If I leave here tomorrow would you still remember me .....

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

39 years ago today ...Oct. 20 , 1977 ... The Free Bird was pulled from the sky .


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY



Following a performance at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 20, 1977, the band boarded a chartered Convair CV-300 bound for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where they were scheduled to appear at LSU the following night. Due to a faulty engine, the airplane ran low on fuel and the pilots were diverted to the McComb-Pike County Airport. After running out of fuel they attempted an emergency landing before crashing in a heavily forested area five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines, along with backup singer Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray were killed on impact; other band members (Collins, Rossington, Wilkeson, Powell, Pyle, and Hawkins), tour manager Ron Eckerman, and several road crew suffered serious injuries.

[Hooter]

My band does a bunch Skynard. The body of our set list changes frequently but I've sung Free Bird as the last song of the night for years. The song has personal meaning to me as well. Our band is southern rock oriented and we stick to that along with blues.

Skynard has changed with the loss of most of its original members. Billy Powell I believe was the last. The stage doesn't look the same but they still play good music and are one of my favorites.

[G-Man]

I played the trumpet in my middle school band.  Our substitute teacher for that class was real hippie.  He tried to class it up a bit because of his job so he didn't have long hair and his facial hair was full but neat and we wore clogs.

We didn't play instruments on those days, we would listen to records.  One day he brought in the One More From the Road album.  I remember being blown away at the performance level of those musicians, in 8th grade.

I'm sorry to say that I never got to see the original line-up of the band, but I've seen some really good performances from L.S. over the past 30 something years.

When he saw our reaction to the music, he turned us on to other southern rock bands like Molly Hatchet and the Allman Bros.  So L.S. was our gateway band to southern rock.   

[Alpha Dog]

It was a very sad day for me in 1977.  I had a lot of favorite bands in the 70s but the Skynyrd Boys had grown to my number one after the release of One More From the Road.  I and several buddies had tickets to go see them Oct. 29, 1977 9 days after the tragedy,  at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo, MI. , which was a small venue for them compared to selling out huge Stadiums.  When the news came over the radio I wept.  Almost 40 years later they are still at the top.

This song    T for Texas, T for Tennessee     gets very little airplay but it is one of my favs of theirs.  You have newest member Steve Gaines on slide  ( look out I am going to sick an Okie on you ) with of course the established Gary Rossington and Allen Collins going at each other in slashing form.  Billy Powell jumps in for good measure and of course Ronnie van Zant is at the top of his game.   The audio and video catch it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCZ4MjYnPCA



Hooter.  I have to ride my Valk  and watch your band play next summer.

lMy my those girls sure were pretty in Oakland in 77

[3fan4life]

They were among the Greatest for sure. 

[specialdose]

    Saw the original band as they opened for The Who tour in 73 at the Omni in Atlanta. Opening band not on the tickets. When they were
introduced a lot of people said lynyrd who ? Well when they finished ,  every one knew who they were. Only concert I ever went to and the opening band got a standing O. They brought the house down with Freebird .

[desertrefugee]

Funny story from a boy (me) from North Carolina:

When I was 15 (1971), we went to see The Marshall Tucker Band in Hickory at the PE Monroe Auditorium.  There was another band on the ticket none of us had heard of.  We couldn't pronounce the name - and incorrectly thought it was "l-eye-nard sk-eye-nard".   

I remember being blown away and after the concert we agreed that they'd completely upstaged Marshall Tucker.

Seems we were right.  Who the heck remembers the Marshall Tucker Band, but everyone knows who  Lynyrd Skynyrd was/is?

They have been "in my backpack" ever since.

Think "Simple Man".