![]() Within moments after the crash, as evening descended, farmers, hunters, and other volunteers converged on this area, carrying blankets, flashlights, and other tools for what they reckoned would be a grim, urgent undertaking. ![]() By the time the plane hit the trees word was already spreading in this corner of Amite County, Mississippi. Several passengers were killed, including the charismatic front man and founder, Ronnie Van Zant.Įyewitnesses on the ground had sighted a plane flying low, much too low, over the treetops. In the warm early evening of October 20, 1977, a chartered twin-engine prop plane carrying members and crew of the popular musical group Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in the forest near this marker. But that autumn day had otherwise been beautiful, with the late afternoon light slowly fading to dusk in the sky from which the plane fell. "All I saw was treetops" (Billy Powell, keyboardist for Lynyrd Skynyrd) This last album, released just three days before the plane crash, would eventually reach the highest record chart ranking of all their work. In the few short years leading up to the crash Lynyrd Skynyrd released music that has become a permanent part of the rock lexicon: their self-titled debut, followed by four other studio albums, "Second Helping," "Nuthin' Fancy," "Gimme Back My Bullets," and "Street Survivors". Tracks like "Simple Man," "Tuesday's Gone," "Gimme Three Steps," and what would become an anthem for fans across the globe, "Free Bird," demonstrated the band's ability to mix melody with hard-driving rock and roll. Like other albums to come, this introductory work contained well-crafted yet musically unpretentious songs for and about the common man. In 1973 their debut album "Lynyrd Skynyrd (Pronounced: Leh-nerd Skin-nerd)" announced the group to the world. Helming the show, Ronnie Van Zant sang about fighting or loving with equal passion. Bassist Leon Wilkeson and drummer Bob Burns established a backing for it all. Billy Powell provided keyboard and piano accompaniment. Guitarists Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Ed King formed what became known as "the three-guitar attack". ![]() In the sweltering Southern heat the band solidified as a tight musical unit. Eventually, after numerous police interruptions of the band's loud and rowdy practice sessions, the group moved their rehearsals outside the city limits, to an unairconditioned one-room cabin they nicknamed the "Hell House". The founding members jokingly named the band after a gym coach, Leonard Skinner. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.In 1964 Lynyrd Skynyrd began humbly in Jacksonville, Florida. In the 1997 Nicolas Cage movie "Con Air," as "Sweet Home Alabama" plays, Steve Buscemi's character says, "Define irony. Their music lives on - "Sweet Home Alabama" especially has a permanent place in American rock history. A whole generation of fans who love the song weren't even around for the crash, which has passed into shadowy musical legend. The album became a hit, but the decimated band broke up, only to reunite in 1987 and begin touring again. Three days before the crash, the band had released its latest album, "Street Survivors," which originally featured a cover showing the band surrounded by flames (it was quickly changed). The paper also quotes a local resident who was approached by bloody survivors, one of whom hugged him around the neck while saying "we got to get them out." Rescuers had to cross a 20-foot-wide, waist-deep creek and dig through a forest so overgrown and untouched that some emergency vehicles got stuck in the mud on their way to the scene, the Enterprise-Journal reported.
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