![]() He was super bad! He was bad-to-the-bone bad. And despite the presence of three guitarists in the band - Collins, Rossington, and newcomer Ed King - Rossington told Guitar World that “the whole long jam was Allen Collins himself. That triumphant, 4-minute guitar work-out that wound up bringing “Free Bird” to its glorious climax was pure function over form, added initially for the benefit of Van Zant’s throat at a time when Skynyrd was playing set after set every night in the clubs.īy the time “Free Bird” came out on that first album in August of ’73, the last four minutes had transformed into rock & roll history. “Free Bird” was recorded as a ballad sans solo as far back as 1972. That opening line, “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” came courtesy of Collins’ then-girlfriend, ultimately wife Kathy, who had asked Allen that question one time in the midst of a fight. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play - it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top of the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey.” Al put the organ on the front, which was a very good idea. “It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on. After about 20 minutes, Ronnie started singing, ‘If I leave here tomorrow,’ and it fit great. “We were sitting around, and asked Allen to play those chords again. The thing is, when he played it for Van Zant, remembers Rossington, the singer insisted that it “had too many chords to write lyrics for.”Ī breakthrough happened a few months later, Rossington told Blender magazine. “Free Bird,” sometimes spelled “Freebird,” was started by Collins, probably in 1970, not long after they’d settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was an in-your-face opening, but those three songs were merely table setters for the 9:08 guitar masterpiece that ended side two of this impressive debut. “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and “Simple Man,” three consecutive rock-radio-playlist numbers, were stacked up on side one. One night in 1972, as Lynyrd Skynyrd played an Atlanta bar, they drew the attention of Al Kooper (a founding member of Blood, Sweat, & Tears and session player, it was Kooper who played that memorable organ line on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”) now he was scouting bands for MCA’s new Sounds of the South label, and he liked what heard so he signed them to the label and signed on to produce their debut album, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd.Īmerica first heard Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd on release day: August 13, 1973. For the next few years, they built up a circuit of small venues where they played under various names and lineups until 1969, when they settled on a bastardization of their gym teacher’s name, Leonard Skinner, a man with a penchant for making life difficult for the long-haired boys in his classes. ![]() Singer Ronnie Van Zant met guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington in high school in mid-’60s Jacksonville, Florida, and together they started a band called My Backyard. It happened when Nirvana played MTV Unplugged (they surprised with a bit of “Sweet Home Alabama,” something they’d previously done at a few in-stores) and one spring evening in 2016 at a Bob Dylan concert in Berkeley, California, the call came out for “Free Bird” - and he famously obliged, working a snippet into his show-closing performance of “Love Sick.” And then there’s The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling, a fiction in which MAGNET writer/NPR storyteller Mitch Myers imagines the guy who first requested “Free Bird” at an unrelated concert. ![]() ![]() Haven’t we all heard someone yelling for “Free Bird” at some random show? More than once? Hell, that’s what people still want to hear at everyone else’s concerts. “What song do you wanna hear?” singer Ronnie Van Zant asks the crowd before Lynyrd Skynyrd kicks into 14-minutes of “Free Bird” on their 1976 live album, One More from the Road.īy then, the whole world knew what song everyone wanted to hear at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |