Posted on 07/20/2019 5:30:46 PM PDT by LeoWindhorse
Nearly fifty years after it was written, “Free Bird” is still the signature concert closer for the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose final farewell tour wraps up in October in Manchester, Tennessee. Founding members Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins wrote the song in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1970, and it wasn’t long before “Free Bird” and its extended guitar solo near the end became one of the band’s most well-known tunes and a live-show favorite.
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“Gimme Three Steps” is often overlooked. It is a cleverly written song.
Nobody has mentioned the Amazing Rhythm Aces. Russell Smith wrote some of the best country rock songs of the seventies, i.e. “Third Rate Romance.” Smith died last week.
Um, by the way, Ed King has that stratocaster for sale at Carter Music in Nashville:
https://cartervintage.com/collections/ed-king-collection/products/fender-stratocaster-2041
So, um, you’re full of it.
Sweet Home Alabama has to be #2.
Sad news. Always enjoyed that song.
Awww, great story. You picked the perfect song.
I’ll never tire of that song. Even recently, I was playing it on “repeat.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkPlxZ7azJ4
Gov’t Mule. Formed in 1994 by guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody of The Allman Brothers Band.
Actually, yeah, you’re right! — I’m mixing up Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird. Sweet Home Alabama is statocaster city but Free Bird could be a Gibson.
statocaster = stratocaster
FREEBIRD!
IMHO, With the exception of Freebird. which was written in the Collins/Rossington lineup, Skynyrd was at it’s most creative when there was an outside influence in the band.
Ed King was a California rocker and when added to the band produced their biggest hit, Sweet Home and other great songs like Simple Man and Workin’ for MCA on the Second Helping album and Whiskey Rock n Roller and Saturday Night Special (yeah, forget the lyrics) on the Nuthin’ Fancy album.
King quit the band and the next album, Gimme Back My Bullets was a dud.
Steve Gaines was blues influenced from Oklahoma and joined right before the Live album made at the Fox was recorded and shows up wonderfully on Free Bird and T for Texas.
Half of the songs on Street Survivors were existing Steve Gaines tunes that Rossington claims “we skynyrdized” . The best of the four being You Got That Right, I Know a Little and Ain’t no good life with Gaines on Vocals.
Ronnie was so impressed with Steve that he is reported as saying that “One day we’ll all be standing in his shadow”.
I’ve heard Smoke on the Water for sure.
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