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.