Apr 3, 2008

Free Bird


Free Bird - That's music.

Cameron Crowe,
Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone:
It can be said very simply. On stage Lynyrd Skynyrd are as white-hot as a band can get.

This is the first album to record them exactly that way. The result is not surprising. One More For From The Road (1976) may well be the most excitingly authentic Lynyrd Skynyrd album yet.

It's only right that the band should come of age with a live album. Under such other names as The Wild Things, The Noble Five and One Per Cent, Skynyrd have been playing together since high school. That was ten years ago.

I first met them in '73, when they had only just escaped the Southern bar and club grind to release their debut album, Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd. Suddenly, it was all coming at them fast and hard. Skynyrd's first major road trip was as opening act on The Who's entire North American tour.

In their cramped dressing room at the Omni, Atlanta's vacuous rock and roll arena, the group was too pale and nervous to reflect their already-considerable experience. Shaking, they headed out on stage in front of 18,000 Who fans.

From the first moment of Lynyrd Skynyrd's set, there was no mistaking them for amateurs. Brandishing three lead guitarists (Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Ed King) and a refreshingly uncultured, barefoot lead singer (Ronnie VanZant), the band ripped through their repertoire with the vengeance of a champion.

Their final song, a powerful guitar opus called "Free Bird," earned them a standing ovation.

Backstage, Pete Townshend stopped himself in mid-conversation, "They're really quite good, aren't they?" ...

Lynyrd Skynyrd - from Wikipedia
On Thursday, October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair 240 [N55VM] airplane, with 26 people aboard (24 passengers and two crew members), ran out of fuel while traveling from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and crashed near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Those killed instantly included singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray. Backup vocalist Cassie Gaines bled to death before help arrived. ... Their music lives.

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