Lynyrd Skynyrd History 3

Dale Krantz

Efter ca: 2år av fysisk och psykisk återhämntning så började de överlevande medlemmarna att återhämta sig även musikaliskt.

I Januari 1979 gjorde dom sitt första offentliga uppträdande när dom återförenades för ett gästspel hos Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam V, där dom spelade en instrumental version (utan Ronnie's sång) av "Freebird",
och som passande nog fungerade som en postum hyllning till dom omkomna medlemmarna, men även till bandet självt.

Efter detta fortsatte dom spela i olika konfigurationer, av vilka Rossington-
Collins Band förmodligen är den mest kända. Förutom Gary Rossington och
Allen Collins bestod bandet av Billy Powell(keyboard),Barry Harwood(gitarr)
Leon Wilkeson(Bas), och Gary's fru Dale Krantz på lead vocals.

Bandet kontaktade Artimus Pyle för att återta sin plats bakom trummorna,
men han hade brutit ett ben i en motorcykelolycka och kunde följdaktligen inte "återgå i tjänst" med så kort varsel. Bandet hade planerat att börja spela in en skiva i slutet av 1979, men fick flytta fram datumet för att ge Artimus tid att bli helt frisk från sitt benbrott.

Allen and Gary

In fact, however, Pyle did not return to the project. Leon Wilkeson explained, "With Artimus in the condition he was in, having to play with his left leg to rehearse, it was kind of like we were all at the Indianapolis 500 squealing tires and just couldn't run the track. I guess Artimus could see that frustration, could see that we were ready to go."

The band called on Derek Hess to replace Pyle. He remembered, "It happened all of a sudden, like over a weekend.
I was just doing another straight job, as a ship's chandler. I was extremely frustrated and about ready to hang it up.
Billy Powell called me and said this is a good chance, and it kept me awake the rest of the night."

The band then entered about a month's worth of heavy rehearsals to bring Derek up to date on the material.
The band gelled, and Rossington Collins debuted at a series of concerts in Orlando, Gainesville and New Orleans.
Although the band entered these shows with a great deal of trepidation, the audiences not only accepted the them,
they "nearly tore the theater apart with their wild cheering, stomping and demands for more encores."
Of course, there could be only one encore. According to Phil Kloer, who reviewed the show for the Florida Times Union, 'Freebird' was the "most intense, moving, musically brilliant quarter hour of rock I have ever heard."

Rolling Stone published an account of the "Collins Rossington Band" that quoted Gary saying, "We're not copying Lynyrd Skynyrd. We're not using the name and we're not falling back on it at all, but we did write the music and play it, so I guess it will sound like that. It's good as shit music."

The next project was a Lynyrd Skynyrd greatest hits album. There are at least two stories about how this album got its name. According to Rossington, he and Collins met at his house in Jacksonville to discuss
their options for the future. As they talked, Gary absently picked up Steve Gaines' gold-top Les Paul guitar, which Steve's widow, Teresa,had given him. Sitting there idly strumming the guitar, he noticed an old platinum dobro and thought, "Wow! Gold and platinum. At the time, Allen was talking about the need for a Skynyrd greatest hits album. He said,"Let's get all the best songs and them out on a record."
So that's what we did. We came up with the cover, but it was kind of simple."

On the other hand, MCA rep Leon Tsilis insisted the name came about when he, Allen and Gary met at Allen's home to discuss a "Best of ..." album. Leon recalled the three of them looking at Allen's wall of Lynyrd Skynyrd RIAA awards. "I looked up and said, 'Christ, you guys got a lot of gold and platinum records up here.' And that's were it came from -- Gold & Platinum."

Allen Collins

MCA records did not initially support the project. The Skynyrd catalog sales had drastically declined and the sales department felt the release of a "Best of..." compilation would kill the remaining single album sales. They argued that
MCA would never sell an original "Second Helping" or "Street Survivors" because the new "Gold & Platinum" would contain all the premium cuts. Tsilis took the case directly to MCA's president who reluctantly approved the project. In the event, Leon was proved right. "Gold & Platinum" quickly went multi-platinum, and as a bonus succeeded in shooting the rest of
the Skynyrd catalog back onto the charts.

At MCA's 1980 annual meeting, Tsilis received several awards for providing the label with the album that made the year.
He laughed, "Everybody was patting me on the back and these were the same people who tried to stop the album from coming out." Asked about MCA's reluctance on the Gold & Platinum project, Gary Rossington bluntly replied, "Well, they're stupid, 'cause it just helped it, didn't it?"

Gary Rossington

Although it was introduced with a great deal of fanfare, the Rossington-Collins band released exactly two albums ("Any Time, Any Place, Any Where" and "This Is the Way") before it fell apart. There are various explanations for the break-up; the fact of the matter is that during a 1982 concert, Collins threw his guitar to the stage floor and walked out, not to return. The band had been drunk, drugged, and sick for so long that someone's collapse was inevitable - Collins' just happened to come first.
A 1979 article on RCB includes the following quote from Rossington, which gives some idea of their state of mind.

"We will compare our guitar army with any guitar army, past or present. We are the best and we
will show it. We issue a challenge to any others like us in the world, and, being Southern gentlemen, we will tip our hats if beat, slip back into a cypress swamp, and emerge again ten-fold better.
There's too many 'gators in those swamps, so we'll stay out here, because we won't be surpassed
by any guitar army, anywhere, anytime."

After the demise of RCB, the band members worked on various individual projects.
Rossington and his wife, Dale Krantz, formed the imaginatively-named "Rossington-Rossington", which released a lackluster album for MCA Records. After being dropped by MCA, they pulled up their roots in Jacksonville, Florida, and moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They secured a contract with Atlantic Records and,under the name of the "Rossington Band",
put out another two lackluster albums. Artimus Pyle formed a band which made two albums without achieving much commercial success. Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, and Ed King each spent time playing with various Christian bands.
And Allen Collins formed a band called - can you guess by now? - the Allen Collins Band.
Although this was the most Skynyrd-like of the post-crash bands, by this time Collins' relationship with MCA had become
too strained to recover. They released one ACB album, but there was a management shake-up at MCA during this time
and the new boss, Irving Azoff, wanted nothing to do with Collins.

Randall Hall

As the tenth anniversary of the plane crash approached, several former
Skynyrd members began discussing the possibility of a reunion concert.
Joining Rossington, Powell, Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle were original guitarist
Ed King (who had left the band in 1975) and new guitarist Randall Hall,
a long-time friend of the Skynyrds who had played in the Allen Collins Band. Collins personally picked Hall to take his place in the band and served as a consultant on the tour.

Ed King

Perhaps most significantly, Johnny Van Zant - brother of Ronnie and an accomplished recording artist in his own right - was enlisted to take over the lead vocal spot. "It took me a long time to make up my mind that I was going to do it," Johnny said. "Ronnie was my brother, he was my hero, he was my everything. He's the reason I got into the music business. I'm not trying to be Ronnie. Only Ronnie was Ronnie; he was one of a kind." But, as Gary said, "You know, they're brothers; they talk alike,and they look alike, and so they're going to sound alike." In fact, it is safe to say that it was Johnny's presence that not only made the Tribute Tour possible, but validated the eventual re-establishment of the band.

Fittingly, the Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour made its debut in September,1987, at the Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam XIII.
What had originally been planned as a single show grew to a week, then into a full-fledged 1987 tour (documented on the live album "Southern By the Grace of God"). The audience response was overwhelming, as hard-core Skynyrd fans of all ages greeted the band with unbridled enthusiasm.

Leon Wilkeson

As the Tribute band got more shows under their collective belt, the Lynyrd Skynyrd spirit was rekindled, the passion restored. What had started out as a tribute to the past quite naturally became part of the present, and held out prospects for the future.
"You know, at first we weren't going to do anything but the Tribute Tour," Gary recalled,
"but it was the people who came to see us that made us realize it was all right to go on.
It was like they were saying, 'It's okay, go for it.' We got a lot of mail from fans while we
were on the road, and they didn't want us to stop."
"At first, I figured it was going to be just a tour", Johnny concurred, "and that we would do the best we possibly could, and then put it to rest again. But we had so much fun, that we decided to start writing, too. We all got caught up in it, and we said, 'Well, gosh, should we do a record?' So we decided to just keep writing and see what would happen."

The new Lynyrd Skynyrd signed a deal with Atlantic Records in 1990, then moved to Capricorn
in 1994. With the release of their Capricorn debut album, "Endangered Species", Lynyrd Skynyrd produced a unique and refreshing project - a completely acoustic album, a first for the band.

"We'd wanted to do an acoustic album for years. All of the songs we write start out just with us sitting around jamming," said Johnny Van Zant. "This is like a whole new outlook on Skynyrd,
kind of more intimate and behind-the-scenes album. It's like inviting everyone into our living
room and playing for them, and having a good time. That's the feel."

Ed King

Johnny and Gary

On the last weekend of December, 1995, Lynyrd Skynyrd returned to Atlanta for the
premiere of "Freebird - the Movie", a concert film of the original band's landmark
Knebworth performance. It was preceded by "Freebird - the Jam", a four-hour concert
featuring more than forty different artists.
At the end of Al Kooper's set, several members of Skynyrd came onstage to jam with him.
Powell, Wilkeson, and Rossington were well-received by the crowd, but the real surprise
came when Bob Burns sat down behind the drums - the first time in twenty-one years that
he had played with the band.

Cabin Fever Entertainment is planning to tour "Freebird - the Movie" around the country in the winter of 1996-97,
and arrangements have been made with MCA Records to release the soundtrack.
It has been digitally re-mastered by Tom Dowd, and its quality is reportedly excellent.
Lynyrd Skynyrd has been proposed for induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

In 1986, Allen Collins was involved in an automobile accident that killed
his girlfriend and left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
His injuries were so severe that he only had limited use of his upper body and arms.

In 1989, Allen developed pneumonia as a result of decreased lung capacity from the paralyzation.
On January 23, 1990, in a Jacksonville Hospital, Allen passed away.