1977 Plane Crash | Lynyrd Skynyrd | Fandom powered by Wikia Share Several members of the band died in a plane crash that occurred on October 20, 1977, three days after the release of Street Survivors . A chartered Convair 240, N55VM, carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed near a forest in McComb, Mississippi. The crash killed singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant , guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines , vocalist Cassie Gaines , assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. Other band members were injured, some very seriously. Drummer Artimus Pyle crawled out of the plane wreckage with several broken ribs, but was ambulatory, as were road crew members Kenneth Peden Jr. and Mark Frank. The three injured men hiked some distance from the crash site, through swampy woods, and finally flagged down farmer Johnny Mote, who had come to investigate. Varying accounts have Mote either firing a warning shot into the air or actually shooting Pyle in the shoulder — no report is completely reliable.

Pyle claimed in a February 2007 appearance on Howard Stern's Sirius radio program that Mote had shot him; Mote has always denied shooting the drummer. Video of a barechested Pyle at the 1979 Volunteer Jam does not show evidence of a gunshot wound. Medical personnel arrived and began to ferry out the injured and the dead. Allen Collins suffered two cracked vertebrae in his neck, and both Collins and Leon Wilkeson nearly had arms amputated as a result of crash injuries. Wilkeson suffered severe internal injuries, including a punctured lung, and had most of his teeth knocked out. Gary Rossington broke both his arms and both his legs in the crash, and took many months to recuperate. Leslie Hawkins sustained a concussion, broke her neck in three places and had severe facial lacerations. Security manager Gene Odom was seriously burned on his arm and face and lost the sight in one eye as a result of an emergency flare on board the plane that was activated during the crash. Victims were taken to the hospital in McComb, Mississippi by ambulances and other vehicles.

Road crew member Steve Lawler, who suffered severe contusions and facial lacerations, was taken to the hospital in a pickup with a camper top. Pianist Billy Powell survived but his nose was nearly torn off and he suffered severe facial lacerations. He later caused a controversy by giving a lurid account of Cassie Gaines' final moments on a VH1 Behind The Music special about the band, claiming that the backing singer's throat was cut from ear to ear and that she bled to death in his arms. Powell also claimed that Ronnie Van Zant's head had been smashed. Powell's version of events has been discounted by both Artimus Pyle and Judy Van Zant Jenness, who posted the autopsy reports on the band's website in early 1998 in order to set the record straight. Despite this faux pas, Powell has been on good terms with the remaining band members since the incident. Pyle did confirm (from Pyle's interview on the The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio, Feb.

12, 2007) that Van Zant's cause of death was trauma to the head caused by equipment, such as Betamax tapes and Trinitrons, flying forward in the plane's cabin. Original cover for Street Survivors , 1977Notably, the third member of The Honkettes, JoJo Billingsley, was not on the plane and in fact was home tending to a family member's illness. She was planning to join the tour in Little Rock on October 23, three days after the crash. According to an interview in the book Freebirds, Billingsley had dreamed of the plane crash and begged Allen Collins by telephone not to continue using the Convair. On hearing of the accident, Billingsley was so shaken that some of her hair fell out. The Convair 240 itself had been inspected by members of Aerosmith's flight crew for possible use in the early summer of 1977, but was rejected because it was felt that neither the plane nor the crew were up to standards.

In an interview in the book Walk This Way, Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations Zunk Buker tells of seeing pilots McCreary and Gray trading a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth while Buker and his father were inspecting the plane. When Aerosmith's crew heard of Skynyrd's misfortune, they were shocked, but not necessarily surprised. Aerosmith's touring family was also relieved because the band, specifically Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, had been trying to pressure their management into renting that specific plane. Updated cover after plane crash, 1977The official NTSB accident report reads, "The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was fuel exhaustion and total loss of power from both engines due to crew inattention to fuel supply.

Contributing to the fuel exhaustion were inadequate flight planning and an engine malfunction of undetermined nature in the right engine which resulted in higher-than-normal fuel consumption." It was known that the right engine's magneto — a small power generator that provides spark and timing for the engine — had been malfunctioning (Powell, among others, spoke of seeing flames shooting out of the right engine on a trip just prior to the accident), and that pilots McCreary and Gray had intended to repair the damaged part when the travelling party arrived in Baton Rouge. It is possible that the damaged magneto fooled the pilots into creating an exceptionally rich fuel mixture, causing the Convair to run out of fuel. It was suggested on the VH-1 Behind The Music profile on Skynyrd that this was the case, or that the pilots, panicking when the right engine failed, accidentally dumped the remaining fuel. Pyle maintains in the Howard Stern interview that the fuel gauge in the older model plane malfunctioned and the pilots had failed to manually check the tanks before taking off. Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album, and was the #5 top selling album on the U.S. album chart.

The single "What's Your Name" reached #13 on the single airplay charts in January of 1978. Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded after the airplane tragedy. On the original pressing of the cover of Street Survivors was a photograph of the band engulfed in flames. MCA Records, out of courtesy, withdrew the sleeve and replaced it with a cover of the band striking a similar pose against a plain black background. Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash - Oct 20, 1977 - HISTORY.com Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash Share this: Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash Author Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash URL Publisher A+E Networks In the summer of 1977, members of the rock band Aerosmith inspected an airplane they were considering chartering for their upcoming tour—a Convair 240 operated out of Addison, Texas. Concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith to look elsewhere—a decision that saved one band but doomed another.

The aircraft in question was instead chartered by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date. On this day in 1977, however, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tour plane crashed in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt, killing band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash. The original core of Lynyrd Skynyrd—Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom—first came together under the name “My Backyard” back in 1964, as Jacksonville, Florida, teenagers.

Under that name and several others, the group developed its chops playing local and regional gigs throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, then finally broke out nationally in 1973 following the adoption of the name “Lynyrd Skynyrd” in honor of a high school gym teacher/nemesis named Leonard Skinner. The newly renamed band scored a major hit with their hard-driving debut album (pronounced ‘lĕh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd) (1973), which featured one of the most familiar and joked-about rock anthems of all time, “Free Bird.” Their follow-up album, Second Helping (1974), included the even bigger hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” and it secured the band’s status as giants of the southern rock subgenre. On October 17, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd—now in a lineup that included backup singer Cassie Gaines and her guitarist brother, Steve—released their fifth studio album, Street Survivors, which would eventually be certified double-platinum.

Three days later, however, tragedy struck the group when their chartered Convair 240 began to run out of fuel at 6,000 feet en route to Baton Rouge. The plane’s crew, whom the National Transportation Safety Board would hold responsible for the mishap in the accident report issued eight months later, radioed Houston air-traffic control as the plane lost altitude, asking for directions to the nearest airfield. “We’re low on fuel and we’re just about out of it,” the pilot told Houston Center at approximately 6:42 pm. “We want vectors to McComb [airfield] poste-haste please, sir.” Approximately 13 minutes later, however, the plane crashed just outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Related Videos Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash on October 20, 1977. Details & Informaton Website by Pat Adams. pat@tennesseeconcerts.com Gillsburg Plane Crash Kills Six, Hurts 20 Including Rock Singers A twin-engine airplane, apparently out of fuel, crashed before 7p.m. Thursday in a wooded area of Amite County near Gillsburg.

Six persons including the lead singer of the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd were killed and 20 were injured. The propeller-driven Convair 240 skidded across tree tops for about 100 yards, then slammed into a swampy area and split open about eight miles short of McComb Airport after reporting it was having fuel trouble or was running low on fuel", an Air Traffic Controller reported. The dead included lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and vocalist Cassie Gaines, Gaines sister, medical authorities said. Pilot Walter Wiley McCreary and co-pilot William John Gray, both of Dallas Texas, and Dean Kilpatrick, assistant road manager for the group, also died officials said. Six other members of the hard rock band were injured, two hurt critically and four hospitalized in stable condition. The injured, some of them also in critical condition, included members of the group's road crew and a cameraman, said officials of Southwest Mississippi Medical Center. The chartered plane owned by L&J Co.

of Addison Texas, came down on its nose southwest of McComb, twisting the cockpit to the left, and threw seven or eight persons to the ground when it split open at about the middle of the fuselage, it was believed. The impact, which triggered no fire, tossed other passengers toward the front of the aircraft. "They were all in front of the plane and they were all shouting, get me out, get me, get me." said Constable Gerrald Wall. "We were actually standing on people to get others out". Johnny Mote, who lives near the crash site close to the Mississippi-Louisiana border, said the plane "sounded like a car skidding in gravel" as it clipped the trees. "When it hit the ground it was a deep rumble, like it was underground. It sounded like wrinkling metal" he said. The group was en route from a Wednesday night performance in Greenville South Carolina to a Friday night concert before an expected crowd of 10,000 persons at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

The plane had passed McComb when it reported that it was having fuel trouble, and was told by the Houston Texas flight center to turn around and land at McComb, said Everett Fairly, an air traffic controller at McComb. "I tried to call them, but we couldn't raise them, and Houston reported it had lost radar and radio contact", Fairly said. A spokesman for the Federal Administration in Atlanta GA said the pilot had reported being low on fuel. Thick undergrowth hampered rescue operations and some emergency vehicles became stuck in the mud when they tried to drive through the woods to get close to the aircraft. Rescue crews were also hindered by a 20-foot wide, waist deep creek they had to cross to reach the plane. Pickup trucks and vans were used along with ambulances to carry the dead and injured to hospitals. A Southwest Medical Center spokesman said identification of the victims were complicated because passengers were apparently playing poker before the plane went down and had there wallets and identification papers out. Fairly said a small jet was landing at McComb at the time the plane was reported in difficulty and ask the jet pilot to fly over the area.

"But it was very dark and the pilot said he could see nothing from the air," Fairly said. The plane came down near open pasture land, tearing off one of the wings and twisting the other. Recuers had to rip open the nose to get to victims. Two bulldozers were used to cut a path through the woods and brush from nearby Mississippi 568. Donald Chase who lives about five miles from the area, said he heard "that the plane was having engine trouble because it was sputtering." Mote said he was putting some hay out when three bloody survivors who had made their way through the woods called him for help. "One of them was hugging me around the neck and telling me, "We got to get them out." Mote estimated it took up to 3 1/2 hours to remove all the bodies from the plane. Michael White who lives in Gillsburg, said he and his family heard the engines of the airplane sputtering about 6:45pm.

"I guess it crashed about 6:47pm" he said, but were unable to find the plane."I called the airport about 7:00pm," he said, but was told there was no plane in the area. The Pike County Civil Defense said the crash was reported to its office shortly before 7pm. Busy Night at Hospital "We practice disaster drills so many times during the year that when this one came up I wondered if people would think it was practice too," said Southwest Mississippi Regional Administrator Tom Logue this morning. "But when the first patient arrived, we went to work. They knew this wasn't a drill. I was real proud of everyone at the hospital," he said. Logue and most hospital employees, as well as Civil Defense personnel and others who took part in the rescue operations following Thursday night's plane crash near Gillsburg, had gone through an almost sleepless night. Six persons died in the crash and of the 20 survivors, four were listed in critical condition at SMRMC today. Eight others were transferred during the night to Jackson hospitals, seven were listed in stable condition at SMRMC, and one was not hospitalized.

Among the injured were members of the musical rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd. Three members were killed (see related stories). In critical condition in the intensive care unit at the McComb hospital were Leon Wilkeson, bass guitarist, with chest injuries, multiple abrasions and fractured left arm and left leg; Craig Reed, a member of the road crew, chest injury , lacerations and abrasions, fractured left arm; James Bracy, road crew, chest wound, abrasion, fractured left arm. Listed in critical condition, but not the intensive care unit, was Kevin Elson, the groups sound engineer, with a fractured right leg and ankle, fractured pelvis and left leg. Others, still being treated at SMRMC, all in stable condition this morning.

were Ron Eckerman, road manager, chest contusion and rib fractures, and road crew members Kenneth Peden, multiple contusions, Steve Lawler, chest contusions, facial lacerations; Clayton Johnson, fractured right clavicle and left elbow; Don Kretzechman, chest injury, abrasions; Joe Osborn, multiple lacerations of the face, fractured ribs, and right clavicle; and Mark Frank, multiple abrasions, probably cerebral contusion. Transferred to University Hospital and listed in stable condition were vocalist Leslie Hawkins, facial lacerations and neck problems; Larken Allen Collins, guitarist, spine injuries; and road crewman Gene Odom, eye injuries and a deep scalp wound, and Paul Welch, injuries not known. At Baptist Hospital, also listed as stable, were Gary Rossington, guitarist, multiple fractures; Bill Powell, pianist, lacerations; Bill Sykes, a television film crewman, multiple fractures; and Mark Howard, road crew, head and back injuries. Another member of the group, drummer Artimus Pyle, was treated at Beacham Memorial Hospital in Magnolia. He reportedly walked away from the crash site and notified a nearby resident of the crash.

Addresses of the victims have not been released to authorities. Logue said emergency treatment facilities were set up in the front lobby of the hospital before the first patients arrived from the crash scene. "The emergency room would have been bottlenecked with that many people, so we set up a treatment center in the lobby," he said. "The most critically injured were sent directly to surgery, the critical ones were taken care of in the lobby. We had IV bottles and all the necessary equipment to take care of them right there. Those less seriously injured were put in rooms upstairs, including the obstetrics ward, and in the emergency room." Logue said several persons were discharged from the hospital during the night to make room for the accident victims, but that some of those discharged later were readmitted. "It was a problem for a while, finding enough beds," he said. Three helicopters from the Coast Guard, National Guard and Forrest County General Hospital assisted in the rescue operation, Logue said, transporting at least two doctors to the scene and lighting the area with floodlights. Logue noted two problems hampered operations at the hospital during the night. "The telephone was busy all night long" he said.

"I talked with people from Sydney, Australia and London, as well as from all over the country." The other problem, he continued, was keeping up with the identities of the victims. "We had a hard time keeping names straight, and of course everyone wanted a list of the victims and how badly they were hurt". "They did a tremendous job in organizing the operation and handling events as they came up," said Mrs Willy Mae Lund, one of the hospital trustees who assisted during the night. Bad Place to Bring Plane Down Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center and other area emergency personnel practice periodically handling mock disasters. Last night, it was the real thing, and from the looks of the activity at the hospital the practice has paid off. Only thing, though, nobody had practiced removing 26 plane crash victims from a swampy patch of woods out from Gillsburg, across a creek to waiting ambulances. It took some three hours or more from the time the plane crashed to get the job done, but again, those whose jobs it is to do such things, carried out their duties with precision and skill and as much speed as possible under difficult situations. Bob Kirkfield, Enterprise-Journal advertising manager, and I arrived on the scene amid the rescue efforts.

It was hard enough getting across the 20-foot wide creek carrying a camera. It obviously would have been harder carrying an injured person. We walked across a fallen tree. Some were fording the creek, a tributary of the Amite River. Persons going to the plane had to be careful not to step on the injured and dead who had been thrown or removed from the aircraft. At first it was thought the ambulances could go around another direction to get closer to the plane and avoid having to carry the victims across the creek. Later the decision was made to carry them across the stream. Two Civil Defense workers at the scene said, a sandbar was found crossing the stream and rescuers were able to carry stretchers across it without wading the water, however, they had to walk for more than a mile to get to the ambulances. Lynyrd Skynyrd web pages by Pat Adams in Nashville TN, with the help of Jacquelyn Cooper in Mississippi (at the plane crash scene) See all of our Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute pages. See exclusive pictures of the plane crash scene on the most popular Lynyrd Sknynrd plane crash pages. Courtesy of the TennesseeConcerts website.

Web sites include: SouthernTribute.com Killing three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Apparently in 1977, Aerosmith's flight crew inspected an aircraft for the band. They said no & that plane crashed on October 20, 1977 Convair 240 Photo Credit Realizing the worst nightmare of a pilot, the pilot of the CV-240 attempted to land the plane on small airstrip but the plane could not make it and crashed in the woods near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Three members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd died in the impact; however, Cassie Gaines did survive the initial crash but died of excessive bleeding a while afterwards. The Keyboardist of the band, Billy Powell, survived the crash with gruesome injuries and ever since the crash has provided somewhat a controversial account of the event. Powell’s nose nearly came off of his face as he suffered severe facial injuries along with deep lacerations to his right knee and other spinal injuries. Powell has since been a center of the controversy that rose from his account of the incident.

According to Powell, Cassie Gaines’ final moments were particularly painful as she bled to death in his arms and that her throat had been cut from ear to ear, which gave more indications of execution than an accident. In an interview on VH1 Behind The Music Special for Lynyrd Skynrd, Powell made these rather lurid claims; also, saying that Ronnie Van Zant’s head was found smashed with a heavy object. Powell’s claims have been disputed by both Judy Van Zant Jenness and Artimus Pyle as outrageous and ridiculous; however, an autopsy report that was posted on band’s website in 1998 in order to set the record straight, ironically confirmed Powell’s account of how the pair had died in the crash. Aerosmith performing in Arnhem, Netherlands on June 23, 2010 Photo Credit Another strange thing that came out of the crash was the statement by another member of The Honkettes JoJo Billingsley. Billingsley was not on the doomed plane as she was home sick but had been planning to join the band in Little Rock, Arkansas three days later.

Billingsley later claimed that she had a dream in which she saw the plane crash and death of her friends and that she instantly rang and begged Allen Collins on the telephone to avoid using Convair. After the crash, a team of NTSB officials arrived at the site of the accident and thoroughly inspected every aspect and piece of the debris. The team tested the magnetos of the right engine and did not find any anomaly and concluded that it did function as normal. The statement said that there were no mechanical or electrical discrepancies spotted during the examination of the right magneto. 7 most dangerous men of the wild west Creepy Ghost Ships The History of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Tragic Plane Crash REDDIT YouTube Lynyrd Skynyrd had established themselves as one of the most successful rock bands of the ’70s by the time they released Street Survivors in October 1977. The group’s career would come to a tragic halt just three days later, on Oct. 20, 1977, when their twin engine plane went down in a swamp in Gillsburg, Miss., killing three of the band members, a tour manager and both pilots on impact.

The group had put together a string of iconic hits including “Free Bird,” “Gimme Three Steps,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Gimme Back My Bullets” prior to the release of Street Survivors. Anticipation for the new album was so high that it went gold within days, and Lynyrd Skynyrd embarked on the most ambitious headlining tour of their career, traveling between concert dates in their own Convair CV-300. Rock legend has it that Aerosmith had looked into renting the same plane earlier in the year, but passed on it due to concerns over both the safety of the plane, and the readiness of its crew. Lynyrd Skynyrd were traveling from Greenville, S.C., to Baton Rouge, La., when their plane apparently ran out of fuel toward the end of the flight. The pilots attempted to land on a small air strip, but the bottom of the plane clipped some trees, and the aircraft went down in a remote stand of forest.

Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray were killed instantly, while the other band members and road crew suffered terrible injuries. Drummer Artimus Pyle and two crew members crawled from the wreckage and hiked through swampy woods until they finally flagged down a local farmer, who sent for help. Following the crash and the press attention that came along with it, Street Survivors became Lynyrd Skynyrd’s second platinum album. Out of respect for the band and their family members, MCA recalled the album’s original cover, which depicted the band members engulfed in flames. Devastated by the loss of their singer and the injuries sustained by the survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded after the accident, leaving the survivors to try to make their own way with varying degrees of success and failure. The next decade would see the musicians pursuing a number of projects, including the Rossington-Collins Band, Vision, and the Allen Collins Band — none of which came anywhere close to the success of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Perhaps inevitably, the band reunited in 1987, with Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, Artimus Pyle and guitarist Ed King — who had left the band two years before the crash — joined by Ronnie Van Zant’s younger brother Johnny as their new lead singer. But despite a successful reunion, tragedy and drama continued to plague the group; guitarist Allen Collins had become paralyzed after a drunk driving accident in 1986 that killed his girlfriend, and he died in 1990. Judy Van Zant Jenness and Teresa Gaines Rapp — the widows of Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines — sued Skynyrd for violating an agreement they struck after the plane accident not to exploit the band’s name for profit, and as the years went on, most of the original members either left or were forced out for various reasons. Bassist Leon Wilkeson died in 2001, and keyboardist Billy Powell died in 2009. Ean Evans — who replaced Wilkeson on bass — also died in 2009, leaving Gary Rossington as the sole survivor from the original band. The group continues to tour heavily every year.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Albums Ranked Worst to Best Image of On This Day: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tour Plane Crashes On This Day: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tour Plane Crashes October 20, 2011 06:00 AM Lynyrd Skynyrd was traveling by chartered plane from Greenville, S.C., to a concert at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge as part of an 80-show tour for the release of their sixth album, “Street Survivors.” The plane, a Convair CV-200, was carrying 26 people, including rock band members and many of their road crew and management staff. It had had engine problems , and was due to be replaced. “We had decided the night before that we would definitely get rid of the plane in Baton Rouge,” survivor Billy Powell told Rolling Stone magazine. “So we started partying to celebrate the last flight on it.” In mid-flight, over Mississippi, the right engine “went dead,” and the pilot sent a radio message to McComb Airport advising of engine trouble. Several nearby residents reported having heard the plane’s engines sputtering in the air, and then a loud crash .

The plane crashed in a swamp just outside Gillsburg, Miss., at 7:00 p.m. Three survivors made their way to the nearby farmhouse of Johnny Mote and called for help. The swamp and thick undergrowth slowed rescue operations , and several pickup trucks had to assist in the rescue after ambulances became stuck. There was also a 20-foot wide creek running between the road and the crash site. Six crash victims died, one suffered minor injuries, and 19 were hospitalized. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Lynyrd Skynyrd Bio The origins of Lynyrd Skynyrd can be traced back to 1965, when high school classmates Ronnie Van Zant , Gary Rossington and Allen Collins started playing music together as My Backyard in Jacksonville, Fla. The three friends soon added bassist Leon Wilkeson, keyboardist Billy Powell and drummer Bob Burns to the lineup and changed their name to Lynyrd Skynyrd, a parody of their gym teacher’s name, Leonard Skinner.

After several years of writing and touring, a break came when Lynyrd Skynyrd was signed to MCA Records ; in 1973 they released their debut album, “Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd.” The record included their first, and perhaps most famous, hit, “Free Bird.” Lynyrd Skynyrd used images of Southern pride to help create a distinct musical style, mixing potent rock music with their country roots. “ Lynyrd Skynyrd was the definitive Southern rock band , fusing the overdriven power of blues-rock with a rebellious, Southern image and a hard rock swagger,” says the band’s biography on Memorable TV. The band flew a huge Confederate flag onstage, and before going on for a show they played “Dixie” through speakers for the audience. Along with artists like the Allman Brothers and the Charlie Daniels Band, they helped to forge Southern rock music into a distinct genre. Lynyrd Skynyrd first gained attention when touring with The Who on their 1973 “Quadrophenia” Tour.

In 1974, Skynyrd released their sophomore album, “Second Helping,” which included, “Sweet Home Alabama.” In 1975, Artemis Pile replaced Bob Burns on drums and Steve Gaines replaced Ed King as the third guitarist of the band. That year the band also released their first Top Ten album, “Nuthin’ Fancy.” At the time of the 1977 plane crash, Lynyrd Skynyrd was at the height of its fame, having just released its sixth album, “Street Survivors,” only three days earlier. The original album cover featured a picture of the band surrounded by flames; it was changed shortly after the accident. 1000+ images about Lynyrd Skynyrd on Pinterest | Parks, Gary rossington and Festivals Learn more at nydailynews.com Stevie Ray Vaughn - Photos - Stars killed in plane crashes By that time, another rock n' roll plane crash had cast its own looming shadow.

On October 20, 1977, the plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd ran out of fuel and crashed in rural Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines, along with the band's tour manager and the plane's pilot and co-pilot. Pin Five things you didn’t know about Lynyrd Skynyrd - AXS Five things you didn’t know about Lynyrd Skynyrd By: Victoria Miller AXS Contributor Mar 24, 2015 109 109 16541761 6 y2015m03d24 45830 Lynyrd Skynyrd on MV On October 20, 1977, one of the greatest tragedies in rock 'n' roll history took place when a plane crash killed three members of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd .

Just three days after the release of the band's fifth studio album, and at the peak of their success, lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines were all killed on impact when their tour plane crashed in a Mississippi forest. The surviving members of the Jacksonville-based band vowed to never play under the name Lynyrd Skynyrd again, but a decade later four of the crash survivors – Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, and Artimus Pyle – teamed up with former member Ed King and the late Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, for a tribute tour. The revamped lineup remains to this day – and they even recorded a Christmas album in 2000. The band's last studio album, "Last of a Dyin' Breed," was released in 2012. Here are five things you may not know about Lynyrd Skynyrd. 1.

The band was named after a high school gym teacher: In the late 1960s, the up-and-coming band tried out several different names, including The Noble Five and One Percent, before permanently naming their band after their high school gym coach, Leonard Skinner, who had once suspended Gary Rossington for wearing his hair too long. The band tweaked the spelling of Skinner’s name to avoid a lawsuit. 2. The band was not in a feud Neil Young: While Neil Young was famously called out in the song "Sweet Home Alabama," rumors of a feud between the "Southern Man" singer and the Southern rockers are an urban rock legend. In fact, Young took the mention as a compliment, and he later revealed that he had planned to collaborate with Skynyrd on the song "Powderfinger" before the fatal crash changed everything. 3. “Gimme Back My Bullets” had nothing to do with a .38 Special: The title track from the band’s fourth album was a reference to review bullets in music industry trade magazines, but fans took the phrase literally.

Concert crowds would throw actual .38 slugs on stage when Ronnie Van Zant would announce the song, so the band had to stop including the song in their set. 4. The original “Street Survivors” album cover was changed at the request of Steve Gaines’ widow: The fatal plane crash came just three days after the release of “Street Survivors,” and the original album cover art featured an unfortunate photo of the band engulfed in flames. After the crash, MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a plain black background. The original "flames" cover was restored 30 years later for a deluxe CD set. 5.

It took Johnny Van Zant years to sing "Freebird": Although Johnny Van Zant stepped into his late brother’s spot as Skynyrd’s new lead singer in 1987, for years the re-formed band only played an instrumental version of their signature song, “Freebird.” Van Zant later explained why he couldn’t bring himself to perform the iconic song that his late brother penned with Allen Collins because it was emotionally hard for him to sing the opening words, “If I leave here tomorrow.” But Gary Rossington reminded him that his songwriter brother would want the song to be heard, so Johnny changed his tune. Johnny Van Zant sang the song for the first time at the end of the band's 1989 Tribute Tour. Keep reading AXS for the latest on Lynyrd Skynyrd and more entertainment news. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Biography — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm Listeners Biography Lynyrd Skynyrd (pronounced /ˌlɛnərd ˈskɪnərd/ LEN-ərd-SKIN-ərd) is a Southern Rock band, formed in Jacksonville, Florida, USA in 1964.

The band became prominent in the Southern United States in 1973, and rose to worldwide recognition before three members and one road crew member died in an airplane crash in 1977. The band reformed in 1987 for a reunion tour with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother Johnny as the frontman. Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to tour and record. Of its original members, only Gary Rossington remains with the band as of 2010. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006. History Early years In the summer of 1964, teenage friends Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, and Gary Rossington, formed the band "The Noble Five", which then changed in 1965 to "My Backyard", when Larry Junstrom and Bob Burns joined in Jacksonville, Florida. Their early influences included British Invasion bands such as Free, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles, as well as Southern blues and country & western music.

In 1968, the group won a local Battle of the Bands contest and the opening slot on several Southeast shows for the California-based psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock. In 1970, Van Zant sought a new name. "One Percent" and "The Noble Five" were each considered before the group settled on Leonard Skinnerd, a mocking tribute to a physical-education teacher at Robert E. Lee High School, Leonard Skinner, who was notorious for strictly enforcing the school's policy against boys having long hair. The more distinctive spelling was adopted before they released their first album. Despite their high school acrimony, the band developed a friendlier relationship with Skinner in later years, and invited him to introduce them at a concert in the Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum. In 1970, the band auditioned for Alan Walden, who would later become their manager on the newly formed Hustler's Inc. Walden worked with the band until 1974, when management was turned over to Pete Rudge. The band continued to perform throughout the South in the early 1970s, further developing their hard-driving, blues-rock sound and image, and experimenting with making studio recordings.

During this time, they went through a number of member changes, with Van Zant, Collins and Rossington remaining the only constants. Burns and Junstrom left the band, and were briefly replaced by Rickey Medlocke on drums and Greg Walker on bass. In 1971, with this lineup, they made some recordings at the famous Muscle Shoals studio. By the time they made a second round of Muscle Shoals recordings in 1972, Burns had rejoined the band and Leon Wilkeson had become Larry Junstrom's permanent replacement on bass, with Medlocke and Walker having left to play with the southern rock band Blackfoot. Around this time, the band occasionally played shows with both Burns and Medlocke participating, utilizing a dual-drummer approach similar to that of The Allman Brothers. Also in 1972, roadie Billy Powell became the keyboardist for the band. Peak years (1973–1977) In 1972 the band was discovered by musician, songwriter, and producer Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who had attended one of their shows at a club in Atlanta.

They changed the spelling of their name to "Lynyrd Skynyrd", (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd) and Kooper signed them to MCA Records, producing their first album (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd). Leon Wilkeson left just before the band was to record the album (Wilkeson rejoined the band shortly thereafter at Van Zant's invitation and is pictured on the album cover). Strawberry Alarm Clock guitarist Ed King joined the band and played Wilkeson's parts on the album, along with some guitar. King switched to guitar after the album's release, allowing the band to replicate the three-guitar mix used in the studio. Released January 1, 1973, the album featured the hit song "Free Bird", which received national airplay, eventually reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and is still considered a rock and roll anthem today. Lynyrd Skynyrd's fan base continued to grow rapidly throughout 1973, largely due to their opening slot on The Who's Quadrophenia tour in the United States.

On their 1974 follow-up, Second Helping, the band successfully avoided sophomore slump, with King, Collins and Rossington all collaborating with Van Zant on the songwriting. The album was the band's breakthrough hit, and featured their most popular single, "Sweet Home Alabama" (#8 on the charts in August 1974), a response to Neil Young's "Alabama" and "Southern Man." (Young and Van Zant were not rivals, but fans of each other's music and good friends; Young even wrote the song "Powderfinger" for the band, but they never recorded it. Van Zant, meanwhile, can be seen on the cover of Street Survivors wearing a Neil Young t-shirt.) The album reached #12 in 1974, eventually going multi-platinum. In July of that year, Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of the headline acts at The Ozark Music Festival at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri. In January, 1975, Burns left the band and was replaced by Kentucky native Artimus Pyle on drums. Lynyrd Skynyrd's third album, Nuthin' Fancy, was released the same year.

The album had lower sales than its predecessor, and Kooper was eventually fired. Midway through the tour, Ed King left the band, citing tour exhaustion. In January 1976, backup singers Leslie Hawkins, Cassie Gaines and JoJo Billingsley (collectively known as The Honkettes) were added to the band, although they were not considered as official members. Lynyrd Skynyrd's fourth album Gimme Back My Bullets was released in the new year, but did not achieve the same success as the previous two albums. Van Zant and Collins both felt that the band was seriously missing the three-guitar attack that had been one of its early hallmarks. Although Skynyrd auditioned several guitarists, including such high-profile names as Leslie West, the solution was closer than they realized. Soon after joining Skynyrd, Cassie Gaines began touting the guitar and songwriting prowess of her younger brother, Steve. The junior Gaines, who led his own band, Crawdad (which occasionally would perform Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special" in their set), was invited to audition onstage with Skynyrd at a concert in Kansas City on May 11, 1976.

Liking what they heard, the group also jammed informally with the Oklahoma native several times, then invited him into the group in June. With Gaines on board, the newly-reconstituted band recorded the double-live album One More From the Road at the Fox Theatre (Atlanta, Georgia) in Atlanta, and performed at the Knebworth festival, which also featured The Rolling Stones. Both Collins and Rossington had serious car accidents over Labor Day weekend in 1976 which slowed the recording of the follow-up album and forced the band to cancel some concert dates. Rossington's accident inspired the ominous "That Smell" - a cautionary tale about drug abuse that was clearly aimed towards him and at least one other band member. Rossington has admitted repeatedly that he's the "Prince Charming" of the song who crashed his car into an oak tree while drunk and stoned on Quaaludes. Van Zant, at least, was making a serious attempt to clean up his act and curtail the cycle of boozed-up brawling that was part of Skynyrd's reputation.

1977's Street Survivors turned out to be a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier and was making his studio debut with them. Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day." Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the rousing guitar boogie "I Know A Little" which he had written before he joined Skynyrd. So confident was Skynyrd's leader of Gaines' abilities that the album (and some concerts) featured Gaines delivering his self-penned bluesy "Ain't No Good Life" - the only song in the pre-crash Skynyrd catalog to feature a lead vocalist other than Ronnie Van Zant. The album also included the hit singles "What's Your Name" and "That Smell". The band was poised for their biggest tour yet, including fulfilling Van Zant's lifelong dream of headlining New York's Madison Square Garden.

Plane crash (1977) On Thursday, October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors, and five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair 240 ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from Greenville, South Carolina, where they had just performed at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium, to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest in Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray were all killed on impact; the other bandmembers suffered serious injuries. Following the crash and the ensuing press, Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album and reached #5 on the U.S. album chart. The single "What's Your Name" reached #13 on the single airplay charts in January 1978. The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band, particularly Steve Gaines, engulfed in flames.

Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve's widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background. Thirty years later, for the deluxe CD version of Street Survivors, the original "flames" cover was restored. Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded after the tragedy, reuniting just once to perform an instrumental version of "Free Bird" at Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam in January 1979. Collins, Rossington, Powell and Pyle performed the song with Charlie Daniels and members of his band. Leon Wilkeson, who was still undergoing physical therapy for his badly broken left arm, was in attendance, along with Judy Van Zant, Teresa Gaines, JoJo Billingsley and Leslie Hawkins. Hiatus (1977–1987) Rossington, Collins, Wilkeson and Powell formed The Rossington-Collins Band, which released two albums between 1980 and 1982.

Deliberately avoiding comparisons with Ronnie Van Zant as well as suggestions that this band was Lynyrd Skynyrd reborn, Rossington and Collins chose a woman, Dale Krantz, as lead vocalist. However, as an acknowledgment of their past, the band's concert encore would always be an instrumental version of "Free Bird". Rossington and Collins eventually had a falling out over the affections of Dale Krantz, whom Rossington married and with whom he formed the Rossington Band, which released two albums in the late 1980s and opened for the Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour in 1987-1988. The other former members of Lynyrd Skynyrd continued to make music during the hiatus era.Leon Wilkeson on bass and Billy Powellon keyboards played in a Christian Rock band named Vision, touring with established Christian rocker Mylon LeFevre (who, like Skynyrd, had once opened for The Who). During Vision concerts, Powell's trademark keyboard talent was often spotlighted and he spoke about his conversion to Christianity after the near-fatal plane crash.

Pyle formed The Artimus Pyle Band in 1982, which occasionally featured former Honkettes JoJo Billingsley and Leslie Hawkins. In 1980 Allen Collins' wife Kathy died of a massive hemorrhage while miscarrying their third child. He formed the Allen Collins Band in 1983 from the remnants of the Rossington-Collins Band, releasing one tepidly-received album, but many around him believed that the guitarist's heart just wasn't in it anymore. Most point to his wife's death as the moment that Collins' life began to spin out of control; he spent several years bingeing on drugs and alcohol. In 1986 Collins crashed his car while driving drunk near his home in Jacksonville, killing his girlfriend and leaving him permanently paralyzed from the chest down. Collins eventually pled no contest to DUI manslaughter, but was not given a prison sentence since his injuries made it obvious that he would never drive or be a danger to society again.

Return (1987–present) In 1987, Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for a full-scale tour with five major members of the post-crash band: crash survivors Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle, along with guitarist Ed King, who had left the band two years before the crash. Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, took over as the new lead singer and primary songwriter. Due to Collins' paralysis from the 1986 car accident, he was only able to participate as the musical director, choosing Randall Hall, his former bandmate in the Allen Collins Band, as his stand-in. As part of his plea deal, Collins would be wheeled out onstage each night to explain to the audience why he could no longer perform (usually before the performance of "That Smell", which had been partially directed at him). Collins was stricken with pneumonia in 1989 and died on January 23, 1990.

The reunited band was meant to be a one-time tribute to the original lineup, captured on the double-live album Southern By The Grace Of God/Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour - 1987. The fact that the band chose to continue after the 1987 tribute tour caused legal problems for the survivors, as Judy Van Zant Jenness and Teresa Gaines Rapp (widows of Ronnie and Steve, respectively) sued the others for violating an agreement made shortly after the plane crash, stating that they would not "exploit" the Skynyrd name for profit. As part of the settlement, Jenness and Rapp collect nearly 30% of the band's touring revenues (representing the shares their husbands would have earned had they lived), and hold a proviso which forces any band touring as "Lynyrd Skynyrd" to include at least two from among Rossington, Collins, Powell, Pyle, Wilkeson and King.

Apparently, that proviso is not being enforced, seeing that Rossington is now the sole member of that group left in Lynyrd Skynyrd, as King was not allowed to remain in the band after missing a tour unable to tour due to heart problems, Pyle is on the outs with Rossington and Johnny Van Zant, and the others are now dead. Pyle has insisted in public appearances that "Ronnie Van Zandt IS Lynyrd Skynyrd", and wishes nothing to do with the current makeup of the band bearing that name. Two other founding members of the band remain alive, original drummer Bob Burns and bassist Larry Junstrom Bob Burns, but they have not participated in the post-crash band. The reconstituted Lynyrd Skynyrd has gone through a large number of lineup changes and continues to record and tour today. One by one, the members of the pre-crash band have left, been forced out, or have passed away. Artimus Pyle left the band in 1991 and his place has been taken by a variety of drummers since, with Michael Cartellone finally becoming his permanent replacement. Randall Hall was replaced by Mike Estes in 1993.

Ed King had to take a break from touring in 1996. In his absence, he was replaced by Hughie Thomasson. King has stated that his break from the band was to be temporary, but the band did not let him rejoin after he recovered. At the same time, Mike Estes was replaced by Rickey Medlocke, who had briefly played drums with the band in the early 1970's. Leon Wilkeson, Skynyrd's bassist since 1972, was found dead in his hotel room on July 27, 2001; his death was found to be due to emphysema and chronic liver disease. He was replaced in 2001 by Ean Evans. The remaining members released a double album called Thyrty which had songs from the original line up to the present. Lynyrd Skynyrd also released a live DVD of their Vicious Cycle Tour and on June 22, 2004, Lynyrd Skynyrd released the album Lyve: The Vicious Cycle Tour.

On December 10, 2004, Lynyrd Skynyrd did a show for CMT, Crossroads, a concert featuring country duo Montgomery Gentry and other genres of music. In the beginning of 2005 Hughie Thomasson left the band to reform his disbanded Southern Rock band Outlaws. Thomasson died in his sleep on September 9, 2007 of an apparent heart attack in his home in Brooksville, Florida. He was 55 years old. On February 5, 2005, Lynyrd Skynyrd did a Super Bowl party back in Jacksonville with special guests 3 Doors Down, Jo Dee Messina, Charlie Daniels and Ronnie and Johnny Van Zant's brother Donnie Van Zant of 38 Special. On February 13 of that year Lynyrd Skynyrd did a tribute to Southern Rock on the Grammy Awards with Gretchen Wilson, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban and Dickey Betts. On May 10, 2005, Johnny and Donnie Van Zant released a country album called Get Right with the Man which featured the hit single "Help Somebody".

In the summer of 2005, lead singer Johnny Van Zant had to have surgery on his vocal cord to have a polyp removed. He was told not to sing for three months. On September 10, 2005, Lynyrd Skynyrd performed without Johnny Van Zant at the Music Relief Concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, with Kid Rock standing in for Johnny. In December 2005, Johnny Van Zant returned to sing for Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band performed live at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, as a part of their 2007 tour. The concert was recorded in high definition for HDNet and premiered on December 1, 2007. The band in 2008 Mark "Sparky" Matejka, formerly of the country music band Hot Apple Pie, joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in 2006 as Thomasson's replacement.

On November 2, 2007, the band performed at Gator Growl, the world's largest student-run pep rally, in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium - also known as "The Swamp." The event's 50,000-person attendance marked the largest crowd that Lynyrd Skynyrd had ever played in front of in the United States, until the July 2008 Bama Jam in Enterprise, Alabama where more than 111,000 people were in attendance. On January 28, 2009, keyboardist Billy Powell died at age 56 at his home near Jacksonville, Florida. Powell called 911 at 12:55 a.m., complaining of shortness of breath. He had previously missed his doctor's appointment on the day before his death; the appointment was for a checkup on his heart. The EMS responders found Powell unconscious and unresponsive, with the telephone still in his hand. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m. Although a heart attack was suspected, and it was originally reported that an autopsy was to be performed, none in fact was ever done.

Powell's death left Gary Rossington as the sole pre-crash member of the band, unless Rickey Medlocke's brief stint with the band in the early 1970's is counted. On March 17, 2009, it was announced that Skynyrd had signed a worldwide deal with Roadrunner Records, in association with their label, Loud & Proud Records, and released their new album God & Guns on September 29 of that year. They toured Europe and the United States in 2009 with Peter Keys of the 420 Funk Mob on keyboards and Robert Kearns of The Bottle Rockets on bass (in place of Ean Evans, who died of cancer at age 48 on May 6, 2009, at his home in Columbus, Mississippi). Scottish rock band Gun have been confirmed as special guests for the UK leg of Skynyrds tour in 2010. Leonard Skinner, the physical education teacher who inspired the name Lynyrd Skynyrd passed away on September 21st, 2010 Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash. Follow up News Reports. Buy Concert Tickets.

also see: List of Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Lynyrd Skynyrd (pronounced /ˌlɪnərd ˈskɪnərd/ LIN-ərd-SKIN-ərd by band members but sometimes pronounced /ˌlɛnərd ˈskɪnərd/ LEN- ərd-SKIN-ərd[1][2]) is an American rock band, formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964. The band became prominent in the Southern United States in 1973, and rose to worldwide recognition. Three members and one road crew member died in an airplane crash in 1977; the band reformed in 1987 for a reunion tour with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother Johnny as the frontman. Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to tour and record. Of its original members, only Gary Rossington remains with the band as of 2011. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006.

Early years In the summer of 1964, teenage friends Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, and Gary Rossington, formed the band "The Noble Five", which then changed in 1965 to "My Backyard", when Larry Junstrom and Bob Burns joined in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1968, the group won a local Battle of the Bands contest and the opening slot on several Southeast shows for the California- based psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock.[citation needed] In 1970, Van Zant sought a new name. "One Percent" and "The Noble Five" were each considered before the group settled on "Leonard Skinnerd", a mocking tribute to a physical-education teacher at Robert E. Lee High School, Leonard Skinner,[4] who was notorious for strictly enforcing the school's policy against boys having long hair.[5][6] The more distinctive spelling was adopted before they released their first album.

Note that almost no Southern accent distinguishes between /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ before nasals, so the pronunciation of Leonard Skinner's name would have been /ˌlɪnərd ˈskɪnər/, which is why the 'distinctive' spelling of the name would have made sense to the band members. Despite their high-school acrimony, the band developed a friendlier relationship with Skinner in later years, and invited him to introduce them at a concert in the Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum.[7] Skinner allowed the band to use a photo of his Leonard Skinner Realty sign for the inside of their third album.[8] Skinner died on September 20, 2010, at age 77 after a battle with Alzheimer's disease.[9] In 1970, the band auditioned for Alan Walden, who would later become their manager on the newly formed Hustler's Inc. Walden worked with the band until 1974, when management was turned over to Pete Rudge. The band continued to perform throughout the South in the early 1970s, further developing their hard- driving, blues-rock sound and image, and experimenting with making studio recordings.

During this time, they went through a number of member changes, with Van Zant, Collins and Rossington remaining the only constants. Burns and Junstrom left the band, and were briefly replaced by Rickey Medlocke on drums and Greg Walker on bass. In 1971, with this lineup, they made some recordings at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. By the time they made a second round of Muscle Shoals recordings in 1972, Burns had rejoined the band and Leon Wilkeson had become Larry Junstrom's permanent replacement on bass, with Medlocke and Walker having left to play with the southern rock band Blackfoot. Around this time, the band occasionally played shows with both Burns and Medlocke participating, utilizing a dual-drummer approach similar to that of The Allman Brothers. Also in 1972, roadie Billy Powell became the keyboardist for the band. [edit] Peak years (1973–1977)In 1972 the band was discovered by musician, songwriter, and producer Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who had attended one of their shows at a club in Atlanta.

They changed the spelling of their name to "Lynyrd Skynyrd",[10] and Kooper signed them to MCA Records, producing their first album (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd). Leon Wilkeson left just before the band was to record the album (Wilkeson rejoined the band shortly thereafter at Van Zant's invitation and is pictured on the album cover).[citation needed] Strawberry Alarm Clock guitarist Ed King joined the band and played Wilkeson's parts on the album, along with some guitar. King switched to guitar after the album's release, allowing the band to replicate the three-guitar mix used in the studio. Released August 13, 1973,[11] the album featured the hit song "Free Bird", which received national airplay, eventually reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and is considered by many to be the greatest rock and roll song ever. Ronnie Van ZantLynyrd Skynyrd's fan base continued to grow rapidly throughout 1973, largely due to their opening slot on The Who's Quadrophenia tour in the United States.

On their 1974 follow-up, Second Helping, the band successfully avoided sophomore slump, with King, Collins and Rossington all collaborating with Van Zant on the songwriting. The album was the band's breakthrough hit, and featured their most popular single, "Sweet Home Alabama" (#8 on the charts in August 1974), a response to Neil Young's "Alabama" and "Southern Man". (Young and Van Zant were not rivals, but fans of each other's music and good friends; Young even wrote the song "Powderfinger" for the band, but they never recorded it.[12] Van Zant, meanwhile, can be seen on the cover of Street Survivors wearing a Neil Young t-shirt.) The album reached #12 in 1974, eventually going multi-platinum. In July of that year, Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of the headline acts at The Ozark Music Festival at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri. In January 1975, Burns left the band and was replaced by Kentucky native Artimus Pyle on drums. Lynyrd Skynyrd's third album, Nuthin' Fancy, was released the same year.

The album had lower sales than its predecessor, and Kooper was eventually fired. Midway through the tour, Ed King left the band, citing tour exhaustion. In January 1976, backup singers Leslie Hawkins, Cassie Gaines and JoJo Billingsley (collectively known as The Honkettes) were added to the band, although they were not considered official members. Lynyrd Skynyrd's fourth album Gimme Back My Bullets was released in the new year, but did not achieve the same success as the previous two albums. Van Zant and Collins both felt that the band was seriously missing the three-guitar attack that had been one of its early hallmarks. Although Skynyrd auditioned several guitarists, including such high-profile names as Leslie West, the solution was closer than they realized. Soon after joining Skynyrd, Cassie Gaines began touting the guitar and songwriting prowess of her younger brother, Steve. The junior Gaines, who led his own band, Crawdad (which occasionally would perform Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special" in their set), was invited to audition onstage with Skynyrd at a concert in Kansas City on May 11, 1976.

Liking what they heard, the group also jammed informally with the Oklahoma native several times, then invited him into the group in June. With Gaines on board, the newly-reconstituted band recorded the double-live album One More From the Road at the Fox Theatre (Atlanta, Georgia) in Atlanta, and performed at the Knebworth festival, which also featured The Rolling Stones. Both Collins and Rossington had serious car accidents over Labor Day weekend in 1976 which slowed the recording of the follow-up album and forced the band to cancel some concert dates. Rossington's accident inspired the ominous "That Smell" – a cautionary tale about drug abuse that was clearly aimed towards him and at least one other band member. Rossington has admitted repeatedly that he was the "Prince Charming" of the song who crashed his car into an oak tree while drunk and stoned on Quaaludes. Van Zant, at least, was making a serious attempt to clean up his act and curtail the cycle of boozed-up brawling that was part of Skynyrd's reputation.

1977's Street Survivors turned out to be a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier and was making his studio debut with them. Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day." Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the rousing guitar boogie "I Know A Little" which he had written before he joined Skynyrd. So confident was Skynyrd's leader of Gaines' abilities that the album (and some concerts) featured Gaines delivering his self- penned bluesy "Ain't No Good Life" – the only song in the pre-crash Skynyrd catalog to feature a lead vocalist other than Ronnie Van Zant. The album also included the hit singles "What's Your Name" and "That Smell".

The band was poised for their biggest tour yet, with shows always highlighted by the iconic rock anthem "Free Bird".[13] In November, the band was scheduled to fulfill Van Zant's lifelong dream of headlining New York's Madison Square Garden. Rossington, Collins, Wilkeson and Powell formed The Rossington-Collins Band, which released two albums between 1980 and 1982. Deliberately avoiding comparisons with Ronnie Van Zant as well as suggestions that this band was Lynyrd Skynyrd reborn, Rossington and Collins chose a woman, Dale Krantz, as lead vocalist. However, as an acknowledgment of their past, the band's concert encore would always be an instrumental version of "Free Bird". Rossington and Collins eventually had a falling out over the affections of Dale Krantz, whom Rossington married and with whom he formed the Rossington Band, which released two albums in the late 1980s and opened for the Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour in 1987–1988. The other former members of Lynyrd Skynyrd continued to make music during the hiatus era.

Billy Powell played keyboards in a Christian Rock band named Vision, touring with established Christian rocker Mylon LeFevre (who, like Skynyrd, had once opened for The Who). During Vision concerts, Powell's trademark keyboard talent was often spotlighted and he spoke about his conversion to Christianity after the near-fatal plane crash. Pyle formed The Artimus Pyle Band in 1982, which occasionally featured former Honkettes JoJo Billingsley and Leslie Hawkins. In 1980, Allen Collins's wife Kathy died of a massive hemorrhage while miscarrying their third child. He formed the Allen Collins Band in 1983 from the remnants of the Rossington- Collins Band, releasing one tepidly-received album, but many around him believed that the guitarist's heart just wasn't in it anymore. Most point to his wife's death as the moment that Collins' life began to spin out of control; he spent several years bingeing on drugs and alcohol. In 1986, Collins crashed his car while driving drunk near his home in Jacksonville, killing his girlfriend and leaving him permanently paralyzed from the chest down.

Collins eventually pled no contest to DUI manslaughter, but was not given a prison sentence since his injuries made it obvious that he would never drive or be a danger to society again.

Question: In October 1977 three members of which US rock band died in a plane crash in Mississippi, three days after the release of their album ‘Street Survivors’?
Answer: Lynryd Skynyrd