Ultimate Rhoads

It was 30 years ago today that Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashed and the band became legend.

xx123456

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This is an interesting read about the band Nazareth:

The year of 1977 would present further hurdles still. The band were distraught when manager Bill Fehilly perished in plane crash, and were actually touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd when the latter’s 21-ton Corvair turbo-prop plane plummeted into swampy woods near Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and his backing vocalist sister Cassie, road manager Dean Kilpatrick and both pilots. In fact, had fate been a little different, Nazareth themselves may also have become casualties.
“Artimus Pyle [Skynyrd drummer] had lived in Greensboro, where the plane took off from, and was having a barbecue,â€

I read an interview years ago in Modern Drummer magazine with Artimus Pyle in which he claimed that a lot of the mystique surrounding Skynyrd's partying was staged by management. Remember the stories in the '80's about David Lee Roth filling his Jack Daniel's bottle with tea so it looked like he was drinking heavily? Well, Pyle said that prior to an interview the Skynyrd management would pass around a bottle of Jack, have each guy gargle with it and spit it out, then they'd pour 2/3 of each bottle into the potted plants to make it look like they'd been consuming large quantities of alcohol.

I suppose we'll never know the truth about such things, but I do know that Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Ed King and Steve Gaines are among the greatest electric guitar players to grace this earth. October 20th, 1977 should be as hallowed a day as March 19th, 1982.

wareagle wrote:skynyrd, collins USED to be my main and biggest influence and fav band.....then came ozzy!

You're young yet, your influences will change many times over the years. I've come to realize that, for me, the guys in Skynyrd could out play and out rock anyone including any of the guys Ozzy's had play in his band over the years. It's purely an opinion, as music is not a competition, which makes it an interesting topic of discussion.

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Paul Wolfe wrote:

wareagle wrote:skynyrd, collins USED to be my main and biggest influence and fav band.....then came ozzy!

You're young yet, your influences will change many times over the years. I've come to realize that, for me, the guys in Skynyrd could out play and out rock anyone including any of the guys Ozzy's had play in his band over the years. It's purely an opinion, as music is not a competition, which makes it an interesting topic of discussion.

It's too hard to compare the Ozzy guitarists to the Skynyrd guitarists. Apples and oranges, as the saying goes!

Needless to say, I fucking love the Lyn! What happened to them was terrible. What's even more terrible is that they hardly get any time in the guitar magazines.

wareagle wrote:only ORIGINAL member is rossington, people may say powell, he was a rodie who traveled with them and then went into the band later, the true ORIGINAL was collins, ed king, rossington, wilkinson i think, pile. gaines was picked up later, along with rodie powell, hope uve enjoyed what i wrote and check out my channel for the skynyrd history, turn up ur speakers! its kinda hard to hear.

Artemus Pyle didn't join until 1975 after a couple albums had been released. Bob Burns was the drummer - temporarily replaced by current Skynyrd guitarist Ricky Medlocke - when the band first came into the spotlight. By then Billy Powell was also in the band. So it depends on how far back you want to go to claim original members. Ed King was #3 guitarist for the first two records and Steve Gaines came in for Street Survivors.

As for the songs telling a story, that is common to country music, and Skynyrd cut their teeth on country just as much as rock...

No matter how you look at it, though, they were GREAT!

Paul Wolfe wrote:It was 30 years ago today that Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashed and the band became legend.

Its actually been 31 years ago. R.I.P. to all who parrished that day.

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ken01fan wrote:

Paul Wolfe wrote:It was 30 years ago today that Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashed and the band became legend.

Its actually been 31 years ago. R.I.P. to all who parrished that day.

YEah, I sUck at typing and MAke MiStakEn erRoRs Thanks for pointing that out, I did mean 31 years ago...