Posted on 03/05/2023 10:13:10 PM PST by DoodleBob
Gary Rossington, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last surviving original member who also helped to found the group, died Sunday at the age of 71. No cause of death was given.
“It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today,” the band wrote on Facebook. “Gary is now with his Skynyrd brothers and family in heaven and playing it pretty, like he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time.”
Rossington cheated death more than once, Rolling Stone reported. He survived a car accident in 1976 in which he drove his Ford Torino into a tree, inspiring the band’s cautionary song “That Smell.” A year later, he emerged from the 1977 plane crash that killed singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and a punctured stomach and liver.
“It was a devastating thing,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006. “You can’t just talk about it real casual and not have feelings about it.”
In later years, Rossington underwent quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, suffered a heart attack in 2015, and had numerous subsequent heart surgeries, most recently leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd in July 2021 to recover from another procedure. At recent shows, Rossington would perform portions of the concert and sometimes sat out full gigs.
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Artimus Pyle is still around & active, tho’ of course he was not an original member. He says he left the then current lineup in 1991 due to bandmates’ drug and alcohol problems, but I have no idea who - could have just been one person, I guess. In any event, after the crash Pyle spent 3 years with an Orthodox Jewish rock band* in Israel “to become a human being” he says.
*Until this evening I had no idea such a thing ever existed!
I always had a good time at LS concerts.
There’s an online program from NYC area called JM in the AM that features Orthodox Jewish rock and pop from the US and Israel, some great and some very derivative. It’s actually online 24/7.
There are even Orthodox Jewish rappers, including at least one American black:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Prhl6SOFec
Sort of an answer to a question no one asked, but kinda cool anyway.
He’s up there with the Skynyrd boys, Hughie, Danny Joe Brown, Charlie, Banner, Hlubeck, Spires, and others.
Medlocke still out there too.
There’s a video of Danny Joe Brown performing at a small club a few years before he passed. So sad, the diabetes really took its toll, but he was a devout Christian in his final years.
IMHO the best of the Southern Rock singers.
The Meshiggah Beach Party band plays Jewish songs in the surf genre. This is them playing Hava Nagila segueing into Dick Dale’s Miserlou.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKmC4EiFWE
“There’s a gator in the bushes, calling my name….”
Yes, indeed. A quite multi-talented guy. But how he’s still around... (Kinda like Ozzy and Keith Richards)
I’ll have to check it out. Thx. :-)
Very nice interview with Gary and his wife Dale, back in 2016. I’ll have to check out that album.
From that interview I can see that a lot of the lyrics from “Simple Man” must have come from Gary and his relationship with his Mom. And his and Dale’s faith I think must have eventually pulled them through quite a lot.
It would seem Rossington got himself straightened out later on. His basic character and beliefs (mostly acquired from his Mom, and I think his wife had something to do with it too) finally won out.
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