NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who died Sundaymade it huge when rock ‘n’ roll was nonetheless a defining cultural drive on par with at this time’s TikTok developments and superhero motion pictures.
The long-lasting band’s final surviving co-founder was additionally maybe the final flagpole in a once-powerful a part of American music: Southern rock. Or not less than a rebellious model of it that later grew to become loosely tied to conservative politics and did not draw back from among the problematic symbols of the South.
“They’re the band that form of codified a number of what we consider as Southern rock,” mentioned Stephen Thomas Erlewine, a music critic who writes for AllMusic, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about Southern life whereas enjoying a type of muscular and gritty blues rock. The music might be uncooked or bloom into an prolonged guitar solo, like on their anthem “Free Fowl.”
However the Lynyrd Skynyrd of 2023 bears little resemblance to the considered one of practically 50 years prior, when the unique incarnation featured a gaggle of long-haired musicians who match into the American counterculture and had been actually not embraced by Nixon-era Republicans, Erlewine mentioned.
The band’s use of the Accomplice flag again then was seen as “a part of their rebellious streak,” Erlewine mentioned. They did not actually see the battle flag “as insurrectionist or pro-slavery, however extra as backyard selection insurrection,” he mentioned.
In more moderen a long time, although, the band got here to symbolize a extra particular model of politics, particularly after the distinctions between southern rock and nation blurred and their audiences combined.
Among the band’s present members have been overtly political. Final 12 months, present lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant penned a track together with his brother Donnie — other than the band — that praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024. Erlewine mentioned the band’s sound — and that of Southern rock basically — finally grew to become “a form of Purple State, old school rock.”
The unique members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which launched its first album in 1973, had an intense musical chemistry and had been more durable and grittier than different teams lumped underneath the Southern rock banner, corresponding to The Allman Brothers Band and The Marshall Tucker Band.
They got here to have three guitarists, whose layers produced a thick, brawny sound that would turn into “a locomotive for solos,” Erlewine mentioned.
However the label “Southern rock” was nebulous at greatest, mentioned Alan Paul, a music journalist who interviewed Rossington a number of occasions for Guitar World and for his upcoming ebook, “Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Outlined the ’70s.”
Probably the most correct solution to describe the style formed by wide-ranging influences “can be rock bands who sounded distinctly Southern — they did not conceal something about their Southernness,” Paul mentioned.
The Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band hated the time period, Paul mentioned, as a result of it was too reductive. However Lynyrd Skynyrd embraced the Southern rock label “to the purpose of creating folks uncomfortable,” Paul mentioned.
the Florida bands pervasive “Candy Dwelling Alabama” was a response to Neil Younger’s “Alabama” and “Southern Man,” which rebuked slavery within the South. The track name-checks Younger and obliquely references Alabama Gov. george wallace, a staunch segregationist who later softened his views.
The band’s authentic lead singer and songwriter, Ronnie Van Zant, claimed the reference wasn’t supporting Wallace.
“Lots of people believed in segregation and all that. We did not. We put the ‘boo, boo, boo’ there saying, ‘We do not like Wallace,’” Rossington concurred, in a documentary interview.
However Paul mentioned he would not actually consider that — “I do not assume most individuals do.” Paul cites a memoir written by the band’s authentic supervisor, Alan Walden, who mentioned Ronnie Van Zant was “a Wallace man all the best way.”
And but Erlewine additionally factors out that Van Zant wrote a 1975 track, “Saturday Evening Particular,” that subtly questioned the makes use of of handguns.
“There was undoubtedly a reactionary conservatism in components of Skynyrd, however they might not be seen strictly by way of what you’ll consider as conservative politics,” Erlewine mentioned of their first incarnation.
A 1977 airplane crash killed Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines and injured Rossington. The band reformed a decade later with Johnny Van Zant taking his older brother’s function. Rossington was among the many returning members and, because the lineup continued to alter, would stay.
It was this reconstituted model of Lynyrd Skynyrd that appeared to actually embrace a extra conservative picture, Erlewine and Paul every mentioned.
Within the Nineties, the group’s audiences started to overlap with these of Hank Williams Jr. and Charlie Daniels, a southern rock pioneer whose sound grew to become extra nation.
“Plenty of the sounds that had been progressive within the ’70s and rock-based grew to become integrated into nation music, and have become the sound of nation music,” Erlewine mentioned. “Lynyrd Skynyrd would not actually play nation music however there’s an overlap between the audiences … all of it turns into form of like a sure type of Southern music.”
He added: “Sure photographs, sure sounds, sure concepts had been set in place. And it is simpler to maintain enjoying to that stuff, as a result of that is the place the viewers is.”
The nonetheless touring Lynyrd Skynyrd commonly used the Accomplice battle flag of their dwell exhibits for many years. Rossington informed CNN in 2012 that the band would cease utilizing the flag due to its affiliation with hate teams, however then walked again the remark to say they’d proceed to make use of it, alongside the state flag of Alabama and the American flag.
Nowadays, musicians who might be seen as honoring the cultural and musical concepts of Seventies Southern rock — and constructing upon them — are typically extra progressive politically, Erlewine mentioned. They embrace Jason Isbell and teams such because the Tedeschi Vans Band and the Drive-By Truckers who’ve additionally sung about life within the South.
The Truckers’ 2001 album “Southern Rock Opera” examined misconceptions in regards to the South, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s legend and Wallace’s legacy, amongst different issues.
“I used to be a (Skynyrd) fan in elementary faculty, which is once they had been truly making information,” the band’s Patterson Hood informed The Related Press in 2002, saying he rediscovered a love for his or her music after shopping for a vinyl copy of the pre- crash double dwell set “One Extra for the Street” years later.
“After the crash, I did not actually take care of the opposite Southern rock being made at the moment,” Hood mentioned. “Plenty of Southern rock took a right-wing path after the airplane crash.”
Within the span of half a century, Lynyrd Skynyrd morphed from enjoying pivotal rock ‘n’ roll right into a close to tribute band to itself. They had been rebellious longhairs who grew to become entrenched in a tradition aligned with the conservative institution. And Rossington was there for all of it, together with his rhythmic and crunchy guitar protecting the band rooted.
“This type of rocker is gone now,” Erlewine mentioned of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final surviving authentic member.
Added Paul: “Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of many greatest bands of the mid to late ’70s. When rock and roll was actually on the middle of the cultural dialog — in a method that arguably hasn’t been since and definitely is not now.”
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