On October 20, 1977, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of rock was marked when a crash apparently killed three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Three days after the release of the band’s fifth album, “Street Survivors,” lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and vocalist Cassie Gaines’ lawyer were all killed when their tour plane crashed into a swamp in Mississippi.
The tragedy marked the end of the band’s original lineup, with ABC news reporting at the time that the surviving band members vowed never to play under the name Lynyrd Skynyrd< /a> again.
That is not true. While the band was disbanded after the tragedy, a decade later the four survivors of the crash — Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, and Artimus Pyle — with former member‘s Ed King, and the late Ronnie Van Zant’s younger brother, Johnny, going for a tribute.
And they did not stop drinking.
The revamped lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd remains today, with their most recent studio album, “Last of the Dyin’ Breed” released in August 2012. But 35 years later, the band’s original songs from the 1970s are still being discussed.
Thirty-five years after the fatal plane crash that ended the original Skynyrd lineup, check out these unlikely artists who have created Lynyrd Skynyrd tributes and covers.
Neil Young — “Sweet Home Alabama”
While Lynyrd Skynyrd called out Neil Young in the song “Sweet Home Alabama,” rumors of enmity between “Southern Man singer. and the Southern rockers is an The urban rock legend received an honorable mention and said in a 2012 interview that he planned to collaborate with Skynyrd on the song “Powderfinger,” before a fatal crash changed everything. In a 1995 interview with Mojo, he revealed asked the band to record one of their songs, and said of the “Alabama” moto: “Oh, they really didn’t put me down! But then again, maybe they did!
Deftones — “simple man”
In 1994, alternative metal band Deftones released a not-so-simple version of Skynyrd’s “Simple Man”. (It appears on their “B-Sides & Rarities” compilation.) But in an interview with Ultimate Guitar, Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno admitted he didn’t even know the 1973 classic when he recorded it. “I heard the first thing I heard that day,” Moreno said. “It’s funny that at that time…I didn’t even have kids then. Now when I hear that song I connect with it all because I’m father and the nature of the poem and the lyrics is kind of a mother talking to the son or whatever.
B.A.M.A. – “Sweet Home Alabama”
In 2004, Alabama rap duo B.A.M.A. (aka Boyz After Always Money) released a version of “Sweet House Alabama”. Except for the chorus, the lyrics have been completely changed. Brian “Caine the Bull” Morris and Darius “Rain” Lacey were cut from their home state, with no mention of Birmingham, Muscle Shoals or Neil Young. (Although they mention did that “Bama flies his chicks from head to toe.”
Will Ferrell –“Freebird”
Leave it to Will Ferrell to take a Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem and totally butcher it. But he was smiling. Comedian Conan O’Brien stopped by the show’s finale to do a screechy rendition of the classic Skynyrd song “Freebird.” Ferrara closed the show with a little help from ZZ Top, Beck, Ben Harper and Conan (who played guitar). The only help we needed were some earplugs.
Johnny Van Zant – “Freebird”
Finally, singer Johnny Van Zant paid his last tribute to his brother. In this interview, Van Zant explained why the re-formed band went so many years without Skynyrd’s signature song “Freebird”, opting instead to play the instrumental in concert. Van Zant said of the song that his late brother recorded with Allen Collins in the early 1970s he said: “The words they say, ‘If I leave here tomorrow.’ It was kind of hard for me to sing along with Gary Rossington, who changed his tune, said Zant Rossington told him, “Ronnie was the author … and he wrote those words and I am. surely he would like to hear them. Johnny Van Zant first sang the song at the end of the band’s Tribute Tour in 1989.
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