The Last Rebel Looks Back: Founding Skynyrd Member Gary Rossington Recalls Band’s Legacy

Roy Rochlin/GettyImages – Gary Rossington
Street Survivor: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s remaining founder, Gary Rossington, leads the band during a performance on “Fox & Friends” Summer Concert Series on June 22 in New York City.. Lynyrd Skynyrd is currently in the midst of its farewell tour capping off a five-decade-spanning career.

The deep affinity music fans harbor toward Lynyrd Skynyrd more than 40 years after the band exploded from the wrong side of the tracks in Jacksonville, Fla., stems mostly from a treasure trove of sturdy, relatable songs that were written, relentlessly rehearsed, and expertly delivered on the concert stage.

Though many contributed, beloved songs like “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Simple Man,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and, of course, “Free Bird,” were primarily constructed by founding guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, and lyricist Ronnie Van Zant. Of those three, only Rossington is alive to tell the tale and bring those songs to life on the concert stage.

Forging an identity through such incarnations as My Backyard, The Noble Five, and The One Percent before settling on Lynyrd Skynyrd (a bastardization of their high school P.E. coach’s name) around 1970, Rossington, Collins, Van Zant, bassist Leon Wilkeson, keyboardist Billy Powell, and drummer Bob Burns dreamt of a life beyond the rough streets of Jacksonville, one of many raw bands fighting for attention.

“We grew up wanting to be musicians from the Grand Ole Opry, then when the Beatles came out and all that, we wanted to have a band, like millions of other garage bands in the country did,” Rossington says. “When we started writing songs a few years into it, when we learned how to play finally, we got serious about it. We just wanted to have our own style, and tell a story that made sense to people.”

Not as bluesy or improvisational as the Allmans, nor as melodic and pop-leaning as their British Invasion influences, Skynyrd charted their own path somewhere between Merle Haggard and Free, powered by a blistering guitar attack and an ace in the hole in Van Zant’s insightful lyrics and accessible vocals.

“Ronnie was like a workingman’s poet, he just knew how to talk to the people, or talk through a song, like he was telling a story,” says Rossington, his voice still tinged with admiration. “And me and Allen just had some pretty good lick ideas, little song ideas here and there, some music. So we’d get with Ronnie and do it, man.”

The goal was simple: “Our big dream was to make it in a band,” Rossington says. “That’s what we were going for, the real deal music.”

There were, of course, parameters. “We always wanted it to have a good beat. If you could tap your toe to it, we thought it was great,” he adds. “And that’s about it, man. Simple.”

Beyond what was on the radio and in the record stores, influences were limited and the band members were musically self-educated. While they flirted with a musical identity in previous incarnations, they landed on the style in Lynyrd Skynyrd that, while commonplace now across such genres as country, Americana and jam music, is uniquely attributable to Skynyrd.

“We found [our musical identity] with Skynyrd,” Rossington asserts. “When we were playing under different names, we weren’t hardly writing much, or we were just starting to. ‘Cause, heck, we didn’t know! We taught each other how to play, and figured out songs off the stereo and records; we’d play records a hundred times to figure it out and write the lyrics down. But then, when we started writing, we really got serious about it and just made it our thing.”

– Lynyrd Skynyrd’s First Album
released in 1973

Skynyrd rehearsed exhaustively in the legendary Hell House, so much so that they took songs into the studio fully formed, and delivered them expertly on stage. “When we recorded a song, we wanted to be able to play it exactly like it was on the record live. So we rehearsed a lot to do that,” Rossington says. “We rehearsed and practiced and rehearsed and worked out our solos, and everybody knew each others’ parts. We hung out, playin’ at a place called the Hell House [in Green Cove Springs] I’m sure you heard about. And we would just rehearse all day and night, every day of the week, so we got ‘em really tight and patterned out.”

While there was no shortage of musicians in Jacksonville in that era, few were willing to put in the literal woodshedding of these guys. “There was a lot of bands in Jacksonville, and there used be ‘battle of the bands’ every other weekend. There’d be 10 or 15 bands come play a song or two, and everybody’d vote on it,” Rossington recalls. “So we would work all week just to win them ‘battle of the bands.’ We won a bunch of ‘em, too. And after a while, we won every one of ‘em, so we just quit going to ‘em. The other bands, I guess they didn’t work at it. They just wanted to play, and they’d play [songs] the best they could, but we would just memorize ‘em.”

And when a new member joined Skynyrd, if they didn’t harbor the same work ethic, “after they got with us they did, and anybody who was with us worked really hard and put in their fair share of work,” Rossington says. “We made sure of that. So, through (drummer) Artemis (Pyle) and (guitarist) Ed King and all them guys that we worked with; everybody worked really hard. I remember (pianist) Billy Powell sitting in his hotel room; we’d write a song and get to where when we’re rehearsing, we’d say ‘Billy, you do a solo here.’ And he’d stay in his hotel room for days at a time working on the solo and getting it right. We just really cared.” 

While building a reputation for fiery shows and quality musicianship, Skynyrd’s members also built a reputation for having a, shall we say, aggressive attitude. So where did that come from?

“I guess it was just our redneck ways of being brought up. We were from the West Side of Jacksonville. That’s kinda the rough side of town, I guess,” Rossington muses. “Jacksonville’s got a lot of air bases; there’s five or six, or more Navy Air bases all over the town. And we used to play a lot for the sailors, so, you know sailors, they get drunk and all they wanna do is try to pick up a woman or fight. 

“So every night, we had to come out to reload the truck with our equipment, and there’d be somebody out there wanting to fight, or just say something about our hair or something,” Rossington continues. “So we’d end up getting in a scuffle every other night, here and there. Not many, just a few, but everybody talked about it.

“And, Ronnie was a badass, he could fight real good. So anybody messed with him, he’d just whip ‘em real quick, and a lot of it was him, but we all were like that. We just didn’t like people messing with us, ya know?”

As Skynyrd began to tour regionally and then nationally, the rowdy reputation followed them. “They’d think you’re crazy, or really are a redneck, and we were just trying to be the best we could, and not taking no shit from people,” says Rossington. 

Despite the occasional skirmish, Rossington remembers fondly the days of playing clubs like Mother’s in Nashville and the legendary shows at Funochio’s in Atlanta, where Skynyrd was famously discovered by Al Kooper (who went on to produce their first three albums).

“You’d play 45-minute sets, and then you’d get a 15-minute break,” Rossington recalls of the club days. “We’d play a lot of Stones and Cream and Yardbirds, and then we’d play our own songs we wrote. And it was fun, you know, we were just growing up, trying to get better at playing, and getting used to crowds; the more experience, the better you get. We just had fun playing and traveling around. When you’re young, nothin’ bothers you, and you don’t get sick that much, and now, 50 years later, it’s hard to travel. Traveling’s tough these days.”

John Davisson – Lynyrd Skynyrd’s
Sept. 2 stop at TIAA Bank Field grossed $3.7 million from 44,487 tickets sold.

In fact, the toll of touring on Rossington’s heart is largely what is forcing the band’s hand in launching this farewell tour – more than a decade after the guitarist’s doctors suggested he should cut back. Much of the damage to all of the founding members’ health was likely inflicted by those epic “torture tours” that led to members like King and Burns (both now deceased) splitting mid-tour. “We kind of hurt ourselves,” Rossington admits. “The ‘Torture Tour’ (61 shows in three months in support of 1975’s Nuthin’ Fancy) lasted so long, it really was torture.”

Promoters loved them, hotels maybe not so much, but Skynyrd’s following continued to grow. The band’s popularity grew even more when they opened for The Who’s 1973 Quadrophenia tour, impressing even the seasoned Brits with both their musicianship and hell-raising “[The Who] were idols to us, the British thing turned us on, and it did change things for us,” says Rossington of that tour. “Those were good times. Keith Moon was a great guy, funny and eccentric. They were all very good to us.” 

With roughly 28 million albums sold, Skynyrd’s efforts in the studio were beyond productive, but this was and remains a band built for the stage. By today’s standards, Skynyrd routebooks of yore seem particularly demanding. Rossington acknowledges that, in an era before MTV or widespread video streams, if a band wanted exposure, they had to work the road.

Ultimately, it was touring that brought an abrupt end to 1970s-era Lynyrd Skynyrd when the band’s leased Convair CV-240 crashed in a swamp near Gillsburg, Miss., on Oct. 20, 1977, en route from a show in Greenville, S.C., to Baton Rouge, La. Among the dead were Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup vocalist Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick. 

Since then, the Skynyrd family has lost Collins, Powell, King, Burns, founding bassist Leon Wilkeson, guitarist Huey Thomasson, and bassist Ean Evans. 

And, of the original boys from Jacksonville who sweated in the Hell House and fought their way to global rock ’n roll fame, it’s Rossington alone that takes the stage to play those familiar songs. Rossington admits that, “it’s a very strange feeling,” some nights to find himself without his former brothers of the road. “I’m blessed to be here,” he says. “It’s a shame, because Ronnie, Allen and Steve never got a chance to see these songs last as long as they have; even ‘Freebird’ was just a few years old [when the plane went down]. It was all still new, and they never got a chance to see those songs make it big, to last so long, or to get the money, for that matter.” 

At Skynyrd shows these days, a backdrop during “Freebird” honors “all the guys not with us,” Rossington says. “I look up at it and it touches my heart every night. I’ve laid a lot of my boys to rest, and I’m blessed to be out here spreading the brand and keeping the music alive.” 

After a lifetime on the road, one wonders what life holds for Gary Rossington in a world where he doesn’t saddle up and take the stage night after night. “I don’t know ‘cause I’ve never done it!” he answers. Rossington and his wife Dale Krantz Rossington (who he met in the Rossington-Collins Band and now sings backup vocals for Skynyrd) have a home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and three grandchildren, and Rossington plans to devote plenty of time to each. “I want to watch them play sports and grow up, do some fishing, kick back and enjoy life,” he says. 

And, Rossington points out, when the final tour does conclude sometime in the next two years, Skynyrd itself will continue. “We’re not going to tour anymore, but we will be playing some, benefits for soldiers and charity things and special shows,” Rossington promises. “There’s some talk about in a few years go to Vegas and do some shows, let people come to you instead of traveling.”