I love Lynyrd Skynyrd........I wrote this and posted it on my web page one time..

Roots and Branches: Musical Influences


I've been asked before how I got into playing guitar and how I got into the music that I like and things of that nature. The answer is not a simple one. Well it might be fairly simple but explaining it takes a little while. The fact of the matter is, I might have never started playing if it wasn't for a man named Allen Collins. Who's he? Yeah I'll admit he's not one of the better known rock guitarists. Also he played in a band with 3 lead guitar players so when you hear the name Lynyrd Skynyrd, you don't automatically think of Allen Collins as being their guitarist. I do but alot of people don't. More people will think of Gary Rossington for a couple of reasons. One, Rossington played more solos than Collins and two, Rossington is still alive and touring with the "new" Lynyrd Skynyrd. So what do these cats have to do with me? I was a big Lynyrd Skynyrd fan when I was younger, as many kids who grew up in the South from the late 1970's on would be. I had always had musical aspirations but I wanted to sing until one summer afternoon when I was 15 years old. I was flipping through the tv channels in my room when I came across Lynyrd Skynyrd, the original Lynyrd Skynyrd band, with Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, playing "Free Bird" on stage. I was fascinated because I'd never seen anything but pictures of the band so far. And of course, Allen, Ronnie, and 3rd guitarist Steve Gaines were all dead so I'd never be able to see them live. But Allen was the focal point visually. He played his reknown solo on "Free Bird" and was just so cool doing it. He looked like he really enjoyed being on stage and playing and made it look easy. And I knew right then, that I wanted to be a guitar player. So I asked for a guitar that Christmas and got my first on Christmas morning of 1997. I would turn 16 the following April. At first I copied Allen Collins slavishly. I would learn Skynyrd songs note for note, but only Allen's parts. If he played rhythm on a song, then his rhythm part is all I bothered to learn. I copied every one of his solos note for note, including "Free Bird", which became a signature song of mine in concerts in the coming years, earning me both praise and ridicule. I was praised for doing it so well and ridiculed for taking it so seriously. I even copied Allen's movements on stage. I acquired any footage of the original Skynyrd that I could find and studied Allen's movements and playing. I made mental notes of how he played certain things, for instance using two fingers instead of one to bend the G string at the 14th fret during his solo on the live version of "Sweet Home Alabama". I eventually got over that phase but years later I would have people who saw me play in high school come up to me and say, "I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd on tv and you're exactly like that tall, skinny guitar player. You move just like him and everything. Exactly like him."

Eventually I ran out of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs to learn. Which is inevitable considering their recording career only lasted from 1973 to '77. There was the new Lynyrd Skynyrd but they didn't have Allen Collins so I didn't bother to learn their songs. Eventually I decided to look into the artists that had influenced Skynyrd, such as the Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, and Cream (with Eric Clapton). This opened a whole new can of worms. I loved Eric Clapton and he became a big influence on my lead guitar style. For a long time I couldn't get into the Allman Brothers but eventually I started to "get" them. Duane Allman would become a big influence and the primary reason I decided to start playing slide guitar. But the band I was drawn to most of all was the Rolling Stones. The Stones early work didn't have the virtuoso musicianship of Cream or the Allmans or Skynyrd but they had something else. There was a menacing growl in Mick Jagger's vocals. The music itself was relentless and intense. It was dark and brooding and reflected the darker side of the human soul. My first Stones album was their first greatest hits collection, which came out around '66. It had all their early hits on it like "Satisfaction", "Get Off Of My Cloud", and "The Last Time". Still those early Stones recordings didn't match the intensity of the late '70's Lynyrd Skynyrd and I still regarded Skynyrd as the greatest band of all time and didn't understand why everybody else didn't see it that way. I got more Stones albums, more Clapton, more Hendrix, more Zeppelin, more Aerosmith (who I grew I dispise). I got into the Stones more and more and after aquiring their 1972 greatest hits, Hot Rocks, I began to understand why they were so reveered. Songs like "Jumping Jack Flash", "Brown Sugar", "Gimme Shelter", "Midnight Rambler", and the hauntingly beautiful "Wild Horses" wove themselves into my heart and mind. I had several Stones live albums and all of their greatest hits albums that I'd been able to find. So I decided to start on their studio albums. Let It Bleed was supposed to be good, as was Sticky Fingers, so I decided to start with them.

It's funny sometimes how we remember certain things. I don't know why I remember this so vividly. I said later on that it changed my life and I suppose it did to a certain extent. It definately changed the way I listened to music. I was a junior in high school, it was Autumn of 1999 and our football team had that friday night off. We had Powell Valley coming up the following week so a bunch of us decided to go see Powell Valley play Norton just to get a look at who we'd be playing next week. On my way to the game I stopped at Wal-Mart with intentions of buying either Let It Bleed or Sticky Fingers, neither of which they had. The did have Exile On Mainstreet however, which I had heard was supposed to be good. So I picked it up. I had no cd player in my car at the time so I had to wait until I got home to listen to it but I recall flipping through the tracks and coming to "Torn and Frayed" and having to go back and listen to it over and over again. I couldn't make out some of the lyrics but I didn't care. It knocked me out. The sound of the acoustic guitar in the intro and the sorrow in Jagger and Richards' vocals drew me in. I didn't know what the song was about but it was obviously sorrowful, but it was almost as if they were celebrating it. Like they were mourning the decline of something but with the attitude that they might as well sing and play their hearts out because that's all they've got left. It's hard to explain and in a sense the whole album, which I would come to regard as the greatest album in the history of rock music, is like that. I would gain a greater understanding of it years later but at the time all I knew was that I couldn't stop listening to it. I loved every song. "Tumbling Dice", "Sweet Virginia", "Loving Cup", "Shine A Light", "Let It Loose", etc....The mix was dense and sometimes the lyrics were almost indecipherable but it didn't matter. It made me happy. It was so strange in a way because the songs sounded happy but there was a pervaiding sorrow about the whole album. The Stones played and sang with so much heart and soul that you thought they were playing for their lives. The songs would make me cry and make me smile at the same time. Years later I would learn more about the making of Exile On Mainstreet and about the events leading up to the recording. In a nut shell, the Stones were widely viewed as leaders of the counter culture in the late 60's and early 70's. Young people today don't understand the counter culture cause we don't have one now. Not really anyway. But in the late '60's there was idealism and there was the Utopian hippy dream. We know how all that turned out now, but in the late '60's people still believed in it. By the time Exile was recorded in the Summer of 1971 the dreams and aspirations of the counter culture were fading fast. The Stones, as half-willing leaders of the counter culture saw their dreams and idealism destroyed just like everybody else in the movement and on Exile they mourned the end of the 1960's and it's innocence. Of course they never said that. They would never be that obvious but the pain and sorrow in the songs and the performances certainly is obvious. The Stones would never again sing and play with this much verve. They grew cynical after this. They remained popular and their records continued to sell but their artistic peak was behind them. But Exile On Mainstreet caught them at that moment of reckless abandon when they knew all that they had stood for didn't matter any more and all they could do was sing and play their hearts out because that was all they knew as musicians. In retrospect it was quite heroic.

But regardless, I wasn't aware of any of that in my junior and senior year of high school. I was too young to understand it anyway. Exile did change the way I listened to music though. Instead of putting value on an awesome guitar solo, I moved more in the direction of good songs. The soul and emotion of the performance became more important than a cool guitar lick. The overall effect of the recording became the most important. I began to judge music on whether or not it had moved me. If I listened to a song and felt something, then I decided it was worth hearing more. This approach led me to the blues and to traditional country music, which is basically the white man's blues.

I had been into Eric Clapton for years but mainly just for his lead guitar work. I graduated high school in 2001 and sometime during that year aquired a copy of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. I had heard a couple of songs from the album but not the whole thing. I was blown away by the guitar interplay between Clapton and Duane Allman. These were great bluesy guitar driven songs, performed soulfully and emotionally. This was different than guitar players just trying to out do one another, these guys played off of each other for the greater good of the song. The concept of the album, a man falling in love with his best friend's wife, would become something I could indentify with later on that fall. The repercussions from that would affect me for the next couple of years, and in some ways even longer.

In the next couple of years following my graduation from high school, I branched out musically. It's worth noting that what I play is a reflection of what I listen to. So when I got into the Grateful Dead, I started playing alot of their songs. I first got into the Dead in high school when I got American Beauty. I appreciated their song craft and musical integrity and Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, and Europe '72 would become some of my favorite albums. I also got heavier into Bob Dylan around this time. I fell in love with his album Blood On The Tracks and consider it one of the best ever in an genre. My interest in what I call the first wave of classic rock (the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Dylan, the Dead, Zeppelin, Cream) eventually led me to classic country and blues. Many classic rock artists started out playing blues. The Stones and Eric Clapton both came out of the "British Blues Boom" and many American artists like the Dead and Dylan were influenced by country music. So I started getting into Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, George Jones, Elmore James, Hank Williams, Otis Rush, Merle Haggard, etc......

I'm somewhat fascinated by the sadness of country music. I love a sad song anyway but it has to be done right. Some songs are too sappy. This being said, I don't like all country music. I love George Jones but I hate certain songs of his. Country music has the capacity to be very silly. At the same time, blues music is a limited form. For the most part it's restricted to a basic three chord structure. But in a way, it's the simplicity of the music that makes it great. Lately I've gotten into Dwight Yoakam and the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons lately. I've been listening to them supplemented by a steady diet of Rolling Stones bootlegs that I always listen to. I came across Yoakam's cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me", a song I never liked, but I love Dwight's version of it. This wound up being a long blog. Although I've had many musical influences and would definately say the Rolling Stones have had the biggest influence on me, perhaps the most important was the man that inspired me to become a guitarist in the first place, Allen Collins. I might have wound up playing eventually, and I might not have, but the intitial inspiration came from him. I don't play it much any more, but there's always some wise ass in the audience who will scream for "Free Bird" and I've jammed with people and played in a few bands in the last few years that have insisted on playing it, and I still play the solo note for note, just like Allen did it. After a gig at a redneck beer joint in Coeburn around 2003-04, a girl grabbed me as I came off stage after "Free Bird" and said excitedly "I wanted to tell you, that last song you played was great, me and my boyfriend have been listening to that song for 30 years and we've never heard anybody play the lead guitar part like that....." She might have been a drunk girl in a redneck beer joint but I still appreciated it that her and her significant other recognized my tribute to my idol.

.....I hope somebody will actually read that...

TD7, I agree with every word you wrote. I had the fortune of seeing the band twice before the crash (several times since) - both in 1976 and in Macon.

The first one had the band with just Allen and Gary (after Ed's departure) with Charlie Daniels and Atlanta Rhythm Section. This is the show immortalized on ARS's "Large Time".

Later that year, they came back to town with 38 Special and Montrose opening. This was about a month after the recording of 'One More From The Road' at the Fox in Atlanta. Steve Gaines was on board and the band was HOT. No telling where they would have gone.

Living in Georgia, Skynyrd has been as much a part of my life as fried chicken, Sunday school, Elvis, and grits.

Gimme Three Steps is a pretty awesome song (IMNSHO).

Yeah I saw them in 1975 at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh NC.......then in 1976 in Winston Salem.....three blistering guitarists and Billy Powell on piano....a lead singer with charm and charisma....they were 100 Proof Southern Rock


yeah I'm from the south.....I remember the night when the Freebird went down....I was at a Charlie Daniels concert and found out about it on the ride home.

Koen Wrote:
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> Gimme Three Steps is a pretty awesome song
> (IMNSHO).


This is completely OT, but I want to ask you something Koen: Are you the guy that has some Rolling Stones guitar tabs put up on some sites (Ultimate-guitar.com and the like. Dear Doctor and Prodigal Son)?

JumpingKentFlash

Lorenz Wrote:
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> Well, Lynard Skynyrd never were that big in
> Europe, and I am sure none of my friends knows
> Freebird - I didn't hear that song until I was 23
> or so either.

Sorry, but I remember them as being bloody huge in Europe until the plane crash, at least. When I first saw them in about '74 they were a support band (for Golden Earring - and they absolutely blew them away) but already had a big following. Saw them on subsequent tours which were always sold out and their album sales were healthy. For years every barroom rock band played Sweet Home Alabama and Freebird (or more..Tuesday's Gone, etc) and, in fact, I still hear bands playing these songs today. Skynyrd stuff is fun to play in a band.

Last saw them at Knebworth in '76. Don't agree that they blew the Stones away, but should have put them on directly before the Stones (instead they had 10CC in between):- now THAT would have been something.

Freebird is a classic and I'll never forget being blown away the first time I heard them play it (at that Golden Earring gig). I had read all about them and the song in my Melody Maker and NME. This band came to Europe as the critics' favourites and their success was foretold. Sure, the song has suffered from over-exposure. But, hey, we're Stones fans and we know all about that, don't we children? In fact, I think we call them Warhorses.

Elmo I lurv that sentence:
"Living in Georgia, Skynyrd has been as much a part of my life as fried chicken, Sunday school, Elvis, and grits."

That is almost enuff for ya to be a nominee to Noble Prize in Literature! :-)

Very important part in ma life too, my Dixie bro!

stonesrule Wrote:
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> Mick and Keith were great fans of Skynyrd and of
> "Free Bird."


LOL

I believe Double Trouble is a under-estimated album.
It always surprises me.

Southern Rock is such a stupid category. Rock is uptempo electric blues, and blues are from the south. All rock is southern.

In the mid 70s LS was the equal of The Who and Stones. Check out 76 Knebworth when they blew the Stones off the stage if you need proof. For the Europeans and Yankees who have predudices against southerns, kiss my grits!

JumpingKentFlash Wrote:
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> This is completely OT, but I want to ask you
> something Koen: Are you the guy that has some
> Rolling Stones guitar tabs put up on some sites
> (Ultimate-guitar.com and the like. Dear Doctor and
> Prodigal Son)?

Yes, I put some TABs online many years ago. I don't remember tabbing Dear Doctor, though.

Koen Wrote:
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> Yes, I put some TABs online many years ago. I
> don't remember tabbing Dear Doctor, though.


OK. I just wanted to know. Many of those tabs are by either you or this guy named Don Czarski.

JumpingKentFlash

Thanks, Bro. Keep the trophy, just send the cash.

"Stairway to Freebird"...I remember playing in a bar in Scottsdale, Arizona, way back in the early 80s, and this way drunk guy was yelling for free bird every second...I finally got fed up, walked to the edge of the stage leaned down to his table, flashed him the gig, and said, heres your Free Bird Mother F*&%$r, now shut up (into the microphone, also). the whole place burst into laughter...I dont think I ever got a bigger applausee.... the guy never said another word for the rest of our show....

JR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-12-15 19:41 by stone-relics.

Tumblin_Dice_07 Wrote:
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> I love Lynyrd Skynyrd........I wrote this and
> posted it on my web page one time..
>
>
> .....I hope somebody will actually read that...


Beautiful post, TD07, just great.

Really opened my eyes. Will have to give Skynrd a closer look.

Thank you.

I'm southern bread myself, if you consider Florida "southern" (though "yankee-fied" now) and have always liked LS's music. All I own is the Gold & Platinum 2CD Greatest hits set released in the early 1980's.

That may be a good entry level purchase if you haven't heard a lot of their music.


I remember being amazed at seeing how the chirping bird sound was made when I watched the Freebird movie. I really didn't think a guitar could make that sound.

That Smell, one of my favs, opens with a great line: "Whiskey bottle... brand new car...oak tree you're in my way". I like the bass line that runs through this song too. Nothing complex (at least it doesn't sound so), but resonating.

Great post TD '07. I couldn't think of Allen Collins' name, but one thing I remember from watching the Freebird movie, was his stage presence. Long hair flopping around as he bobbed up and down. I remember thinking, "There's a guy who absolutely LOVES what he's doing." It really was neat to watch him. What a tragic life his turned out to be.

What's your band's name and do you play any original stuff?

Again, great post.

Great song ...was a great band!!

Simple Kinda Man and Whisky Rock and Roller are my favoritr LS songs

I also forgot to say that Steve Gains was from a town about 20 miles from where I live...Lynard Skynard was / is very popular around here...they guy I took guitar lessons from while I was in High School was a very good friend with Steve Gains...he had lots of tapes of them playing together.

I still listen to them almost evey time I drink beer out on my deck!

Great beer drinking music!!!!!!

The original Skynyrd was one of the best bands ever, period. And then they got even beter musicianship-wise by the time of Street Survivor, adding Artemus Pyle on drums and Steve Gaines on guitar, replacing Bob Burns and Ed King, respectively, who weren't too shabby in their own right. But Call Me The Breeze, written by J.J. Cale, now THERE'S a kick ass song as played by Skynyrd. The studio version was good enough, but their live version circa '76 or 77 after they added Gaines is simply one of the hardest driving songs there ever was. A great combination of guitars and horns, all done in the right places. I defy anyone to come up with better live guitar players than Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. Sadly, Collins died too later on.

And talk about the ultimate star-crossed band. Whoever else said that was right. This band is simply jinxed. Plane crashes, auto accidents, heart attacks, liver disease, the list just goes on. The original singer, one of the two original guitarists, and the original bass player are dead. A replacement guitarist, Gaines, died in the plane crash, along with his sister Cassie, a singer. But they had so many people float in and out of the band before they hit it big in 1973 that three of the seven present members can lay claim to being there from the start.

The premature demise of the original band prevented them from solidifying their spot as one of the best bands to ever hit the road as far as the masses are concerned. Considering they still tour today, it is not inconcievable to think Ronnie Van Zant would be a living rock legend today, had he survived. The guy was larger than life back then, one can only imagine how he would have turned out.

Long live Skynyrd.

Sadly, with the passing of bassist Leon Wilkerson, only Gary and Billy remain from the original band.

Unless you count "Rattlesnake" Ric Medlocke on guitar. He was a drummer in the old days, before Bob Burns, and can be heard on First And Last playing drums. He went on to fame as the singer/guitarist with Blackfoot. Now playing Allen's parts with LS.

Pedro said: Great beer drinking music!!!!!!

You got it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-12-15 19:53 by Elmo Lewis.

for pure guitar meltdown, i like their version of HonkyTonk Nighttime Man off of Street Survivors. my LS faves: i need you, tuesday's gone, ballad of curtis low, gimme back my bullets...

Street Survivors contains good songs top to bottom. Nice job on Merle Haggard's "Honky Tonk Nighttime Man" and many others.

Almost unreal that a band with as established a lead singer as RVZ would let the new guy sing two songs - "Ain't No Good Life" and "You Got That Right".

Another case of very bad timing. Really showing some growth at that time.

I love the duet with Steve and Ronnie on You Got That Right

....and has anyone mentioned the original art work on Street Survivors? How it showed Steve and Ronnie in flames? Coincidence, or an act of fate? who knows...but the whole vibe of "survivors" as in plane crash survivors....and the verse "smell of death" from their song "That Smell" made for eery discussions around the bong back in the college dormitory in 1977....then we would dig deeper into lyrics like their lyric on Swamp Music...."I'm going down to the swamps....." which is exactly what their airplane did that fateful night.....and so on....(it was the Southern poor man's version of the Beatles "Paul is dead" thing)

also if you were to take the paper sleeve that the album was put in insade the albun cover there was a big hole in the middle of that that let you read the center of the album...if you would take that on plae it on the fron of the album cover only the members that were killed in the plance crash are visible...

and yes very important stuff to talk about over a few double chamber water bong hits!!!!


eeerrrrrr you turn

Yeah, Lukester, that was eerie. I have 2 of the "fire" album covers. It was soon replaced. PTP, didn't know that though. Glad they didn't cover "Flight 505".

WMiller........I'm not actually in a band at the moment. I do write and play some original material though. I live in a small town in the southwestern tip of Virginia....about 20 minutes from the Kentucky state line. I've played in so many bands......mainly different lineups featuring many of the same guys but its' hard to keep a band together in a small place like this.......it's hard to find people that play, much less people that are good and are dedicated.......plus bluegrass is the major thing around here......there are alot of bluegrass players. Ralph Stanley (dunno if you are familiar with him, currently nominated for a grammy) lives in the same county as I do. Thanx for reading that though and for anybody that's interested in Lynyrd Skynyrd, you should definately check out Skynyrd's live album, One More From The Road.........their debut Pronounced Leh-nard Skin-nerd, Second Helping, and Street Survivors.....the two disc greatest hits, Gold and Platinum, is great too......thanx to everybody that replied to that post......I didn't think people would have the patience to read it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2006-12-16 03:54 by Tumblin_Dice_07.

keefstheman Wrote:
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> Freebird...SUX!!


Absolutely. Green Grass and High tide far superior.

virgil Wrote:
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>
>
> Absolutely. Green Grass and High tide far
> superior.


I saw The Outlaws, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Topp July 4, 1976 in Memphis. Skynyrd was superior to the Outlaws. Green Grass and High Tides is a great song but, especially live Lynyrd Skynyrd was in a different league.