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Sunday Morning Open Thread with Music by Lynyrd Skynyrd [1]
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Date: 2025-09-07
Good morning, crew. How starting the day with a little southern fried rock & roll? But first,
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The band that would later reach worldwide fame as Lynyrd Skynyrd was formed in 1964 in Jacksonville, FL, when a baseball hit by Ronnie Van Zant (vocals) injured Bob Burns (drums). After learning of their mutual interest in music they and Gary Rossington (guitar) got together to jam. They liked what they heard. Later, they also asked bassist Larry Junstrom and guitarist Allen Collins to join. In 1968, at Burns suggestion, the name was changed to Leonard Skinnered, which was a poke at his old PE teacher Leonard Skinner, who was a stickler for keeping his boy students’ hair well cropped. The band adopted its distinctive spelling no later than 1969.
Lynyrd Skynyrd were pioneers in Southern rock. They blended country, blues and British rock into what became their distinctive sound. By 1970, they had grown into Jacksonville’s most popular local rock band.
If you were into rock music back in the late 1970s you probably remember hearing of the ill-fated plane crash that killed several members of this band. I lived in Huntsville AL at the time. It was huge news there. On October 20, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered an old Convair CV-240 which took off from Greenville, SC. Instead of landing in Baton Rouge, LA, the aircraft crashed in the woods near Gillsburg, MS. There were seven fatalities: Ronnie Van Zant, their current guitarist Steve Gaines, Gaines’ sister and backup singer Cassie Gaines, the band’s assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, their Flight Captain Walter McCreary, and First Officer William John Gray. The rest of the band members were seriously injured. The NTSB eventually ruled the crash was due to pilot error. That model of Corvair was well known to occasionally have faulty fuel gages. This pilot neglected to check the fuel levels visually before takeoff.
In 1987, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s surviving members decided, with Van Zant’s brother Johnnie, to reunite the band. The videos I chose were all recorded before the date of their terrible plane crash.
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Now on to the tunes.
So what’s on your mind this morning?
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