Tony's Picks - Lynyrd Skynyrd

I’ve been listening to the original band quite a bit lately. The challenge – create a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD that doesn’t have the songs Freebird or Sweet Home Alabama. Yes – I still do CDs. My car is “old” and doesn’t have an auxiliary jack to plug in my iPod. So if I want to hear music I like without having to wade through and suffer the copious amounts of crap that is on today’s radio, I make my own CDs. While I still like Freebird every now and then, radio killed it. I listen to it every now and then, but then it goes back into the archives to wait a long time before I want to hear it again. Not only did radio kill Sweet Home Alabama, so too did KFC. I can go the rest of my life, never hear that song again and be happy. A good song yes, but it’s dead to me. When Warren Zevon makes fun of it [Sweet Home Alabama, play that dead band’s song, turn those speakers up full blast, play it all night long…], it’s time for it to retire. 

I’m partial to Skynyrd’s songs that came after the Second Helping album, but there are some exceptions. So you won’t find Curtis Leow or Workin’ for MCA on this list, as fine as those songs are.

T for Texas [Blue Yodel No. 1] [One More From the Road, 1976] – Live Skynyrd at its best on this old Jimmie Rodgers song. Listen closely and you’ll hear bassist Leon Wilkeson play the same bass lines note-for-note that Berry Oakley played on the Allman Brothers’ take on One Way Out from Eat a Peach. Guitarists Gary Rossington and Steve Gaines are in fine form. Blistering!

That Smell [Street Survivors, 1977] – classic rock radio has tried its best to kill this song. Allen Collins and Gary Rossington kept drinking too much, doing too many drugs, and getting behind the wheel of a car, so Ronnie Van Zant wrote this song. This was not the first time RVZ wrote about drugs.

Saturday Night Special [Nuthin’ Fancy, 1975] – who knew Ronnie Van Zant was an advocate of gun control?

Gimme Back My Bullets [Gimme Back My Bullets, 1976] – the title song from an unfairly-maligned album. It’s not about guns as the title might suggest.

Roll Gypsy Roll [Gimme Back My Bullets, 1976] – unique in the Lynyrd Skynyrd canon because it is the only time you hear a twelve-string acoustic guitar [courtesy of Allen Collins] on a record from the original band. This is one of many “road” songs from RVZ.

Searching [Gimme Back My Bullets, 1976] – RVZ seeks wisdom from a wise man.

Travelin’ Man [One More From the Road, 1976] – Leon Wilkeson came up with a cool bass riff, and RVZ wrote a song around it.

Whiskey Rock-A Roller [One More From the Road, 1976] – the studio version is originally from Nuthin’ Fancy. RVZ said “Had a old stupid writer on time ask me, said ‘what are you man?’ said ‘what are you really, you know?’ So I decided to write a song, really, this is what I am…” I like this version better.

Double Trouble [Gimme Back My Bullets, 1976] – RVZ spinning about the number of times he’s been to jail. During one such night in jail, he and Gary Rossington compared notes on how many times each had been thrown in jail for whatever reason. RVZ had been to jail twice as many times as Gary, hence the title. RVZ got busted again after the album’s release, and he called producer Tom Dowd in a panic to tell him that Double Trouble was outdated because he’d been busted again.

On the Hunt [Nuthin’ Fancy, 1975] – RVZ looking for women, he’s “on the hunt.”

Cheatin’ Woman [Nuthin’ Fancy, 1975] – BB King once asked the musical question “how blue can you get?” This song, the subject of which is pretty obvious, shows Skynyrd how blue they can get. Check out Ed King on slide guitar.

The Needle and the Spoon [Second Helping, 1974] – this is the song that hooked me on Lynyrd Skynyrd. This cautionary tale about drug abuse predates That Smell by three years.

Simple Man [Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd, 1973] – a mother’s advice to her son. A great song – check out Ed King on bass. The Scorpions made a song years later called Always Somewhere [Lovedrive, 1979] that sounds a lot like Simple Man.

Simple Man [Lynyrd Skynyrd]

Always Somewhere [The Scorpions]

Comin’ Home [Skynyrd’s First…and Last, 1978] – this one is from sessions the band did in the early 1970s with producer Jimmy Johnson in Muscle Shoals. Billy Powell plays it pretty. Guitar overdubs from Ed King came years after the original recording.

One More Time [Street Survivors, 1977] – though this appeared on Street Survivors, this song has the same vintage as Comin’ Home. The only Street Survivors cut to feature Ed King.

I Know a Little [Street Survivors, 1977] – Steve Gaines makes his presence know in a big way on this song.  Billy Powell does, too. :-)

Georgia Peaches [Street Survivors Deluxe Edition, 2008] – this one is an outtake from the original Street Survivors sessions. It’s RVZ’s appreciation of the ladies of Atlanta, Georgia.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors [Deluxe Edition]

Street Survivors is an album that will always be linked with tragedy because it came out three days before “the plane crash.” What a shame because there’s music here that would be memorable in its own right if not for tragedy. So much has been written about the original album that I won’t even bother going there. In 2008 Geffen Records release a Deluxe Edition of Street Survivors. Unlike other deluxe editions of classic albums that have maybe a few B-sides of singles and the odd live cut, the Deluxe Version is different. It contains not only the remastered version of the album released in October 1977 [which sounds great, BTW], but also what came before it. Street Survivors was recorded twice. The original version, produced by Tom Dowd, is presented here in full. Kevin Elson, the band’s live sound engineer, heard the album and told the band what they didn’t want to hear. He told them “If you release this album, you career’s over.” To him, the performances on the original album lacked “punch” and sounded lifeless in comparison to what he knew the band was capable of producing. He and Ronnie Van Zant almost came to blows over what he told the band because the band loved and revered Tom Dowd. They didn’t want to hear that a Tom Dowd production sounded like crap. Luckily for Elson, new guitarist Steve Gaines agreed with him. Such was Ronnie Van Zant’s respect for Steve Gaines that he had the band re-record the album.

When you hear both the original album and the album that eventually got released, you can hear that Kevin Elson was right. Some of the Dowd sessions simply lacked power. The songs from the original were fine, it’s the performances that were lacking, but only on some of the tracks. The most glaring example of the need for a complete re-recording was That Smell. There are two versions that didn’t make the cut. The original first take had an extended guitar jam that lasted for about two minutes. The same take, which became the first original master, faded out before the guitar jam. Both are presented here. Compared to what you now hear on classic rock radio, these versions sound like rough demos, even though they were recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami. Some of the songs needed just a little tinkering. The original Ain’t No Good Life had the Honkettes singing backup – they didn’t make the cut for the final release [it sounds better without them]. The original What’s Your Name lacked the horns that the released version had [adding the horns = good move], while the original I Never Dreamed didn’t have drums [this one's kind of cool without the drums]. Georgia Peaches and Sweet Little Missy, which were supposed to be on the original release, didn’t make the cut, but they are revived for the Deluxe Edition. They were replaced by the older song One More Time [from 1971 Muscle Shoals sessions with producer Jimmy Johnson] and I Know a Little. The band cut a demo of Sweet Little Missy in Jacksonville, and it sounded better than what they recorded with Tom Dowd. Tom Dowd was a fine producer, but he just couldn’t get good performances out of the band for all the songs on Street Survivors. The band recorded Merle Haggard’s Honky Tonk Night Time Man. As an afterthought, Ronnie Van Zant wrote one final song called Jacksonville Kid. He recorded the vocal over the Honky Tonk Night Time Man backing track, but decided not to use it. It is reported to be the last song Ronnie Van Zant wrote. It’s not bad, but Haggard’s song was better and the band was right to keep it for the Street Survivors release.

Finally, to close the Deluxe Edition there are five live tracks taken from a concert in Fresno, California. The band previewed You Got That Right, That Smell, What’s Your Name and Ain’t No Good Life [Gimme Three Steps is the fifth live cut]. The band is in fine form. The audio isn’t so good, but that’s what one can expect of a mid-1970s bootleg recording. I for one could do without the live tracks presented here. But the amateur musicologist in me appreciates the alternate studio versions and the outtakes. If you are a Skynyrd completist, this version of Street Survivors is for you.