home alabama had already been done you know mary clayton clydey king and veneto fields had recorded that so some of the songs were already done when we came in we may have thrown in a few things here or there you know i actually threw in one part on that smell you know the carry-over part you know there are few little things that would come out as ad-libs or whatever but but in general he always had a clear picture i think that's why the music so uh consistent you know it's why it works so well because he always had such a clear focus on what he wanted you know and and everybody kind of did their part but he kept it in the parameters you know it was like he kept it right here and occasionally he'd have to say okay now somebody do this do that it's not quite what i'm hearing you know but but he always had i think he always heard everything in his head it was pretty much finished when he came into the studio as far as the way he was hearing it usually the way it ended up cat leslie would sing that top part and cassie would sing the middle and i'd seen the low part because it's just the way it ended up you know only one time i got to sing what i wanted to sing i got i had to sing what nobody else wanted which is slow part but then it worked out pretty good for me too because i got to sing harmony with ronnie on a lot of things and they did back ups and i sing with him still worked out pretty good for me you know and i love singing with ronnie and i'll do some ad-libs he let me do some ad-libs and stuff like that and leon and ronnie and i sing together and then they would do the backups and then the three of us would do the backups together i'd always play the maracas cassie would always play the kielbasa and leslie would always play the tambourine and we always had the same stage set up it was leslie and then cassie and then me i was always on the right always so it just worked out that way we did many a show we couldn't hear the monitors at all we just kind of be up there guessing at it you know and then they got us up on a riser and the guys was trying to stand up there look up her dress for a while craig reed especially had his camera you know to be rolling you know i'd be interested in some of the footage that he had on the hunt is is really a good song it's ronnie calling a spade a spade he's saying girl i know what you're about but that don't bother me come and spend a few hours with me you know i'm lonely you're lonely i don't care what your background is i'm on the hunt and so are you you want what i got and i want what you got that's what ronnie was saying all of his songs you look at every song sweet home alabama was basically uh ronnie explained it to me he's telling the the southern man and and uh that the southern man is not to be blamed for something that happened 400 years ago or 300 or 200 years ago he's saying neil young you know i don't have anything against african-american people and ronnie didn't ronnie would give the shirt off his back to anybody black or white ronnie was not a racist you know and it's like uh ronnie's vocals and his stuff was from the heart his words were from the heart and that's what has lasted 20 years not guitar players or drummers you know not you know but ronnie vanzant's heart and soul and that's the writing that's what i love about and ronnie you know you see a lot of a lot of singers will jump around stage and they'll shake their body to the beat of every every beat of every tune and they'll you know they look like basically clowns ronnie would stand there and he would he would sing you know he didn't need anything else he had he had who he was and from his heart on that microphone and you look at some people's stage presence ronnie had an incredible stage presence and that came from his ability to to write songs the ability to write songs for ronnie i'll write songs down a lot and then i'll wad them up and throw them away because i'm afraid for people to know how i feel ronnie right or wrong he put his feelings on his sleeve he wore his heart on his sleeve that's what i really dig about ronnie's writing i miss ronnie man i really do i wish he were here now be something

Channel: Tony Beazley

Views: 1,063,816

Rating: 4.8666024 out of 5

Keywords: lynyrd, skynyrd, ronnie, vanzant, ed, king, jojo, honkettes, steve, gaines, hawkins

Id: MBftFjxWbN0

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2009