Legacy
What was the origin of "Free Bird"
Free Bird
It has become something of a humorous tradition for audience members at concerts to shout "Free Bird" as a request to hear the song, regardless of the performer or style of music. The phenomenon began earlier in the 1970s with The Allman Brothers Band's epic "Whipping Post", but then took off to a much greater extent with "Free Bird", which was very popular by 1979. This can be traced back to Skynyrd's first live album, 1976's "One More from the Road". For their second encore, Van Zant asked the crowd, "What song is it you wanna hear? ", which was immediately followed by several shouts of "Free Bird", to which the band responded with a 14-minute rendition of the song. The spoken interaction was reproduced on the album as an introduction to the song.