I can remember in my minds eye the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert ticket with their name in the middle and Ted Nugent warming up for them. My Skynyrd connection – like many in the New York area, we felt ripped off when Skynyrd died in that plane crash (Oct 20, 1977), as we were about to see them at Madison Square Garden the month after. It pretty much kicks arse, like so many others do. Southern rock song, in my opinion? Not sure really.
It has to be number 1 on most people’s Southern rock list – primarily because of their unfortunate demise. Would I say it’s one of the greatest Southern rock songs? Of course it is.
And my southern experience extended further outwards to Muddy Waters, Bonnie Rait, BB King, and more. Saw The Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, ZZ Top, Henry Paul Band, Little Feat (I’ll address Feats later), The Dixie Dregs, The Pousette Dart Band, Les Dudek, Molly Hatchet, The Ozark Mountain Dairdevils, Southern Cross and Lost Highway Ramblers (last 2 were s-hot local NY bands who played famously at the Fore n’ Aft). I was a big Southern Rock fan during those ‘70s years, for sure. What are my credentials, you may say, to answer this question? I’ve been listening to rock music and all the peripheral genres pretty heavily since 1975.
#BIRD LYNYRD SKYNYRD FREE#
Is Free Bird one of the greatest rock n’ roll songs of all time, arguably? Subjective as this all is, as they say in Britain, ‘in for a penny – in for a pound’ (meaning, if I’m going for it, I might as well really go for it). I hope it’s ok to give another opinion on this – as a fan of this blog and your writing. And as we all know, this bird you can not change. If those two parts hadn’t been eternally linked together, if the song had somehow been structured differently, it would necessarily have left ‘Freebird’ a lesser whole, irredeemably altered. So, thank goodness the for-all-times legendary jamming was preceded first by its tender and pensive first half. And let’s not forget the simple beauty of the incisive lyrics, which began with a remark from the girlfriend of guitarist and co-writer Allen Collins, who asked him a question that became the song’s unforgettable and haunting opening line: “If I leave here tomorrow / Would you still remember me?” Van Zandt has said that the song, which has, of course, taken on such mythic proportion in the annals of rock music, was simply about “what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever it wants to go.” Those first 4-plus minutes of Skynyrd’s studio recording, before it jarringly changed gears and took off forever for the stratosphere, were positively enchanting.
For chrissakes, it had a string section! (I know, you probably don’t believe me, but it’s right there go to 3:41 to hear it and remind yourself). Produced with a deft hand by Al Kooper, the man who famously played organ on Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and French horn on the Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ the original ‘Freebird’ output was rather clean. By historical criteria the unrestrained, over 14-minute live version from the band’s subsequent “ One More From The Road” album three years later has almost assuredly become the definitive take, but let’s focus here on the lesser-heard and comparatively concise 9-minute, 7-second studio rendition. But would it be remembered that way without the first part, that sweet, melancholic ballad written and sung by perhaps the unlikeliest of troubadours, southern rock badass, Ronnie Van Zandt? Personally, I don’t think so it was that gentle lead-in, it seems, that delicate, textured slow burn and stark contrast to the ensuing wall of guitars, that allowed the sublime onslaught that followed to be so singular in music history.Īppearing on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 debut album, “ Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd,” the epic-even-by-epic-standards ‘Freebird’ was the final track, the record closer on side two. The second part – the seemingly endless rounds of classic chord progressions and never-to-be-matched guitar wailing – made it what it is, arguably the greatest rock song of all time.
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