Lynyrd Skynyrd: Groundbreaking Documentary on a Legendary Band | Gone With The Wind | Amplified

[Music] [Applause] when Leonard Skinner emerged onto the world stage in 1973 for the band it was the result of their Collective determination having struggled to gain real recognition since they had formed eight years beforehand and although they were immediately identified both in the music industry and the press as yet another act in the booming southern rock movement of the time it soon became apparent that these Floridians were not only an entirely distinctive musical unit but also one of the greatest rock bands in the world they wanted to cash in on something you know that would be unique to them you know a southern redneck biker band it was just such a crazy concept but they were just audacious enough to make it work Leonard Skinner was the showstopper when I walked to the stage with Leonard Skinner the hair on the back of my neck stood up it was like the Gladiators going into the arena and the driving force of the band was Ronnie Van Zandt a tough blue-collar brawler who led Skynet from the front line with his powerful stage presence distinctive vocals and his gritty honest lyrics headstrong and domineering his energy and vision propelled the group from its formation until its tragic end in 1977. from the minute I joined the band to the minute we had the plane crash it was the hardest working band I've ever known of that was due primarily to the work ethic of Ronnie Van Zandt he was the true leader writer mentor of that band [Music] Ronnie was spectacular he he just had a Charisma all his own and man he grabbed my heart Hook Line and singer I said man everything comes out of his mouth is Meaningful Ronnie Van Zant was a great songwriter he was a terrific Lyricist who and a deservant person and a very smart guy and and knew how to be ambiguous about stuff he was very sharp they put out six albums 80 90 of those songs are absolutely top rate it's amazing [Music] Ronnie Van Zandt was born in Jacksonville Florida in 1948 the eldest child of parents Lacey and Marion VanZant at the time this port city on the northeastern tip of Florida was undergoing rapid expansion near the Van Zant settled away from the Industrial and Commercial Center of downtown Jacksonville in the semi-rural area of the West side here Ronnie grew up alongside his five siblings in a small family home close to the unspoiled beauty of the Cedar River known to the locals as Cedar Creek they weren't Guided by any particular rules Lacey Van Zant was home was almost never there the father he was a hard-living truck driving man and he was he was very rarely home and the mother who everybody called sis was kind of a hands-off kind of parent Ronnie was a Barefoot country boy you know on the west side of Jacksonville we lived down the street there at Mall Street and me and Ronnie just became fishing buddies we ride our bicycles down to Cedar Creek I'd be on the handlebars or he'd be on the handlebars and we'd go down and take a croaker sack and we'd catch mullet we catch a sack full of mullet bring them back and give them to everybody some black folks on the other in the street down there we gave fish to everybody although fishing was the young van zandt's favored Pastime during his childhood the area surrounding the family home on mull Street was a rough working-class neighborhood renamed shantitam by its residents and the quick tempered Ronnie soon developed in part through necessity into one of the toughest Kids on the Block the old saying then and now even is the farther north you go in Florida the more in the South you are and when you were in Jacksonville you were at the upper tip of Florida and it was pretty bad it was pretty bad country Ronnie lived in a neighborhood that's where 12 o'clock noon on a summer day usually won't be in that neighborhood okay and I lived about quarter mile away and the houses not much bigger in this room but they were brick and there were whole level up from where the Ronnie's people were they used to call us the rich folks he lived in the roughest neighborhood they was it was blue collar and it was working-class people rednecks you know happy to be a redneck you know and so uh it was a great neighborhood back then we called it the shanty town they call it the Bottom now the west side was everybody knew each other in the west side we played baseball together we went fishing together but we wanted to live here all our lives but we knew we weren't going to really amount to much of anything here besides work you work for the railroad you joined the Navy that was pretty much it or you went to college to become a lawyer and uh starting a band just seemed to be a whole lot more fun despite being drawn to music from an early age in particular country in the work of Merle Haggard and having already developed an enthusiasm for singing vanzant's earliest Ambitions were not artistic yet they all involved breaking out of Shantytown growing up within walking distance from Jacksonville Speedway park his initial childhood aspiration was to become a champion stock car driver although with his enrollment in Robert E Lee High School in 1961 his thoughts turned to more athletic Pursuits at Lee early on he wanted to play football he wanted to be a running back and he got play and they did a scrimmage in the first play from scrimmage he got his ankle broken and they put pins in it that made him 4f so he couldn't be drafted right before that when Cassius Clay was in his Heyday before he turned over and changed his name to Muhammad Ali Ronnie loved Cassius Clay and he wanted to be a boxer but boxer and I wasn't there that day and asked this Godwin which lived over on pangolia on the other side of Woodcrest Ronnie's side Ronnie and he beat the hell out of Ronnie so that changed Ronnie's mind about wanting to be a boxer and you get your ass beat the first time you want to be somebody you don't want to be that next day the single event that caused VanZant to focus not on sport but to music occurred in 1965 when he and a friend attended a concert to the Jacksonville Coliseum despite the rich musical Heritage of the South it was a British band channeling this Heritage into their own distinctive sound that provided the young Floridian with a clear road map for his future the Rolling Stones played to a packed house on May the 8th and their performance proved inspirational Mick Jagger and the stones is what inspired him he liked music with Country Music Mick Jagger the Rolling Stones is what put the shovel in this feet and one put him into the wanting to be in the music business it's that gorgeous or whatever and I believe I can run thank you very much download now [Music] [Applause] [Music] you've seen the reaction of the fans and the people especially the girls and the girls love their singers they don't care much about the band but they love that front man and so Lonnie loved it and he just had that reaction because truthfully speaking he wanted to get out of shanty town he hated it he didn't bring nobody over to his house Us close friends but he didn't if he wasn't a close friend you didn't come over to Shantytown and Ronnie's eyes he wanted to be somebody Mick Jagger did that dancing Ronnie Van Zant come back hey I want to be I want to be a rock and roll and so that he put that in his mind and that was what guided him Ronnie VanZant had a goal it didn't take VanZant long to begin working towards this goal within weeks he had joined young teenage group the squires and several years older than the other band members he quickly took charge renaming them us this would soon bring him into contact with rival band the mods which featured young guitarist Alan Collins and bassist Larry Steele I first met Ronnie Van Zant in nineteen 65. Allen and I had a band together called the mods uh we attended Lakeshore junior high school together as did Gary rossington and Alan and osband had a battle of the bands coming up with another band we had had a battle of the bands previously and we won but now this band that we were competing against now their new lead singer was Ronnie Van Zant Ronnie came over to Lakeshore Junior High School to kind of advanced the gig he was always calculating he was like a field General and he had requested through someone to meet with me that was terrifying you know it was like what it just didn't sound good at all you know I knew of him I knew the name everybody on the west side of Jacksonville knew the name because Ronnie had a fairly a big reputation as a street fighter he was a he was a tough guy I was expecting to meet uh Attila the hunt but he was very soft-spoken he was very polite he was uh very intelligent he knew what he wanted to do he was as nice as he could be although us won the contest Van Zant quickly decided that his bandmates lack the skill and focus to match his own Ambitions and he began looking for a new outfit to front another group on the local high school circuit soon caught his attention a recently formed three-piece band consisting of bassist Larry youngstrom guitarist Gary rossington and drummer Bob Burns Forrest was me and Larry we were trying to do something I saw there we got to get we got to get his guitar player he says oh no no I said I do you're a rosative yes I told Gary about it he said sure but he didn't have an amplifier so we walked about two miles and got one that's what we started practicing with and we named the band me you and him the way I met Ronnie he knocked on my door one morning to say right before school I said I want to fight you man you know and he said I inherit a fight he's I'm a singer I said you're a singer he said yeah I said I'll be dying I said uh I got a bass player and I have a guitar player Wow Let's try to put something together as they began to practice however this new as yet unnamed band quickly realized that something was missing from their sound enter guitarist Alan Collins Alan was playing in a band called a Mars he was a lead guitar player we were practicing we stopped we said look it's just not full enough you know it sounds just not full enough I thought we needed other ax everybody said yeah where they go Allen Collins and Gary just about thought about at the same time people didn't know how like I did he was a distant distant friend I don't know Alan good and he was thought of my classes so we appreciate we approached him about it they needed another guitar player Ronnie was of the opinion that he could take two mediocre at best at that time the truth is Alan and Gary neither one they were both learning from each other and Ronnie felt like if he could take the two of them and combine that energy and have them feed off of each other that ultimately he could come up with at the very least a very good guitar player and as it turned out he knew exactly what he was talking about as it turned out you got two very good guitar players with the Pines lineup in place after some rehearsing they made their way onto the Jacksonville live circuit although as the majority of the members were still high school students they were restricted to playing teen clubs and youth centers their set list almost exclusively made up of covers of songs by British Invasion acts this group eventually named the noble five was the first step in the journey toward Leonard Skinner that down right here if we jumped on a coffee tune at first it was good and people were very impressed then they were said damn that sounds good and before we quit playing copy tunes and we play Air war from the doors or the stones of the Beatles a lot of rock and roll some some blues rock uh just on and on for good stuff all the copy Tunes okay and I'll bear I'll vowed to say this the band Ronnie me Gary Allen and Larry probably had one of the best copy bands in the world I mean we knocked it out people loved it how good were they um not really good the noble five went over to Noble five they were playing other people's music and they were trying to put some of the original stuff you know trying to come up with something but they were you're average Young Band Young Musicians you know they didn't hit every note perfect if the noble five still had to develop instrumental prowess and musical creativity one thing it wasn't lacking was a commanding presence out front from the get-go Ronnie Van Zant was a striking and very singular lead singer I would say the noble five was very average but he knew his limitations and he uh he was very confident he had a lot of stage presence a lot of Charisma in the beginning that I think that's what got him by more than anything at that time he had not really come into his own as a singer he had just recently made up his mind that that's what he wanted to do actually to phrase it like Ronnie did to me not what he wanted to do what he had to do and and he took it from there he had like I say he had all the confidence in the world and he had his plan his idea about how it was going to all come together and he stuck to it as a top 40 cover band The Noble 5 were competing in a crowded Market the coming of The Beatles the stones and the numerous other artists from across the Atlantic had seen an explosion of musical activity across the U.S and the major hub for the artists who were developed in the wake of this British Invasion was California here the members of The Birds The Mamas and the Papas and the Grateful Dead among many others were forging new sounds their musicians dragging themselves out of the once dominant folk Revival Scene and into the Brave New World suggested by the British acts as distant as this all seemed to the young bands playing cover songs in the South an act who on occasion played the same clubs as the noble five had made an attempt to break into this competitive World Brothers Dwayne and Greg Allman from Daytona Beach had initially begun playing on the Florida Circuit in The Ensemble the escorts in 1964. the following year they had become the Almond Joys and they quickly Rose to the top of the scene playing venues not only in their home state but across the South in 1967 they became The Hourglass and with industry support behind them they relocated to Los Angeles it despite several high-profile shows and two albums they failed to make their mark to musicians on the Florida Circuit however including the ambitious young members of the noble five they were an inspiration as well as Greg Allman's powerful vocals and Dwayne orman's technical virtuosity as a guitarist the band wrote original material we opened up for the alma brother no they will call The Hourglass back then but it was the Almond Road and uh we are on first we got in there and Greg and Greg and Dwayne just sat there and they said look you guys got a tremendously powerful band he said you found you sound great but you'll never go anywhere to you uh do your own stuff he said what you got to do is get you a place that to where you can practice seven days a week for morning and night you know and put a little recorder in there to keep place with the songs so we did that for seven years inspired by Dwayne ullman's advice the band having recently changed their name to the one percent looked for a location in which they could work up new material and hone their musical skills through repetitious rehearsals after exhausting the patience of family and friends they eventually found a rundown cabin in the town of Russell which they would call over time hell house and under Van Zant Stern leadership they began their slow metamorphosis into a major rock band we practiced seven days a week from 10 or more Canada night Tin Roof no air conditioning it was horrible it was hard one probably I loved it man you know we love it Ronnie was just realizing that we were going to have to work harder than everybody else to make it and his work ethic just went into overdrive there was no time off if you weren't playing a gig you were rehearsing to play the next gig and that created you know as a result of that there was a huge transition when they became one percent though it was basically the same band the whole attitude was completely different this new Vigor LED one percent to quickly rise to the top of the local circuit and in 1968 they began playing regularly at the recently opened comic book club the most vibrant venue in Jacksonville as the band continued to develop the following year there was a significant shift in the music industry of the south after the collapse of their band The Hourglass guitarist Dwayne Norman had worked as a session musician at Fame studios in Muscle Shoals Alabama immediately drawing the attention of Atlantic Records Jerry Wexler he in turn introduced Ullman to an associate Phil Walden a manager from Macon Georgia who had previously represented r b heavyweights Otis Redding and Al Green so impressed was Walden by the young guitarist's Talent he encouraged Allman to form a new band and set up a record label Capricorn to release their output in March 1969 The Allman Brothers Band was born bringing together musicians from Floridian groups the 31st of February and the second coming alongside Greg and Dwayne and by April they had moved to Macon here Walden set up a studio and began to build Capricorn a record label that would become a beacon for talented young local acts playing rock music so Walden totally believed that there was a lot of creativity where we lived where we came from and we experienced it we experienced it in Alabama and in Macon Georgia where we I'd gone to school and Phil grew up Phil was the leader of this thinking that that and his brother Alan joined in tune you know you've got great players around just look over your shoulder turn around and look about Phil got a call from Jerry Wexler about Dwayne Allman and then he took action on that phone call and Dwayne and Dwayne was ready to make a move [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it was very inspirational it was the first inkling that we had that it could actually be done it was Ronnie in fact that turned me on to Greg and Dwayne Allman and we had known for years that they were the the best around if they didn't make it we better start thinking about something else and once they finally did once Capricorn signed the Allman Brothers we knew then we can do this too the Almond Brothers open the door for all of us you know they they were the ones that went out there and paid the Jews first Little Richard had done a lot Otis Redding had done a lot Ray Charles have done a lot James Brown have done a lot but for a White Band they they were they were the Pioneers they were doing they were the first ones out there that really meant something that played the Fillmore's and and uh really play original music that was one thing they set the example for was playing original music The Allman Brothers immediately made an impact on the one percent their distinctive Sonic approach quickly absorbed into the young Jacksonville band sound yet it was a British group traveling to Florida on a U.S tour who would prove an even greater inspiration musically for the one percent we followed the brothers a lot the double leads kind of came in you know uh Ronnie liked the way Greg sang hell who did we heard a band called uh free That was supposed to be coming to town English band and we heard them at a skating rink and I'm telling you what right there I think free changed our band more than any band in this world [Music] everything every single day I got a heartache coming my way I don't wanna say goodbye baby look at the tears in my eyes [Music] in every way that's nice [Music] Paul castles Gary Rogers there was really beautiful man beautiful freaking Simon coracle drums and Andy Frazier the little hat you know [Music] for Ronnie Van Zandt the emergence of free was almost as influential as his initial exposure to the stones five years beforehand [Music] talking [Music] about me [Music] [Music] it's a love love me [Music] the stones may have ignited something but it was really Paul Rogers who was his great hero he wanted to sing like Paul Rogers and the inside joke people like Al Cooper who produced his the Skynyrd albums was that on each one of those there had to be a free song a song in which Ronnie would try to sound like Paul Rogers that was his bow ideal of what a rock and roll star would be he's a guy in the Deep South and his hero is you know across the pond his sights were very broad even then and it was very candy because that wasn't being done back then in Jacksonville even the Allman Brothers didn't sing that kind of music they were great blues man but they didn't emulate Paul Rogers or Mick Jagger so this is a whole new thing that's coming with Skinner and it's taking a little time but it was on the way quickly assimilating these influences hold up in the Backwater isolation of Hell House Van Zant and the band began developing their own material let's say Gary Ross is an allen went home and was just picking around on her guitars quit practice all day they go home and clean up they get dark and I had practicing well they get into a Groove with something really cool you know it's a whole measure you know in a whole measure so it could be a song even when of course sometimes sometime a whole song right there and if the band lines it and Ronnie could dig it and put some words to it would keep it Ronnie never wrote down one word to any song that that don't freak y'all out I don't know nobody's ever done that and they asked intricate songs and they'd ask him money why don't you write it down he'd say look if it ain't worth remembering it ain't no good with a clutch of self-pend tracks now in their Arsenal in May 1969 the one percent were offered their first stab at recording local Manager David Griffin Keen to capture the best of the up-and-coming Jacksonville acts on vinyl booked both vanzant's band and Larry Steele's new Ensemble black bear Angel into Norm Vincent Studios to produce two promotional singles for shade tree records David Griffin was the one that set up the studio time for one percent and black bear Angel my band wasted time Ronnie's did not Ronnie went in there he knew exactly what he wanted to do he took advantage of the situation they put down two songs and the next thing you know he had TV exposure a lot of AirPlay and stuff like that that was a a big thing to their career it's been so long since I've been gone [Music] [Applause] [Music] those were the days I enjoyed the most these are all my friends that was reverse really professional and we just really grooved on you know everybody liked it in the crowd not friends and we liked it yeah that one's for a good time then songs brought us joy you know [Music] and I wanna see you smile to me I don't think they have a distinctive original sound on this first single they sound kind of like a typical rock band of the day my eyes voice is kind of Greg ish I'm sure that they were all well aware of Greg and Dwayne from Daytona Beach and Gary told me that when he was 15 he was a massive Dickie bets fan from second coming from before the Allman Brothers so I mean they had been steeped in that Florida thing already but in alicol and solo and Michelle I hear there's a little bit of that Freebird thing already Michelle is a lot like While My Guitar Gently Weeps it's a little more sped up and Alan Collins was a huge Johnny Winter fan you really hear the Johnny Winter influence in his writing and his playing [Music] foreign [Music] need all my friends and Michelle I don't think really sound all that original they still sound fairly derivative based on those tracks you wouldn't really say this is a band that's going somewhere I don't hear a lot of really original music I hear a little bit of The Yardbirds I hear impact of cream other really British bands but Roddy VanZant has a very distinctly Southern American country tinged voice and you can look back in retrospect and hear the budding of something but I don't think take it on their own those cuts sound like a band on the cusp of great originality yet week by week the band were adding new songs to their set list and before the limited release of this single they changed their name once again this time it would be permanent in a bastardization of the name of their High School gym teacher they became Leonard Skinner stepping out onto the Jacksonville circuit with a fresh moniker and an ever-expanding catalog by the end of 1969 they had their first break an audition for Alan Walden the brother of Capricorn records founder Phil who was looking to sign fresh Talent my brother and I had separated and I had gone out and I auditioned 187 bands in one year and you know how many bands that is a week you know some of them buy tape some of my videos some of them in person you know but I was invited to come down to Jacksonville Florida and audition bands and warehouse and uh a guy named Pat Armstrong he had 13 bands lined up and Lynyrd Skynyrd was the last man that played that day you know Alan Collins got out and flipped all over the floor and did all sort of stunts with the guitar played behind his head and everything I mean they would they would do it and uh but they didn't stop they kept going and driving like that and by the time they finish with Freebird man I was blown away I signed them to management production publishing recording uh all of it Alan Walker that's probably one of the coolest people I have ever met he has asked her would you like uh for me to manager you know he says uh I'll take a shower and I said I said yes try just try you know both parties have something to gain not lose with a manager now looking after their interests the band's live schedule intensified over the following year while Walden himself tried to secure Leonard Skinner at recording time at Muscle Shoals sound this studio set up in Sheffield Alabama by the session musicians who had played alongside Dwayne Allman at Fame studios in the late 1960s was an emblem of the growing strength of the music industry in the South as Phil Walden was building Capricorn and the Allman Brothers first album was being released these session musicians were recording the Rolling Stones in their isolated studio in rural Alabama first trying to secure sessions for the close of 1970. Walden finally managed to lock down studio time in late June 1971 with guitarist turned producer Jimmy Johnson although for Ronnie Van Zant and his band mates it was an invaluable opportunity to prove their talents the sessions coincided with a number of unplanned Personnel changes drummer Bob Burns left the band shortly before the recordings while days in bassist Larry youngstrom was ejected from Skynyrd by manager Walden and they were replaced temporarily by two musicians from fellow Florida band Blackfoot Ricky Medlock and Gary T Walker they were also joined in the studio by their Roadie Billy Powell who Ronnie had only recently discovered was a Pianist of some Talent despite these unexpected setbacks and new additions the young Jacksonville musicians took to the studio remarkably well Lynyrd Skynyrd I didn't call him a natural Talent band they were a rehearsed Talent band without rehearsals they would have been a weak ban but these guys went to every Monday through Friday they went to Hidden Hills every day so they were well rehearsed when they came to Muscle Shoals all Jim and them had to do was get the balances and the tones and and let these guys go to work you know and maybe suggest something about the arrangement very little Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins and those guys bareback at all of them they thought Lynyrd Skynyrd how to record uh how to really record you know and uh did I think their reportings were good I do I think they were excellent recordings with the recordings in place Skynyrd hit the road hard for the remainder of 1971 playing further afield venues in Georgia and South Carolina alongside their regular shows on their home turf and in the New Year drama Bob Burns returned to the band shortly afterwards they brought in a new basis Leon Wilkerson who years before had played alongside another Van Zandt Ronnie's younger brother Donnie in high school band The Collegiates after grueling rehearsals with this lineup at Hell House in September 1972 Skinner had returned to the studio in Alabama to record six new compositions although the final collection of Muscle Shoals tracks was passed around record companies following the completion of these sessions they would not be heard by the public until 1978 when they were issued as the lp Skynyrd's first and last you're hearing the pieces in place and and they're they're getting there you know it's most of the pictures though I think it's impressive I think in a very short amount of time they did develop their own sound and the song Down South Duke and sort of this country Honky Tonk but rocked up thing you don't really hear that in any of the Allman Brothers music at all but Skinner just kind of defined by shit-kicking music you know for the lack of it another term so I think you hear it right away [Music] [Music] they were great recordings they were Duke and Bane right up my alley I mean this was right up my happy man I've been drinking with Johnny Taylor Who's making love to you all related all that for years it is a this white rock and roll band that's jamming and they getting it on and the original songs [Music] whoa Muscle Shoals was a great Studio but whoever recorded it Muscle Shoals needed a producer the studio is fantastic Acoustics are unbelievable but they had to rely on Jimmy Johnson as The Producer and he's a great musician he's a great you know owner of a studio but he's not a great producer he just gets it on tape so again as if you know Skynyrd's music from later on you can go back listen to those Muscle Shoals tapes and hear all the great you know stuff that would be that would come out of it but at the time it just sounded like demos whatever the quality of the recordings it was the band and their songs themselves that Alan Warden struggled to push armed with the muscle shells album he traveled to Los Angeles with Jimmy Johnson and arranged several meetings with record company Executives yeah the reaction was in most cases overwhelmingly negative and after two years as their manager Walden was running out of both money and options in his attempts to break the band those first three years were hard hard hard work Lynyrd Skynyrd was turned down by nine different major wrecking companies turn down not we liked you guys but the songs are we I'm talking about we are not interested it's like don't send us any more tapes we don't want you you know and that that just broke my heart I'm sitting there listening to give me three steps Simple Man free bird you know these are great songs and we were being turned down my own brother turned Lynyrd Skynyrd down you know it Grant's Lounge he heard them there and uh I asked him afterwards what he thought he thought he said your lead singer's too cocky he can't sing in the songs are weak and they sound too much like the Allman Brothers and so I'm standing there listening to him and he walks away and I'm walking this way and Ronnie stops me and says what do you say man I said nothing important all of your major record companies said that sounded too much like Donald brother and you take the Lynyrd Skynyrd record play it back to back to an Allman Brothers record and tell me what what are they similar to their southern bands you know they got a massive guitar lineup and great guitar to work you know but you know what what else do they have really in common you know by late 1972 when Walden was attempting to attract major label interest The Allman Brothers were no longer simply a southern phenomenon despite the tragic death of their driving force Dwayne Allman with the release of their third album live at the Fillmore East in 1971 and eat a peach the following year they had been propelled into the Top Flight both critically and commercially the negative comparisons to the band were damaging for skin and Alan Warden began to actively distance himself and his group from both the almonds and Capricorn yet although his brother Phil was uninterested in the Jacksonville act his colleague and promoter Alex Hodges was far more intrigued by them I called up Alan and I said I want to know about Japan he says well probably not going to sign with you as a booking agent for two or three reasons one you represent the Allman Brothers Band to your uh in partnership with my brother and your best friends with my brother and I'll think of the third reason and we're just not going to sign with you and I said Alan who's the best agent you know he said you are I said so we got to talk I went to see them in Atlanta Allen introduced me saw this whole show it was fantastic the met him in a hotel and I think Alan Collins probably just said so we might sign with you we want two shows with the Allman Brothers Band but we don't want you to be putting us on tour the Allman Brothers Band they do that thing we do our thing they're obviously enormously successful uh and we just want to be sure though that we have uh you know uh play with them a few times and uh but you've got to figure out how to how to break us on the road and uh give us our sense of Independence on the road it was an independent nature uh probably the old most great bands you know and I felt that saw that and it was expressed in their words when I first met them but we hit it off it was great hoji's respected Skynyrd's wish to only play on the same bill as the Allman Brothers on occasion although towards the end of 1972 he did arrange the first of these shows in Macon Georgia in which the Jacksonville Ensemble held their own supporting the Capricorn Headliners on their home turf Van Zant and his bandmates have been gaining the most traction as a live draw in Atlanta however where they had been booked to support Bob Seger and his band at the club the headrest and also managed to secure a residency at a more run-down venue called finocchio's it was here that they finally caught a break when we got into Atlanta there was a club called Pinocchio's fruit and nut bar all the way more drug addicts than any other club in the whole city uh I told Skynyrd guys I said if you can entertain these drug heads and these Junkies then you can entertain the world because some of these guys are coming in there and they need something and they don't want to hear nothing and if you can entertain them you can entertain the world you know and we stayed right there in Pinocchio's we played there probably seven or eight times the first time we came down and played for a week we got laughed at because I laughed at and they said who in the hell are these Hillbillies what is this hill boy stuff you know but then they give us another chance and they start catching on them catching on catching on you know before before we knew it was every time we packed Pinocchio's which will hold 400 500 people we'll pack it out ain't nobody dancing ain't nobody up here at the ball getting drinks all around the stage they worked and they worked and they worked and they always were better every time you heard them they got better you knew there was something there something was going to happen you could just see it the first time I knew they were going to make it big I was with them in Atlanta Georgia there's a place called the headrest and there were stages at each end of the Dance Floor the other band played they played a lot of top 40 stuff and everything and all the kids would pack the dance floor and dance and everything when they finish their set Skynyrd plate one night Skynyrd started the set was Simple Man and all the people were still on the Dance Floor from the other band plane and nobody left the Dance Floor nobody danced they just stood there emotionless and stared at them and everybody in the club when you looked around the club was staring at I mean you could if not for the band you could have heard a pin drop because everybody was tuned in to Leonard Skynyrd and that was the first time I knew yeah these guys have got it they're they're gonna make it The crucial figure who would recognize skynet's potential and take them to the next level witness the band playing at finocchio's during their second residency of the club in January 1973. Al Cooper had been involved in the music industry since his early teens as first a musician and then songwriter and in the mid to late 60s was a key figure on the East Coast scene playing on notable sessions with Bob Dylan Stephen Stills the Rolling Stones and The Who and forming the band Blood Sweat and Tears in 1972 he had temporarily relocated to Georgia to work with the Atlanta Rhythm Section at their newly opened studio in Doraville Studio One during his time off in Atlanta he had by chance began frequenting for nokios at the turn of 1973 and was there to witness Leonard Skinner in all their Glory during their week-long residency by the third night he was joining them on stage and was eager to develop a working relationship with Van Zant and his bandmates just sounded great just had a great sound it's the thing that we had in common was we were both gigantic fans of the band free and that's what really made it work because they understood what was great about free and I understood that and I heard the free in them Ronnie was not as great a singer as Paul Rogers but he wrote those songs and he had a sound Paul Rogers was influenced by a lot of soul singers and and Ronnie didn't have that voice so he just did his thing and he sounded like Ronnie Cooper's response to this exposure to skin it was incredibly committed within days he decided to introduce their music to MCA Records who allowed him to set up his own label sounds of the south in order to represent Skynyrd and any other Southern acts he could discover although the terms of the contract that Cooper presented them with were poor offering only a nine thousand dollar advance both Skynyrd and Alan Walden knew that as Capricorn had shown no interest this was the only other horse in town if Capricorn turns you down you were through down there because there was nothing like it I mean in the south for for white bands Alan Wilton really didn't have to do anything because there was really no choice they'd been to Muscle Shoals and nothing happened with that I already had the makings of a deal with MCA Al Cooper was a last resort when nobody when when I knew that Leonard Skinner could not take another year of starving to death when I knew that I was ready to sign a deal with almost anybody at that point because it was going to mean the salvation of the band uh if I'd have told them they were going to play bars for another year and a half two years the band probably would have broke up we were getting nowhere and Ronnie called me one night and said someone broke into our van and took a lot of our stuff we can't work we can't put food on the table and we need a advance of five thousand dollars I said uh you want me to mail it and you want to come up and get it and he said you can mail it and uh you just bought yourself a band when they got ready to sign their record deal with sounds of the South which was Al Cooper's label had to record a contract laid out on the hood of my Ford pickup truck in the parking lot of the making Coliseum okay and uh I laid out all the contracts from the sign and everybody picks up the penis he looks at me he says Alan what do you think of our record deal my reply was this is the worst piece of [ __ ] I've ever seen in my life is worse than the r b contracts that we had he says what else we got and I said nothing he should give me that goddamn pen having finally landed a recording contract no matter the compromises this involved the band set about preparing to record their debut album yet unexpectedly this opportunity caused bassist Leon Wilkerson to question his commitment to Skynyrd and he quit the band with the recording sessions due to begin in March rather than enlist a player from the Jacksonville pool Ronnie Van Zant turned to an experienced musician who they are toured with three years beforehand as a support act Californian guitarist Ed King I think it was back in 1970 I was with a band called a Strawberry Alarm Clock we had a number one record in 1967. in 1970 our old manager put together a bogus Strawberry Alarm Clock and started booking tours in the South all these Southern colleges and stuff we found out we filed an injunction against him to stop him and then we decided well we're bankrupt let's go ahead and do the two ourselves so our first gig was I think we met down in Jacksonville Florida and the guys in Skynyrd were are opening band the band was was good and Ronnie was spectacular he he just had a Charisma all his own and I told Ronnie later I said if you ever need another guitar player or bass player you know don't forget about me I'd love to play with you Leon got kind of scared of a record deal and didn't really know if he wanted to be go through all the being famous routine or whatever it was the work that followed his commitment so he quit and went to work at an ice cream factory and then I joined the band on base it was a real shock to me I had to really try and get used to it I didn't really hear my bass playing with this band for some reason it was a different style than I was used to so I had an awkward time in preparation for the upcoming Studio sessions King was thrust into Skynyrd's World beginning with intensive rehearsals at Hell House in which he was initiated into the band long before I joined the band somebody came up in a boat late at night and stole a couple of amps so every night somebody had to stay there but my initiation for the first weeks is to spend every night there for a week so here I am the first night there they all leave I'm out with a bag of potato chips and a couple of Cokes you know and I have two at least maybe 150 watt light bulbs hanging from the ceiling they stay on all night long because the sounds outside are unbelievable I mean one time an alligator came up on shore the guy who owned the house way up in front had to come up with a rifle and shoot it in the head yeah but that that week was absolutely terrifying outside of this initiation King also had more significant hurdles to overcome having already enjoyed chart success in the late 1960s he had to adapt himself to Ronnie Van Zant's often oppressive leadership of The Ensemble while also ingratiate himself with the rest of the band in which he was the first non-southerna Ronnie and I had a disagreement where he told me he was the leader of the band I said something with everybody around that I disagreed with and he pulled me aside and made it extremely clear that it was his band and if I didn't like it there was the door and I was going to be done his way and I said that's fine I I said as long as I can just throw in my two cents he said that's okay I just want you to understand this could be my way no problem I never had a problem with that but if you want to get a glimpse of me integrating with a band here it is in the box set there's a picture of us standing in front of Hell House you got six guys on one side of the door and me on the other and that says it all it was difficult and I was really I was invited there by Ronnie but the other guys didn't really want me there [Music] on March the 27 1973 the band entered Studio One in Doraville to begin recording their debut album with Ed King on board and ex Roadie Billy Powell now a permanent member of the group on piano Al Cooper himself decided to produce the record and the peculiarities of a band he had only ever seen perform live were immediately revealed to him when I started working with them I discovered what really made them unique there was no not one moment of improvisation in their whole show every when we recorded every guitar solo they played was pre-written and memorized and never differed the whole solo in Freebird he could play it exactly the same every time he played it and I'd never worked with anyone that pre-wrote guitar solos it was phenomenal and although Ronnie Van Zant had a domineering approach to his fellow band mates with Al Cooper he relented recognizing the producer's previous track record and experience although others were less certain of his Creative Vision for the album if I wanted to change something they would fight me too thin nail to the point where I was discussing something with Alan Collins and he said why don't you just leave us alone and Ronnie came over and said no no no no no no he said uh If He suggests 20 things over the course of this album and we use one of them then that's one thing that made us better and I'll suffer the other 19. to to get that one thing Al Cooper you know he's a dominating guy in our studio he was very difficult we had two different personalities and we clashed from the beginning to the end and uh I finally told him after I saw him at the 20th uh reunion I said hey I'll Cooper I have to say one thing you certainly sweetened the skin of the sound and that was the highest compliment I ever paid him and uh and he did that was exactly what he did to himself Al had a vision for the band and it was good you know nobody else did and so he mixed the band a certain way how he heard it I mean I could tell it was fit for radio but there was one special time when there was a real big class and that was when we thought the album was fully recorded and Cooper called up and said we need one more song that was the time when Leon showed up and showed a simple man showed me simple man we worked it up within a couple days we went to Atlanta to record it so we set up in the studio for Al and we played it for him live he says I'm really sorry you guys are not we can't cut that we're looking for something else [Music] Ronnie asked Al to step outside and Al drove a I think it was an old building and Ronnie opened the door to the Bentley told Ali get in the car Al gets in Ronnie rolls down the window shuts the door and he sticks his head through the window and he says Al uh when we're done cutting it we'll call you so he sent Al on its way and the rest of us were really kind of surprised I mean uh you don't hear very many times in history when a a first album band tells their producer to get lost usually they get fired or something but you want to talk about Al Cooper's passion he'd put up with that you know where many others wouldn't they'd say you know you're gone you know with the album completed koopa's mind now turned to selling Lynyrd Skynyrd to his widened audience as possible and the first obstacle for the general public that he envisaged was the band's name itself today with the second band to come into the club when we were in Residence in Atlanta and so up on the Marquee it said Leonard Skynyrd I went what the hell is this what is that Leonard Skynyrd what is that and then uh you know they introduced them I said oh it's Leonard Skynyrd I see I get it I said what a dumb way to do that so I was saddled with that this is the first thing that came to me is like well let's put it to our advantage it's like what is who is Leonard Skynyrd and I thought everyone would mispronounce it so I thought the best thing to do was to name the album pronounced and put that dictionary thing a lanyard Skinner nerd like that [Music] released on August 13th 1973 pronounced Leonard Skinner was an album that may never have existed given the struggles the band had gone through in order to get it made in the Press Cooper was declaring the band America's Rolling Stones and while not an overnight success the LP's reputation steadily grew with Skynyrd slowly seeping into the heart of American culture across the following year pronounce Leonard Skinner is a very very strong debut it announces them from the very first notes of I ain't the one as a unique entity a self-confident entity and it has a handful of songs on it that are rock and roll Classics that stand up to this day it has Tuesdays gone give me three steps free bird that was all there on their first record they had a very distinct sound a very distinct vision and it's a very very impressive debut foreign [Music] [Applause] I am [Music] they had been working hard for a long time by that point and you can hurt to me it's a phenomenally strong debut because they sound they are a fully formed entity at this point and you've got uh uh give me three steps you've got Tuesdays gone which is a great pops on like fantastic pop song and then I mean free bird you know I mean it's their first real album it has their the biggest song they ever wrote on it if you had to boil Lynyrd Skynyrd down to one song and it would have to be to me it would have to be free bird [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] free bird had developed quite a bit from the time they first recorded it as a demo until their first album one of the things that had happened I think was a result of all these gigs they had played and gaining their confidence on stage and as a live band it was also the addition of keyboard player Billy Powell and the elegant piano playing that he brought to that song and to the band in general I think that in many ways Billy Powell was sort of the underrated secret weapon that Skynyrd had because as much as they could be a hard-hitting rock band as much as people think of them right off the bat as a two or even three at various stages guitar band which they certainly were they also had this sort of very elegant swinging piano playing of Billy Powell and that can really be heard on Freebird he added a tremendous amount by having this beautiful piano intro rather than it just being a finger picked guitar and that's something else that set them apart [Music] would you still remember me oh I must be traveling on now you have this terrain you know you start on your journey with the song it really draws you in with this slide guitar playing it's sort of Haunting Melody and it's kind of hypnotic you know it's it's kind of slow and more full it's like a ballad and then you know a lot like Stairway to Heaven which is the same thing the song Builds an intensity very gradually you know and it's that shift where you're going from this sort of gentle thing and then the power starting to come behind it and he tempos picking up a little bit this is true for both songs you know that's there's a payoff there for the listener you know every time [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right when I heard free bird for the first time I thought I would like to see any kid between the ages of 12 and 21. when they hear this they will just put their heads down and run into the nearest wall I thought it was irresistible and I thought it was much more primitive than whipping post which was the almonds big song at the time this was very simple other than it starts slow and then it gets fast but that's very simple too and and it was phenomenal initial reaction to the lp in the music press saw lazy comparisons to the Allman Brothers mirroring the record company's initial reception to the Muscle Shoals demos and although these weren't necessarily negative it continued to baffle the band themselves along with the more perceptive critics who found no trouble in distinguishing the two bands there were a blues band and later on kind of a what a fusion band I mean but they were in their own way they were virtuosos we were not virtuosos because Ronnie liked to hear the same thing every night they want you want to make sure the bands sound like the record he was very scripted there was no improvisation we couldn't really were lousy improvisers that's okay still in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame you know The Allman Brothers are a jam band and the Lynyrd Skynyrd is a song band that's the difference Ronnie Van Zant was a great songwriter that Dwayne element was not a great songwriter he wasn't great player sure knew a great song when he heard it damn right but he wasn't a great songwriter uh I mean the the good songwriter in that band was Dicky Betts for better or worse and he wasn't so great either Ronnie Van Zant on the other hand I mean what they put out six albums 80 90 of those songs are absolutely top rate it's amazing it's amazing and so you know when I heard the first album I just knew something different was going on there first I noticed that Al Cooper is involved not exactly a southerner New York Jew from Queens my stomping ground and uh he understands that this band is something special and I mean I like the record when it came out but I'd say it was a little hard for me to hear through my own prejudices about Southerners exactly how good Van Zandt was but it didn't take long comparisons to the almonds quickly diminished however once Van Zant and his band began doing the rounds for the music press unlike the Capricorn act these were clearly not Southern hippies and the simmering aggression and redneck Swagger of Leonard Skynyrd quickly marked them out as something totally distinct from any of their contemporaries that was the beauty of late 60s early 70s the beginning of Iraq the first deck 10 years of Rock was be different you know like don't do everything you can to sound like yourselves they had a band personality a very strong personality and it was distinct they were bringing something had never been heard before it was Redneck Rock they made Redneck Rock into an art they made it into an idiom in itself not just an offshoot of rockabilly or or country or something like that it was totally Indescribable which was the reason they had such a hard time at the beginning getting that contract but in the end you really have to admire people like Al Cooper in the MCA people for for recognizing that because at the time there was nothing like it had never been anything like it all of those guys except for Ed King were rough and tough but they portrayed that on stage you know I can remember getting to New York one of the early trade magazines came into interviews and said well since we heard y'all from the deep south and it might be referred to as rednecks and running this was hell yeah damn right where's your daughter he took the poor white trash image and turned it into something glamorous he made people to feel proud that they were rednecks and and then they almost hadn't done that the white Southern working class mentality and Outlook was not only expressed through the band's image but also in the lyrics of Ronnie Van Zant himself and the album introduced a very singular if underappreciated writer into the Rock world I gotta say that working class was never something that I as a very class conscious person person actually thought of I never thought of them as a proletarian band I was wrong it's a very good way to think about them when you say Ronnie VanZant is a great songwriter well why is that well one of the several reasons is that there were narrative details in his songs that he observed life and wrote about it give me two steps is a great song about being in a bar fight or not great great song I mean because you know I mean I mean the wonderful soul I mean there are a lot of songs about Saturday night so right for fighting is Elton John did it but very few good songs about how he doesn't actually want to fight him if he's he's going to get the [ __ ] out of there you know I mean it's a I always thought that was I loved that song just because he had the guts to paint himself in that way [Music] was the son of a truck driver and and that's what he knew and his experiences with women were in lyrically in some songs hilarious to me I'm trying to tell you I love you in each and every way I'm trying to tell you I need you much more than just a piece of leg I couldn't write that a it was from the heart and uh and B it was realer than most people had the nerve to write shortly after the recording of the album the band's lineup shifted once again with Leon Wilkerson coming back into the Ensemble and Ed King moving from base to guitar although apparently only a small change it made an instant impact on the skin it sound Ed was my favorite guitar player and in the beginning I didn't even know he played guitar but first of all he played a Fender guitar so there was that and B he was a phenomenal guitar player [Music] now we have the opportunity to bring his knowledge into the band and he was you know he wasn't a southern guy he was from California so so now they had this added to their pool of thought once I became the third guitarist of the band integrating myself was so much easier than being a bass player I mean uh pretty much I stayed out of the other guy's way I found myself a third part I try not to play too much which I realize now I still overplayed some but I thought we integrated very well and the crowd loved it but I think my really clean Stratocaster sound against their dirty Gibsons was a really beautiful contrast and I didn't have to explain it to them they just accepted it now playing his favorite instrument King immediately contributed to Skynyrd's material in a crucial manner before the first album had even been released bringing his compositional skills into the band's daily Hell House rehearsals how a typical day a rehearsal would go we'd all show up at pretty much the same time and Ronnie would say to any of the guitar players or whoever uh what do you got and of course ideas were always flowing you made sure you showed up rehearsal with something to work on and if somebody had something good you know Ronnie would be sitting in the um in his quarter in this long sofa we had and if he liked it he have his head in his hands and he'd go like this keep going keep going and after a few minutes or so 20 minutes he might come up and and sing a verse I mean Sweet Home Alabama didn't take longer in 20 minutes to write I walked into rehearsal and Gary rossington is playing this figure on the guitar and I picked up this Strat that I just bought a couple months before and immediately bounced mine off of his a totally different lick mine went down and Ronnie heard that and just locked into it I could just see I mean you could tell when he logged into it and 20 minutes later he sang Up grabbed a mic and sang It's the first verse once he started singing I came up with the rest of it [Music] Ronnie called me up and said I need a favor I said how much he said no no no they said we wrote a new song and and I love the way it sounds now and and I think it'll maybe it'll change in Tempo or this and that and I want to record it right now I said I don't have a problem with that I said so the only thing I would like to do is the night before we record I like to go into rehearsal Studio and just listen to it and see if if I have anything I want to change in it before we record it so I came down and they played uh Sweet Home Alabama and I thought that's the same thing I thought this is a number one record both Cooper and the band decided to hold Sweet Home Alabama in the reserves and after their debut was released Skinner had headed straight out onto the road playing shows across the South these dates in modest venues helped spread their name yet had little wider impact in November however there began a set of dates that would propel them into the spotlight as they embarked on a 13-show run opening for The Who on their 1973 Quadrophenia tour although Alan Walden and Alex Hodges handled the logistics of these shows the opportunity itself occurred by chance after Al Cooper had been meeting Executives at mca's offices shortly before the release of pronounced I came out in a meeting and I bumped into Pete Townsend who I knew hey how you doing blah blah blah I said what are you doing he says well he says we're gonna tour the Quadrophenia album I said wow that's great he says as a matter of fact we're looking for an opening act do you know anyone that would be good and I had just gotten a pressing or two of the first album and so I had three of them with me I said take this home and play it I said this band would be phenomenal to open for you I wrote my phone number on on the label because it's just a white label so you call me the next day and said you're right this is great this would be great let's do this when we opened for the who we only had 30 minutes we had eight inputs into the sound board and 30 minutes plus we had to Play Freebird which is nine minutes so we only got about maybe five songs maybe six songs in but made quite an impact I said look this is the way we got to do it don't give them a chance to boo you don't give them a chance to applaud you no more than a three second delay between songs I want it like that all the way almost like a nightclub uh uh deal you know where you're just get tight with everybody sitting all around you know but you look down there you know fifteen thousand feet and that's the first person uh and Leon way over there on the way up there and I'm looking down at them I hated it I was nervous but overcame it say I overcame it and I actually enjoyed turning them on because if I turn them on here they come back and I'll turn it on some more here they come back they were really really nervous but but they were incredibly professional and I got worried because they're going to play 20 000 Cedars every night and you know he played you know like Madison Square Garden uh Cobo Hall and Detroit it just was a it was and what must have that been like for them and hanging out with the who you know who were very generous with their time and drugs to the lads so it was a wonderful experience and it broke them as an act Riding High on the back of the who shows in the New Year the band returned to the studio to Begin work on a second album now partly established the financial necessities of staying in the South no longer applied and for this LP Al Cooper decided to bring the Jacksonville boys Into the Heart of the entertainment World booking sessions of the record plant in Los Angeles in January 1974. for the rising stars of what was becoming known as southern rock it was a far cry from Doraville Georgia they were out recording a track together and John Lennon came into the control room to ask me a question I think he was in there for maybe 30 seconds he went back out and they stopped playing and they said was that John Lennon that just came in the booth I said yeah Ronnie said uh we have to take a break for a few minutes yet despite the prestigious newly built Studio that Cooper had chosen to record the album in some band members weren't entirely convinced with the record plant or the material itself for me it uh not as much fun as pronounced it seemed like a whole lot harder work because those songs weren't to me as close to me as the song is unpronounced the second helping was not as pleasant because of the environment really Studio One in Doraville Georgia is a great place to record I don't even know if it's there anymore but the Ambient sound um the familiarity we had with the board the guys uh we missed it missed it a lot there's a difference between playing a room where the floor is tiled or wood versus playing in a room that's a whole floor is carpeted and a record plant the whole floor was carpeted and just it's just dead in there to me second helping except for Sweet Home Alabama which is recorded in Doraville uh second helping has that dead sound to it [Music] oh despite these reservations upon its release in April 1974 second helping proved an enormous Commercial Success although like pronounced it took its time building up momentum not aided by the failure of its lead single don't ask me no questions to chart yet the input of Ed King as a composer the new three-pronged guitar liner and Ronnie vanzant's continued development as a songwriter meant that over time the album would make a significant impact Leonard Skinner was very unique starting with second helping and having three guitar players it's something that on paper can't work but each of the guitarists Ed King Gary rossington and Alan Collins were very different and had their own strengths and understood that about each other I think second helping stands up as a great album but it has called me the breeze it has The Ballad of Curtis Lowe there was a depth to the music and to the singing and to everything about it that again made you feel things without quite understanding them which is what the best music should do before the road searching for soda bottles to get myself [Music] Alan Collins and Ronnie brought Curtis Lowe The Ballad Of Curtis low to the band and unlike any other song we'd written that was written outside of our rehearsal space It Was Written at home you know so they already brought it finished and I arranged it and I mean it was an inspiration here's a song I didn't write that I really kind of grabbed onto and said wow this is it's very uh very cool song still one of my favorite Skynyrd songs [Music] let people know [Music] I think the band was definitely still growing when they did second helping they were getting stronger and more confident Ballad of Curtis Lowe is a great song really cool and sort of very distinctive it gives Skinner this whole other part of their personality and calling me the breeze is this boogie tune I can hear a connection to like Bob Dylan watching the river flow or something like that and just the blues but the beat and the way they played and with the brakes and things sort of designed to show off the band or Arrangement wise it was definitely a step in the next Direction you know I think that this is creatively maybe the high point of the band [Music] you know [Music] we're already Vincent we're showing an incredible ability to write songs that move people and also to have great taste when picking outside songwriters which they didn't do a lot of but they did with great effect when they did and call me the breeze I think is the perfect example JJ kale is a great songwriter who also provided great songs for Eric Clapton just by pulling from him with the same sort of musical Gusto and Swagger and upbeat swing it was again music that made you feel good they took a very cool laid back sort of Swampy JJ Cale song and turned it into an out now you know Party Rock Anthem that gets everybody up and dancing and feeling good shortly after the album's release the band played their biggest show to date alongside the Allman Brothers Band of the Georgia Cham in front of 61 000 fans in Atlanta on the back of their country hit Ramblin Man at this time Greg Allman's Ensemble were at the peak of their popularity and other Capricorn acts such as the Marshall Tucker Band and wet willy had also begun to build a strong following despite being uncomfortable about being identified too closely with this wave of music now being dubbed southern rock Skynyrd were canny enough to know that they had the songs to distinguish them from these contemporaries they played with the Marshall Taco Bell on a lot of dates they play with almond Bros on a few dates they played with Charlie Daniels on some dates Skinner got a bigger picture actually that we are who we are and we're going to knock them dead and just give us that stage and give us our time and we're gonna go prove it and and if somebody didn't follow us God bless them but it wasn't really competitive it was this amount of self-assurance Leonard Skinner was the showstopper when I walked to the stage with Lynyrd Skynyrd the hair on the back of my neck stood up it was like the Gladiators going into the arena we're fixing to kill we're gonna blow this roof off of this place and we did over and over and over again yet from the beginning of 1974 controversy had surrounded Skinner's live shows while they were in part looking to distance themselves from the southern rock Boom the new decision to use a Confederate flag as the band's on-stage backdrop in many ways identified them as the quintessential Southern band and the connotations of the flag itself raised serious questions not only did it represent the South historical defense of slavery it had also been subsequently appropriated by the Ku Klux Klan and a number of other white supremacist groups they were not in favor of this at the beginning according to them okay it was all MCAS doing it was a you know the marketing people the promotions people sat back in L.A in New York and they were saying they're saying how are we gonna how are we going to present these this band you know they come on stage they sing about you know the growing up in the Deep South and you know all that goes along with that how are we going to present it and they come up with well why don't we do the Confederate flag behind them one of the worst decisions ever made but also one of the best because it really became identified with them but it also forced them to have to explain and they had some explaining to do because mostly the critics who were based in New York and L.A you know people like Lester bangs and you know Robert christkell and people very erudite men Robert Hilburn people like that we're not so we're not so quick to accept the Confederate flag as an innocent symbol of rock and roll that was a symbol of slavery that was a symbol of treason that was a symbol of uh half a million Americans dying you know in a war as to whose decision it was I think if the band didn't want to do it they wouldn't have done it as a natural thing to do because the band didn't see it in the way that it was often interpreted piece of History you know um I think that they kind of wanted to do it as a Rebels as Southerners as uh not to relive the past in any stretch of the imagination I don't think it was anything more than we grew up in the South let's put the flag up there and go play for it and unfortunately it could be misunderstood the idea of using a Confederate flag as a backdrop on stage came from the band at MCA would never have uh suggested that because uh you know it's derisive and and racially uh but MCA didn't stop them from it either nor I that's what they wanted to do that's what that's what they felt in their hearts that's that's who they believed they were that's who they were so that's what they did I always thought it it was a rebel flag me personally understand I'm from Southern California I'm as about as anti-slavery as you can get and the flag being part of their Heritage I understand that too but just because we draped a fly back there doesn't mean that you know we believed in slavery or anything it's simply a rebel flag and the band was surely Rebels this controversy was heightened with the release of Skynyrd's next single Sweet Home Alabama which was in part an Anthem for the South yet also a highly ambiguous statement from Ronnie Van Zandt not only did he address Neil Young in the lyrics taking him to task for the song Southern Man and Alabama in which young had condemned white Southerners for their racism he also made references to Alabama's segregationist Governor George Wallace [Music] and I say segregation now segregation tomorrow and segregation forever these lyrics would Forever cast doubt over Van Zant's own position on segregation yet the controversy in no way damaged the impact of the single itself which not only provided the band with their first top 10 hit on the Billboard Chart but also broke them internationally Ronnie was proud to be from the south it's a rallying cry for the South that's really what Sweet Home Alabama is but if they hadn't written this great song really strong song we wouldn't be talking about it today nobody would care Sweet Home Alabama represents the growing confidence of Young Southern Man represents the growing confidence of the band it represents some sort of swagger a wash in America it gave people a sort of wistful feeling of wanting something that was gone and again for some people that represented wanting something that most of the world was happy was gone but for many other people it didn't represent that specifically at all it just represented something good in some indefinable way and it was a song that made you happy made you stomp your feet made you jump up out of your seat and they just they just nailed it they everything came together and do a perfect song for that band at that time [Music] remember [Music] what I always thought was it was a completely legitimate song I never had any problem with that song I'm not suggesting that the political logic of of Sweet Home Alabama is anything special but as a simply as an expression of feeling it seems completely legitimate basically he's saying to Neil Young who's have to roll a Canadian don't you moralize at us and I don't think that's a bad thing for somebody to say he was moralizing uh and I love Neil Young Neil Young is one of my favorite artists in the whole history of this music [Music] I said Southern change [Music] the Neil Young Thing of course it was a repost to Neil Young for for dumping on Southern the southern man you know didn't do what Their good book says and yeah he had every right to Neil Young had every right to every right to do a song like that it was perfectly time and Ronnie had every perfect right to to you know dispute it and stand up for southern manhood so that part of it was fine but when you get into the governor in Birmingham Birmingham why did he choose Birmingham it's not the capital of the state Birmingham is is the place where the worst and bloodiest race riots happened in Alabama so why is he choosing in Birmingham they love the governor yeah we know that but they love them because they're they're a bunch of racists so was he was he sending them up or was he endorsing them we never knew I put the background vocals on that uh without discussing it with them it was a very tough session because I use black women and they don't think Sweet Home Alabama they think George Wallace [Music] what's he doing there he's playing both ends against the middle that's what he's doing that boo boo boo thing who is booing you know he leaves it completely open and I said I'd really tried to pin him down on it and he he you know he made yeah he said with a fair amount of clarity that he did not agree with George Wallace's view of race he said that with a fair amount of clarity did he therefore think that the appeal that George Wallace had to working class Southerners was altogether illegitimate when no other candidate was in any way trying to meet any of their interests and George Wallace was smart enough to do class stuff and in fact did some liberal stuff for working people in Alabama he understands that there's something about George Wallace that he wants to celebrate and there's something about Georgia Wallace that he wants to criticize there's a certain kind of chip on shoulder double dare you thing going on uh where he wants to rile up and get uh his his core audience the people he grew up with um and wants to say to uh the rest of the rock audience who he really would love to have on board and he wants to have buying his record no this is who I am take her to leave it I'm gonna do this now because I'm not simply going to be kissing ass here it's a very very complicated gesture that he brought off with more subtlety than I could in the end penetrate and that speaks well of him with a Bonafide he hit to propel them skin had continued touring the us into the summer yet despite their growing Fame their Devotion to the chaotic routines of The Rock and Roll Lifestyle was beginning to take its toll on the band and strained their relationship with manager Alan Walden by the time the band got out there they had been playing the bars so long that almost everybody in the band was alcoholic myself included you know I needed to grasp real control of the band before they started [ __ ] up the whole thing I began to have to talk to Hotel managers more and more and more about them tearing up hotels spent a good bit of time trying to convince the law officials not to arrest them all okay finally in St Louis one night they're checking into a hotel and on the way in checking in they bust out the exit signs in the hallway well the Bellman calls down to the desk and the desk comes up and says hey you guys have got to leave it there ain't no problem we got our managers to get another hotel it was a convention in town that was the last hotel that had any rooms okay so now they're mad with me because I can't get them a room in the morning I said I'm going to tell you something this just goes to show you why you shouldn't be doing this dumb [ __ ] in August the band members returned to Jacksonville and back in the relatively tranquil environment of their home turf we're able to recover from their excesses work soon began at Hell House on new material however where the creative Partnership of Ed King and Ronnie Van Zandt continue to thrive I came to rehearsal with this groove that Ronnie really liked actually Ronnie contributed to the groove as the first time he ever did he says look I like that and the verses I want you to do this and then go back to what you had Saturday Night Special so I'm there rehearsing with a band trying to teach them the groove and Ronnie's over there in the corner and after about 20 minutes Ronnie comes up to me not on the mic which he usually did sing for everybody this is really this is this tore me up he put cupped his my ear with his hand and he sung to me two feets they come on creeping like a black cat do you know and he sang the whole verse to me [Music] unlock door [Music] I mean I feel inspired now just thinking about it I went right to the chorus and then he wrote the chorus so we had a verse in a chorus why don't go fishing they went fishing you know although Saturday night's special developed quickly the rehearsals also highlighted the limitations of drama Bob Burns who was struggling to recover from the heavy touring during the first half of the year although Ronnie Van Zandt started looking for a temporary replacement Burns himself sensed that his time with Skynet was coming to an end I just got so burned out what they were asking for I just had had so much of it and for so long uh I just told him to get another drummer that uh you stay the way I'm flying and uh I developed some some pretty serious illnesses and uh to keep me or I couldn't play correctly we tried to rehearse Saturday night special with him but it just wasn't right Leon and I went to Atlanta and auditioned Artemis Pyle who was a good friend of the Marshall Tucker boys and uh Al Cooper dropped by and he said um you know that song you guys worked up Saturday Night Special why don't you work that up with Artemis because it's going to be in this movie um The Longest Yard so we started working up with Artemis and I don't like to be heard so he says go over to Studio One and record it so we did Optimus Pyle who had previously worked with Charlie Daniels proved a perfect replacement for buns yourself [Music] well he was very good I thought he was better than Bob it was a good thing for the band musically it was really a good thing for the band Ronnie called me after talking to Charlie and after talking to the Caldwell Brothers toy and Tommy I think Charlie said something to the effect of I know a guy that's crazy enough to be in your band Ronnie he he's as crazy or crazier than all of you and uh to be the drummer of Skynyrd you have to be a little crazy Ed new that Bob had to take a break and they needed somebody so I was I was you know Mr somebody and I was thrilled this break in the touring schedule VanZant also actively sought to sever the band's ties with Alan Walden and another option was interested and available British manager Peter Runge who had been overseeing the who's Affairs since 1971 was over awed by Skinner's shows opening the Quadrophenia tour and had let Van Zant know that if the nature of the band's relationship changed with Walden he'd happily take his place it was heartbreaking in me but at the same time it was like a big old concrete block following off a Marshalls I don't think Ronnie trusted Alan um didn't think for where the band was headed that Alan was the right guy needed somebody bigger and I think Peter rudge you know not many people could get to Ronnie as far as making an impression on him because Ronnie could could suss you out pretty quick I mean real real fast he was very very bright but Peter rudge I think put one over on him not that Peter rudge was deceptive or anything except Ronnie was really overwhelmed by Peter's accent his demeanor just Peter was the guy and of course he Peter managed The Who and Tanya tuck around the stone so why wouldn't he be you know Raj took over shortly before Skynet were due to head to Europe for their first non-domestic tour to capitalize on their surging popularity overseas the issue of a drummer now became pressing as they still hadn't formally invited Artemis Pyle to take on the role full-time and a flagging Bob Burns was reluctantly taken along for the shows it would prove to be the end of his journey with the band they were kind of phasing Bob out but they had to go do a European tour and there wasn't time to teach me the entire set so for a little short time just maybe two weeks we were on the road and Bob and I played together one little tour and then they went to Paris and Bob had a nervous breakdown I don't think it was drugs I think it was drugs I think just Bob was under a lot of pressure there was times on stage where he would lose his place in songs and none of us really got on Bob that much but Ronnie surely did I mean if you messed up Ronnie gets on your get on you real bad and in Europe one night one morning early morning we had a bus ride and Ronnie got on Bob's case about the night before just really really bad and Bob lost it [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] yesterday it was a good tour we played some damn good music I get the Diary of it but I got Road fatigue you know I wasn't eating right I wasn't sleeping right that's that skin of Bones I wasn't eating uh all that perverted sex and you know I mean I don't think it was perverted back in but later on in my older life I can see wow man you know oh mine is blue a 50 amp fuse I pushed so hard her puss a place called a man should ever push himself I snapped to 50 amp fuse had to go in a hospital it was it was sad man it was really sad I think it's just because the band was just overworked I mean we were under peers Direction at that time and we hadn't really had much of a break the whole year I mean it was what happened with Bob in England I could go into detail but I'd really rather not it's uh he just had a breakdown of all breakdowns it was quite visible to everyone it was so bad the hotel guy kicked us out wouldn't let us come back actually through the house cat out the window and killed it from five stories above and uh and it got worse after that yeah it was sad I mean it didn't have to happen you know Bob was had grown up with these guys I think if we had just handled our tours better nobody said nobody who managed the band really saw any longevity of course I guess how could you back then it was just good go for all the money you can right now the Relentless nature of the Skynyrd schedule continued directly following the tour returning to the U.S in late December 1975 by January the 6th they were booked into web 4 studios in Atlanta to record a new album Artemis pile had now been drafted in as a permanent replacement for Bob Burns and Al Cooper was once again present as producer despite MCA having recently bought out his sounds of the South deal with the band yet the circumstances were totally foreign to all involved with no time to compose new material during the previous year Skynyrd had 21 days to both write and record the album we were putting out a new album of new material every nine months bands don't do that today they might take two or three years you know but they want a new product every nine months which I thought was just way too too much I mean nothing fancy was written and recorded in the studio up until this time everything was written at Hell House thoroughly rehearsed maybe played once or twice in front of people then taken in the studio we had a month we were in Atlanta I said I'm going to go to uh New York for two weeks and I'm gonna party my brains out this is your time to do what you normally do but you only have two weeks to do it I came back and it was what I thought it would be which is it was almost done this was a very tense making of a record and there was no fun involved for me whatsoever things change where our relationship with Al is really out of control there was times in studio when other band members would bring all their friends by he had all these people coming and going and lots of drugs and beer which we never had a hell house I mean it was a hell house man it was all business you know yeah nothing fancy was just difficult and Al was totally Fed Up and understandably so it was uh it was really hard for him because they were really everybody was really putting in his face you know he was a Yankee and it really got tough around with no one satisfied with the situation the music itself suffered yet the hectic schedule that had been imposed on the band was apparently inflexible it not only proved detrimental to the album itself but also spelled the end of Skynyrd's creative partnership with Cooper at the last song on the record Ronnie has a head cold that's so bad you can just tell and there are sections on it that needed to be redone maybe expanded it was just unfinished record um but yet the minute it was over I mean the rest abandoned was on a bus going to Detroit to start the tour the second it was over Rani and I stayed back to finish that vocal on Whiskey Rock a roller then we both took a plane to Detroit to meet the band and then this tour just started I remember vividly the the last day so the tour bus was parked outside it wasn't like they were going to go home and get ready to tour the tour bus was there they were going right out and they're going to start touring and I thought to myself while all this was going on I can't do this again this is torture and so I said to them I would rather be your friend than be your producer from now on and I think you know they'd had enough of me issued in late March 1975 the album Nothing Fancy peaked at number nine on the Billboard charts the band's first top 10 album yet Van Zandt himself expressed his dissatisfaction with the end result [Music] crazy [Music] brother there's nothing that he can do [Music] yeah oh knocking on her phone I think it was a more laid back record than the other two because uh they felt comfortable in a way and and they were trying to be even more of themselves on that record and also they'd changed as human beings over the course of uh the three albums [Music] cause that's the way that it was meant to be back [Music] it would sound like a tired band well the songs aren't as strong pronounce Leonard Skinner and second helping are really strong records you know they're like you know like bang out of the gate you know big time no sophomore jinxed with them at all so their sophomore drinks kind of came with their next record although their musicianship as players hadn't dropped and their ability to play like a great band hadn't changed but you know compositionally there those songs didn't stand the test of time fancy was a disappointing record because it didn't have any of the classic songs that had to find Lynyrd Skynyrd's first two albums still sonically sounds pretty good they're introducing some new elements with mandolin and other stringed instruments and it has a couple of really solid songs Saturday Night Special whiskey Rock and roller and maybe most poignantly am I losing which really seems to be Ronnie reflecting on the band State and his own State as they struggle with success and with all the problems that come with success [Music] and I recall drinking wine with one of my friends [Music] [Music] it's an honest reflection of what happens now where am I now am I losing what made me great what made me strong what made me who I am and I think that in itself is a powerful statement during the recording of the album newcomer Artemis Pyle was introduced into Skynyrd's inner sanctum and the following few months would prove a baptism of fire for the drummer if life on the road for the band had proven excessive on previous tours under the management of Pete rudge their parting increased and as they moved directly from the studio to the tour bus following the nothing fancy sessions the drink drugs and punch-ups became a daily phenomenon once more yes there were fights but I've never been afraid of a fight I can take a punch I just immediately integrated into what I was doing in their world you know and which was a tour bus an airplane a stage a tour bus an airplane a stage you know just a hotel room hotel room tour bus airplane Stage Studio Studio you know just those five things just in a row all the time for three years back in those days I enjoyed smoking weed but the guys they were hard on themselves you can't burn the candle at both ends and expect to have your energy up all the time I don't see how they functioned backstage at our concerts looked like an ABC Store there was cases of scotch in cases of vodka and Jack Daniels and cases of beer and the promoter you know the promoters always trying to make the band feel really good and I never understood that and they brought all this you know cartons and cartons of cigarettes and the guys and my boys thought that at every show we played these big Arenas and stadiums all that stuff that was backstage they were supposed to smoke and drink all of it then and Ronnie Van Zant in particular was struggling to control his intake which had a disturbing effect on his temperament never one to back down from conflict alcohol not only fueled an inner rage but led him to intimidate and often physically abuse his own bandmates Ronnie was a maniac that old tour just a maniac just night after night something traumatic would happen one time in Lake Charles Louisiana Ronnie had vowed vowed two weeks before that to stop stop drinking and he did it was it was really he was a lot better I think he was miserable but towards maybe the second week he got a little bit better but something snapped in Lake Charles two weeks later where he just went crazy and he gathered everybody in a room he ripped off his shirt he grabbed a lamp on the nightstand and broke it against the nightstand all this Jagged glass hanging up but he slammed me up against a wall and held her right to my neck he said I want you to say a [ __ ] word okay no problem um I can't remember really what his uh gripe was it just y'all are stealing from me that was one thing um I can't really it was just well it was just unjustified it was stupid [Music] as this run of 61 shows aptly named the torture tool continued Across America the camaraderie between the band members quickly began to break down exacerbated by vanzant's routinely drunken and abusive Behavior struggling with both the volatile atmosphere and his own substance abuse issues Ed King decided Midway through the tour that it was time to take his exit from the world of Skynyrd I fall apart around the middle of May there were decisions just being made that everybody just agreed with and I didn't think it would hurt to take a month off you know go rest and maybe write some more get back in our little Groove that we had and Ronnie and I know people will disagree and say this is a lie and it's the absolute truth because I have no reason to to lie but Ronnie said to me in front of everybody look man he said I've had it with the all his bickering back and forth management and all this I just want to focus on what I do he says I'll let you you make the decisions and you know just check it with me but you deal with them you know so I did I told Peter rudge I said I wanna cut this tour and go home and rest take at least maybe two weeks off to maybe two weeks writing and then resume it well that was around the middle of May and by the 26th of May I was out of the ban and the only thing I can surmise is that sometime between then and the 26th of May somebody got together with Ronnie and said you know you can't do this you can't just stop it to her because then the pressure started coming down on me to move me out and then rather than move me out I just decided Well this isn't worth it I'm just going to leave one night during the making of nothing fancy I was living in a hotel separate from wherever they were living Ed came over one night and he was complaining to me about how much money he had spent the last year on serious drugs and that he didn't know how much longer he could stay in the band so I wasn't totally surprised by that and and if that's why he left I was glad he left I had my share of drugs oh yeah and I'd had enough too I mean yeah I'm not saying I was perfect no by by no means you know but I know when I left the band I knew the band wasn't going to end well I had no idea it would end like it did but I knew it wasn't going to end well and I really didn't want to be a part of it after that because my creativity at that point was shot really there's just so much friction just everybody needed a rest people don't come to your hotel room crying saying they need a break if they just kidding you know I mean it was some mental stuff going on now a man down in July the band rolled back into Florida to close the tour of the Jacksonville Coliseum despite the tensions within the group The hotels damaged and the various run-ins with the police their audiences had for the most part seen no knock-on effect on the shows themselves yet back in their own stomping ground things finally fell apart end of the 75 torture tour hometown boys come home big deal right we get into town a guy named Sydney drashen he's the promoter he brings a big fat bag of pure cocaine well everybody gets into it Charlie Daniels opened the show then we came out and played like four songs and Ronnie collapsed Charlie Daniels came out and jammed with us and tried to kind of save the Save the Day but it just wasn't enough for the crowd because we didn't do that whole set the crowd was like carnivores you know they wanted that music and uh we couldn't deliver that night and so even doing Freebird when we went to the fast part I will never forget leaving the stage and looking back and seeing glass bottles bouncing off my drums the amazing thing is how little Peter rudge cared and he's doing tons of cocaine himself this is this is no secret and he's encouraging all this coke use and it's just looking back I can't even fathom it how that was I mean Alan Walden never would have done that he never would have met them at an airport with Coke for them to do or to take on a plane they were kicked off planes they were refused flights because when they would get drunk and stoned on a plane it would they would be a physical threat so the plane going down ironically so you know Ronnie Ronnie so The Story Goes try to throw a groupie out of a plane at 35 000 feet try to open the back the door and throw a guy out these are guys in big big trouble making great music but in big trouble and nobody cares following a much needed summer break the band returned for further shows in August 75 including a number of dates supporting Peter Frampton at the same time with only nine months passed since they had completed nothing fancy plans were already underway for Skinner to return to the studio to Begin work on a fourth album without Al Cooper to oversee the recordings Peter Roger arranged for Van Zant and his bandmates to meet with legendary producer Tom down who had begun his career in jazz before moving into Seoul and then Rock operating out of criteria studios in Miami doubt seemed an obvious choice having been the producer behind the Allman Brothers band's breakthrough albums and in September 300 miles south of their Hometown skinhead began recording gimme Back My Bullets they like doubt how do you not like a guy with that with that kind of record you know he's tremendous tremendous pivotal figure in in the music industry but the whole thing with Tom Dowd was as sort of a master plan to get Skynyrd to go to Atlantic Records I mean it was a whole thing we're going to get it we're going to move off MCA you know we're sick and tired of these guys we're not getting paid enough it was sort of a plan where it was going to be an incremental thing they were gonna the the skids would be greased by having Tom down do their album and then they would just make a break completely they respected Tom as like a father figure Al Cooper was like one of the Bros you know and Al should have been put up in a little bit of a pedestal Al should have been given a little bit more respect but Tom Dowd they called him father Dowd Tom liked to uh rehearse parts and go over things he was meticulous and had good ideas and yes Ed was missed I missed Ed and and Ronnie missed that guy that he wrote songs with but the sessions were better on giving Me Back My Bullets because we were a little more prepared uh some songs had been written on the road and uh on break there was some material that had been looked at [Music] completed in November 1975 gimme Back My Bullets was Rush released and out in the stores the following February yet there were signs that Skynyrd were losing their wider appeal although it was the first of their albums to chart in the UK where they were steadily amassing a significant fan base in the U.S it sold disappointingly its lead single Double Trouble peaking at number 80 on the Billboard Chart without Ed King's input as a songwriter or Al Cooper's slick production for many it was a sign that the band were in a creative rut it's a thing that I really contributed to those records was capturing the sound of the band and using the studio to enhance it even further than it was and and the best way to judge that is is I did the first three albums and is to listen to the fourth album because you know it's devoid of anything that I did which surprised me it just made them sound like an average band which they weren't and I was disappointed I remember getting the actual LP and I I didn't know how I was going to feel about it and I took it out put it on the turntable and when I was putting the needle down I said knock me on my ass please so then I knew I wanted it to be good I was very disappointed and I felt bad for him well I've seen the hard times [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Al Cooper had a certain style and the early recordings of the band he had full control of that freshness when Tom came along we were looking for some help and I don't think Tom was able to capture that sound it was nobody's fault but the facts were that the band was very popular expected to come out with some more material Tom Dowd was the magic man you know Aretha Franklin live cream Derek and the dominoes The Allman Brothers he had a track record so Ronnie liked that but capturing the magic from pronounced that boat had left you know had sailed that pronounced boat that you can't get that magic but Tom in his way in his own way uh emphasized the words and Ronnie Van Zant and made sure that those vocals were out there and that's what the band was about [Music] [Music] don't call me [Music] I think that Tom down was probably a logical person to work with because he was clearly a great producer he had the history with the Allman Brothers as well as with cream who are very profound influence on Leonard Skinner so I'm sure it all made sense I'm sure that Tom worked his very hardest to get something out of them but I think the biggest issue with that album was that the material just wasn't there they really didn't have the songs the loss of Ed King almost certainly had a deleterious impact on Lynyrd Skynyrd's songwriting their songwriting suffered their creativity suffered and at that point it seemed like a fairly reasonable bet to think that Lynyrd Skynyrd was petering out and was not going to be a creative or commercial Force for much longer get Give Me Back My Bullets would prove divisive with some band members critics and fans viewing it as an overlooked gem in Skynyrd's Canon I think gimme back my boys was one of their best athletes that's just my opinion I always me and Alan always agreed on that I love that album you know of course none of the rest of them were it didn't sell well and nobody else was really satisfied with it but I thought it was a great album I feel like the This Record really did get a short shrift you know maybe because this isn't a big hit song on the record I think that they are actually getting stronger as a band when I listen to this record now today um it's very it's a very self-assured record it's a playing is great it's a great record like I mean probably a better record than even fans might give it credit for just because it doesn't have a free bird or a Sweet Home Alabama or you know a simple man or like you know the one of these Tunes these Blockbuster Tunes so I think the record actually hasn't hasn't gotten it to do I think it's a better record than people think and if a Skinner fan was sitting here he would go I know you know you don't have to tell me if Give Me Back My Bullets was commercially a disappointment as a live act Skynet were losing none of their appeal just before the album's release the band headed across the Atlantic for another European tour returning to the US in March to embark on a three-month run of shows now a headlining act playing large venues Ronnie Van Zant was Keen to expand Skynyrd's live sound and brought female backing singers Leslie Hawkins Deborah JoJo Billingsley and Cassie Gaines into the fold who would collectively be known as the honkettes it was a welcome addition to the stage show and although the wider southern rock movement had by 1976 begun to wane Leonard Skinner remained one of the top live drawers in the world we had three beautiful women that sang back up with us the honkettes hand-picked by Ronnie Van Zant Cassie was like a Broadway singer she had a Broadway voice oh you know really strong Leslie Hawkins was our soprano she was our our Songbird JoJo was The Honky Tonk Queen she had that rough baby baby you know she Ronnie liked that and he liked the fact that the girls were all different and their blend was perfect he hand-picked them [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] everybody thinks we're a southern band Where We Are and the crowds in the South are crazy but man when we play up in New York City and up up north they loved the music they were just as big a fans as the people in the South as well as in UK just as big a fans when we went to Japan they treated us like we were the Beatles man so anywhere we played uh the reception was always the same very exuberant then it's skidded was strengthened even further by the introduction of a new guitarist in May 1976 a position that VanZant had been considering feeling ever since Ed King's departure upon her arrival in the band backing vocalist Cassie Gaines had been recommending her younger brother Steve yeah this suggestion was initially dismissed by the band as they were looking for a higher profile player in May however at a show in Kansas City VanZant invited Steve Gaines to audition with Skynyrd at a live concert and following further jams with the band he proved that he was more than qualified to take on the role of third guitarist he got out and played with us in front of about 80 000 people Ronnie asking that day you know be a part of the band at the time Ed left the band there was everybody in the band had tremendous drug and alcohol problems and so it I'm not blaming anybody it wasn't Ed's fault it wasn't Ronnie's fault it was just the times and Steve came at a great time Steve's very mellow laid-back intellect came in that in itself helped us write the ship we were a happy family and everybody wanted to be cool for Steve you know because he was such a nice guy you know the band didn't want Steve to know that they were out of their mind drunken Maniacs you know that was later that came later reinvigorated by the introduction of this young virtuoso in July the band recorded a live album across three dates at Atlanta's Fox Theater after the rust nothing fancy and the commercial disappointment of Give Me Back My Bullets Skynet needed to re-establish their energy on record and with one more from the road released in September 1976 they succeeded peeking in the top 10 in the U.S and going Platinum before the year was out it restored their reputation I remember when it came out you know it sounds phenomenal Skynyrd was a live band you know they lived to play live I mean you could tell that's a thing you know they're musicians you know I mean they're gonna thrive on an audience and ratcheting things up to an another level so you know Freebird live is just phenomenal you know it's everything it should be the Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded one more from the road in July 1976. Steve Gaines had only been a member of the band for two months as strong as the album is as much as it was a great live album that really re-established them and stands to test the time I believe if it had been recorded two or three months later it would have been quite a bit better Steve Gaines was a fantastic guitar player who had UniQue Ideas jump started the band and surely gave a kick in the behind to Gary rossington and Alan Collins because as a musician if you add another person of that caliber into the mix it has to do that it just has to it has to change the Dynamics and I think what you hear on this live album is the very beginnings of that happening this confirmation of the band's status is one of the greatest live acts in the world continued in 1976 with a show in front of their biggest crowd to date on August the 21st almost two months after the Fox Theater concerts were recorded Skinner traveled to the UK to perform at the nebworth festival on a bill headlined by the band who had initially inspired Ronnie Van Zant to pursue music in the first place the Rolling Stones not only did Skinner deliver a momentous set they were considered by many to be the highlight of the event everybody was there said the same thing the stones were horrible they were barely coherent they could barely stand up and Skynyrd set was what turned on the entire crowd of probably a half a million people or whatever 200 300 000. it was it was a hundred percent cool man the mirror said that we possessed the energy of the day because of the energy of our set the stones came out two hours late and drunk I actually made a statement that we blew the stones off the stage and nobody blows the stones off the stage of course but I felt like we gave it a nice try you know it as far as going out and doing our show and and our set and just standing on the music alone I think standing on the music Alone we held our own [Music] were on stage in front of half a million people and Steve Gaines is taking a solo and you can see Ronnie back up to him on this humongous stage and you can see a smile and you can see that he's thinking to himself man am I a smart guy man for bringing this Steve Gaines dude into the band you know because Steve's just shredding on this solo and Ronnie's got this beautiful smile on his face [Music] oh [Music] and Ronnie you can see that moment that he just looks at Steve and to me that says it all Steve Gaines made a huge difference in the band although they were apparently Riding High Again re-energized by gains and back in the charts with one more from the road the band members drink and drug problems were too far Advanced for each of them to properly control in September 76 both Alan Collins and Gary rossington were involved in Road accidents caused by their substance abuse issues rossington's injuries in particular causing Six concerts to be canceled at this point VanZant acknowledged that they needed to change their ways Penning the song that smell and turning to his old friend Gene Odom to step in and curb their excesses he says I'll just stay with me and be my bodyguard and take care of us get us over the booze and alcohol do that first and then the drugs will be next he said I want you to straighten this band up I want you to get us off all this crap and you're the only person who can do it because you're the only person that'll never do drugs or Never Smoke or never drink and he was determined to get him off of it and you can do a sociable drink or you can be an alcoholic you know he said we want to get away from this and you're the only person that can do that for us management can't nobody can do this but somebody like you that's never going to hand us something and say Hey you know and so I would have got him off of it I would have got him off up to the point that they didn't have to live with it you know they might do it for a sociable thing but they didn't have to bury their head in it you know and he wanted that 1977 started well skinded heading off for successful tours first in Japan and then the UK before returning to Jacksonville in February to work up fresh material having recorded demos of these new compositions at a local studio in April the band transferred to criteria studios in Miami to work once again with producer Tom Dowd yet after cutting the majority of the album there they were alerted by their live sound engineer Kevin Elson to the poor quality of the recordings and skin had abandoned both Tom Dowd and the studio the stuff was sounding like crap and it was thin and weak we needed to go home back to Studio One where Sweet Home Alabama was recorded Saturday Night Special go back where we could get that good sound so we trashed about seventy thousand dollars worth of material that we we recorded at criteria in Florida we just threw it in the garbage can Skynyrd would have to wait until July 1977 to re-record the album their schedule once again demanding that they returned to the road for two months of U.S shows when they finally did reconvene first at Studio One in Doraville and later at Muscle Shoals working once again with Jimmy Johnson Ronnie Van Zant himself oversaw the album's completion the band's radical decision to abandon the original recordings and start again from scratch paid dividends however released in October 1977 Street survivors proved a phenomenal return to form with Steve Gaines not only injecting the proceedings with new Vitality but also contributing as both a songwriter and lead singer on one track it would however sadly be the only studio album of skinheads to which he was able to contribute Street Survivor is an extremely strong album I think it's clearly their best album since second helping the band sounds completely revitalized by Steve Gaines who's playing is all over the album but in addition Ronnie Van Zant has written his best batch of songs since the beginning perhaps inspired by Steve's presence the fact that there was a tortured history to the recording of the album that it was recorded once and put aside is a fascinating footnote because it doesn't sound anything like that it sounds easy and natural and hard driving and hard swinging they had those songs under their thumbs they don't sound like new songs they don't sound tentative in the least and it's an extremely strong album and it's probably the Lynyrd Skynyrd album that I listened to the most battle [Music] s look what's going on inside you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] lose [Music] that smell is an eerie song listened to with the knowledge of what was soon to come and it shows that Ronnie Van Zant similar to am I losing was aware of the dangerous terrain that the band was walking on and he understood that they were surrounded by a certain amount of Doom and Gloom and foreboding and that things had to change or they wouldn't last long can't speak a word when you say you'll be all right come tomorrow but tomorrow might not be here for you [Applause] he has this statement to make it by Washington because you know he had to go see Rossi go to the hospital a few times when Washington almost died from a car accident one of his eight million car accidents and he was afraid it was going to ruin the band so this was Ronnie's statement you know but you this is not going to continue I mean I know on my hypocrite for saying this and I'm I'm including myself here in these lyrics I'm I'm singing to myself in a way here but I'm telling you Prince Charming that you are not going to be able to continue to do this [Music] later on tonight [Music] I was really proud of that album from nothing fancy you know like you know Give Me Back My Bullets and ah you know Street survivors to me was an indication of what we were we were going to do Street Survivor was was was Steve and Ronnie and the band with a new spirit and Steve is this great guitar player man just incredible Ronnie got our our feet back on the ground with Street survivors and the and the success of the live album and everything we had two winners and I think the next album would have been amazing and I think that Ed King would have been asked to come back and write a song or play with us to perform with us and Bob on double drums um that's the vision that I had that I thought things would just what you know would come around and uh then we had the plane crash and Ronnie was killed and and that's pretty definitive you know that's it [Music] days before the release of Street survivors skin had embarked on a major headline tour and for this ambitious run of shows manager Peter rudge leased a private plane to transport the band and their crew eager to save on costs however the model he picked out for the group had seen better days and although it had safely delivered them to their first four dates the journey to the band's final ever show together in Greenville South Carolina had revealed just how unsafe their method of Transport was yet just before 4am on the morning after this show they reluctantly boarded the plane one final time heading to Baton Rouge they would never make their destination we had shot a flame out of one of the engines coming into Greenville and that's why we called our mechanic out of the Dallas Texas and they were going to meet us in Baton Rouge Louisiana and fix the plane but we shouldn't have tried to make it from Greenville to Baton Rouge that was the mistake the plane had problems obviously and we took off and the rest is history you know we flew into the into the history books excuse me [Music] after we got on the plane and we got Airborne Ronnie gets up you know to me because they were harling for me to come back play poker and I'd run up to the cockpit and I was hearing that engine and I communicate with the pilots about that damn engine and so um Ronnie gets up and said man he said I took two sleeping pills I was up all night long Gene and I said yeah I heard you know and he says I gotta get some sleep we started running out of fuel I went to the cockpit I played stewardess told everybody to put out their cigarettes conserve power turn off lights everything and get pillows and prepare for impact and I I'm a pilot you know so I played stewardess and I went back to the cockpit and the pilot and co-pilot Walter McCreery and John Dre they said you better go back and strap yourself in and they looked at me and I could see they had fear in their eyes oh I must went back to his seat and I grabbed Ronnie about the floor I snatched him up and shut him between on the game I said I said man the planes crashing he said don't be messing genius I got to get some sleep man don't be messing with me man I gotta get some sleep I said the plane scratches I strapped him in he said man don't be messing with me I think he might have unsnapped it before that he I know he did actually um and I said man the plane's crashing I'm not messing with you put your head down and I actually slapped him I said man and he went I said put your head down as much of trees suddenly we came out of the clouds the low ceiling and we were right on the Treetops and I heard one guy go trees Clayton Johnson he worked for Bill Graham and he goes trees and then I could feel the trees brush against the belly of the plane the fuselage and the pilot and co-pilot the last mistake they made was to put the landing gear down and we almost cleared the trees there was a field in front of us we almost cleared those trees but they put their landing gear down landing gear caught in the tops of the trees tripped us into a 45 degree angle we cut through the woods I watched the the right wing come off just an unbelievable crunch impact collision with the Earth and then it stopped and it was quiet I was in Los Angeles I started on the TV and I stayed up all night watching it they didn't say who who perished until the morning you know until the sun was up and that's why I kept watching I wanted to know I wanted to know that like as soon as possible they're sitting against the tree is a piece of an airplane wing torn away from the rest of the airplane flying down there at the base of the tree is the engine and that back there that Twisted Metal back there is the fuselage of the plane I was at my mother's and father's house and the dad come they almost knocked the doors down people crying and told they told me what happened I lost it I saw God who we lost they killed me man he just killed me kill me as the surviving band members and their crew were taken to various hospitals in the vicinity it soon emerged that Skynyrd's latest recruit Steve Gaines his sister Cassie and the band's assistant Dean Kilpatrick who had been working with them since 1969 had all been killed on impact so too had Ronnie Van Zandt although the public would become aware of these details within days of the crash for the survivors it took longer for them to discover the tragic fate of their comrades we went to five different hospitals so the doctor came in to my room and he said Artemis I I hear you've been asking who made it and I said yeah and he said are you ready I said yeah and he said Ronnie Ronnie Van Zandt was killed and I said I I know I knew that and uh and then when he said Stephen Cassie you know that really hit me that hit hard I didn't hear anything until I got out of the hospital a month later they didn't tell me Ronnie died or anything I was going when I got out I said okay running go visit Ronnie come on so he started driving me like to Orange Park and they pulled into the cemetery and I said what the hell y'all doing and they said to be taking this visit Ron he didn't make it and that was it was that was horrible that's when I realized that he didn't make it because they didn't tell me I guess they didn't want me to know because my health was all banged up you know but it was a month later that I knew that he died and whoever else you know I didn't know I didn't I thought everybody was fine you know the surviving members of Leonard Skinner jointly decided to dissolve the band in the wake of the tragedy and for a decade pursued various musical projects both together and apart in 1987 however they reunited to perform a one-off tribute Tour 10 years after the Fateful accident bringing together former members Gary rossington Billy Powell Leon Wilkerson Artemis Pyle and Ed King alongside Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother Johnny on vocals and musical director Alan Collins who was unable to play with the band on stage having been left permanently Paralyzed by a car accident the previous year so successful was this tool that the reconstituted Skinner decided to remain together and although this has proven controversial they have endured until the present day albeit now with only one original member guitarist Gary rossington yet despite releasing new material and drawing large crowds to their shows they have been dismissed by many as simply a tribute band Ronnie Van Zant proving Irreplaceable even by his own brother they suck I think they're awful I take a great interest in how bad they are I take a great interest in their Yahoo right-wing Fox News [ __ ] Leonard Skinner dies with Ronnie Van Zant period is it possible for a Reunion Band with somebody doing a Ronnie Van imitation singing his songs to a decent concert I suppose that's that kind of I'd rather listen to the records they could never regroup that success that they had without him he was the key factor to that band he wrote all the songs you take the authorship away and it's something else entirely but you can make a lot of money [Music] and that's what they do I like a little bit [Music] [Music] times Beyond yeah [Music] they are acutely aware of what kind of dedicated fans they have they're very thankful for it and don't from what I could see they don't take it for granted one bit and when I've seen them in recent times they go out there and they want to give people the best possible show we are going to come out here and we're going to rock the crap out of this place and and they do and they do the whole thing they do the steps they all get together and they do the guitar moves and they do the whole show and they are more than happy to deliver that to the fans they want to put on a great show every night you know it's really important to them despite the polarized opinion regarding the second incarnation of the band the various private and public disputes that have since occurred among the survivors of the 77 crash the legacy of the first era of Leonard Skinner has remained untarnished and although a wholly accurate account of their years together from the mid-60s until the late 70s were now never emerge due to the conflicting testimonies of those who lived through it the music the band produced continues to find new listeners and inspire a new generation of musicians and their departed driving force Ronnie Van Zandt remained a remarkably singular talent in the history of rock music his rugged no-nonsense appeal still influential nearly 40 years after his tragic death Ryan Van Zant was a very unique front man he was incredibly Dynamic without doing too much he basically walked around usually without shoes on and held his microphone in the air he was a commanding presence that element of being a lead singer and frontman is hard for anyone to copy or emulate because it has to come from within I think as a singer Ronnie VanZant has been very influential especially on country artists country music has become more and more rocked up and what we would have thought of in the mid 70s as country tinged Rock has become Rock tinge country and I think Ronnie Van zandt's influence on Eric Church Jason Aldean and a whole generation really of country singers is profound both vocally musically and in terms of stage presence and Swagger when music is new and it's fresh and you capture that on record it's always going to sound new and fresh it's going to sound forever it will and it'll probably like you know be a little cliche about fine wine it gets better over time if it wasn't great music we wouldn't be talking about it so you know they found a way to be a distinctive band that has great music that people you know people are going to remember those great songs Forever I don't think there'll ever be another like Ronnie Van Zant in my opinion man everything that comes out of his mouth is Meaningful you could tell he was telling about his life everybody asked me what was Ronnie what was Ronnie like what was he like I said you just take any six songs that Ryan's written any six you pick them any six that's him that's his story [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History

Views: 4,788,233

Keywords: Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History, Southern rock, band origins, behind the music scenes, classic rock legends, cultural impact story, exclusive band insights, famous rock band, iconic band documentary, iconic band members, iconic music band, incredible music legacy, music artist documentary, music artist history, music history exploration, music industry documentary, music industry history, rock band history, rock legends, rock music history, rock music legends

Id: 0E2YncA4UME

Length: 162min 37sec (9757 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023