Lynyrd Skynyrd: Southern Rock’s Triumph and Tragedy

Southern Rock · Blues Rock

The band that defined Southern rock — and paid the ultimate price.

The biography

Lynyrd Skynyrd formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964 — originally called My Backyard — and became the definitive Southern rock band. Named, with deliberate misspelling, after Leonard Skinner, a strict gym teacher who hassled them about their long hair, the band combined British blues-rock muscle with a distinctly Southern storytelling sensibility. Frontman Ronnie Van Zant sang like a man who had seen everything twice; guitarists Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and later Steve Gaines played like they had something to prove.

The debut album, Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd (1973), was a landmark: “Gimme Three Steps,” “Simple Man,” and the nine-minute “Free Bird,” with its legendary extended guitar outro. Second Helping (1974) brought “Sweet Home Alabama” (No. 8), their biggest hit — a defiant answer to Neil Young’s critiques of the South that became an anthem far beyond its origins. They were, for a brief moment, one of the biggest rock bands in America.

Then came October 20, 1977. Days after the release of Street Survivors — which featured the cautionary “That Smell” — the band’s chartered plane crashed in Mississippi, killing Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines. The original cover, showing the band engulfed in flames, was hastily withdrawn. It was one of rock’s darkest days, and it froze Lynyrd Skynyrd in time as both triumph and tragedy.

The band re-formed in 1987 with Ronnie’s younger brother Johnny Van Zant on vocals and continued touring and recording. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd endure as the sound of the American South at its most proud and most vulnerable — three guitars, a storyteller’s heart, and songs that will outlive us all.