1964-Ronnie Van ZantVocals1964-1977
Gary RossingtonGuitar1964-2023
Allen CollinsGuitar1964-1977
Bob BurnsDrums1964-1975
Leon WilkesonBass1972-2001
Artimus PyleDrums1975-1992
Steve GainesGuitar1975-1977
Ed KingGuitar1973-1975, 1987-1995
Johnny Van ZantVocals1987-
Dale Krantz-RossingtonBackup vocals1991-
Randall HallGuitar1987 - 1995
Billy PowellKeyboards1970-2009
Ean EvansBass2001-2009
Michael CartelloneDrums1998-
Rickey MedlockeGuitar1971-1971, 1996-
Hughie ThomassonGuitar1996-2005
The original members of the band all went to high school together in Jacksonville, Florida. They had a gym teacher named Leonard Skinner who would strictly enforce the school's policy of no long hair for male students. Skinner often would send the guys home, demanding that they get their hair cut before returning to school. Guitarist Gary Rossington claimed after getting sent home several times by the teacher, he decided to leave school permanently and focus on playing in the band. The band members eventually decided to name their group after Skinner as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to him (with a few letters changed so he wouldn't sue them).
When Skinner died on September 20, 2010 at age 77, Gary Rossington released a statement saying: "Coach Skinner had such a profound impact on our youth that ultimately led us to naming the band, which you know as Lynyrd Skynyrd, after him. Looking back, I cannot imagine it any other way. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time."
On October 20, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered plane crashed in Mississippi en route from Greenville, South Carolina, to a concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and Gaines' sister, Cassie, who was a backup singer with the group, were among six people killed in the accident. The others were the band's road manager, Dean Kilpatrick, as well as the plane's pilot, Walter Wiley McCreary, and co-pilot, William John Gray.
When Lynyrd Skynyrd re-formed in 1987, a decade after the tragic plane crash, Ronnie Van Zant's youngest brother, Johnny, took over lead vocals in the band. Their other brother, Donnie, co-founded the Southern rock band .38 Special in 1974, and was a lead singer in that group until 2013.
Guitarist Allen Collins survived the 1977 plane crash, but was paralyzed from the waist down in a 1986 car crash; his girlfriend, who was a passenger in the vehicle, was killed in the accident. He died on January 23, 1990 from pneumonia that developed as a complication of his paralysis.
Drummer Artimus Pyle also survived the plane crash. He suffered a torn chest cartilage, but managed to stumble several hundred yards to a farmhouse to get help. A farmer, startled by the sight of a bloody, long-haired man who he apparently thought was a hostile intruder, shot Pyle in the shoulder. The drummer survived that as well and made a full recovery.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's bass player, Leon Wilkeson, died in his sleep at a hotel in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, in 2001 at age 49. The band continued their tour as a tribute to him.
Ed King and his replacement, Steve Gaines, were both born on the same day, September 14, 1949.
Ronnie Van Zant, Collins, and Rossington all played together in high school in several different bands. Names included: My Backyard, The Noble Five, Sons Of Satan, Conqueror Worm and The One Percent.
After the plane crash, the remaining members said that Lynyrd Skynyrd were finished, with Collins stating, "Some people are telling us we should keep the name because it obviously has value since people recognize it. To hell with them." In 1979, Rossington, Collins, Powell and Wilkeson formed the Rossington Collins Band, which featured Rossington's future wife, Dale Krantz, on lead vocals. They later decided to revive Lynyrd Skynyrd with Johnny Van Zant as frontman.
The 300-pound marble slab that marked Ronnie Van Zant's gravesite was stolen in 1982 from a cemetery in Orange Park, Florida. Police found it two weeks later in a dried-up river bed.
They played schools, parties, and bars for years before they hit it big. The band was first discovered in 1972 in a rock club called Funochio's, located on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia. They were found by the famous (or perhaps infamous) Al Kooper, who had just landed an executive position at MCA Records and was itching to find some new talent for the company's "Sounds of the South" imprint. Kooper was on tour supporting Badfinger at the time.
Other acts Kooper signed included Mose Jones and The Blues Project (his own group), but Skynyrd was the only band on his imprint to sell well. Kooper also produced and played multiple instruments on Lynyrd Skynyrd's first three albums - (Pronounced 'Leh-'nerd 'Skin-'nerd) (1973), Second Helping (1974) and Nuthin' Fancy (1975).
Al Kooper told Rolling Stone magazine, April 15, 2004: "Ronnie Van Zant was Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don't mean to demean the roles the others played in the group's success, but it never would have happened without him. His lyrics were a big part of it - like Woody Guthrie and Merle Haggard before him, Ronnie knew how to cut to the chase. And Ronnie ran that band with an iron hand. I have never seen such internal discipline in a band. One example: These guys composed all of their guitar solos. Most bands improvised solos each time they performed or recorded. Not them. Ronnie's dream was that they would sound exactly the same every time they took the stage."
Rossington, Burns and Ronnie Van Zant met at a Little League game. Van Zant hit a line drive off Burns' head, but after the game they got together and formed a band.
Ronnie Van Zant was Lynyrd Skynyrd's main lyricist, and he noted that he and his bandmates' goal was to write songs that were easy to understand. He explained in
a 1976 interview with Los Angeles DJ Jim Ladd, "Basically, we try to write common songs for common people, for the street people, not get somewhere way out there on the limb somewhere."
Examples of Skynyrd songs that are easily relatable to working-class folks include "
Simple Man," "
Gimme Three Steps" and "
Tuesday's Gone."
On many of their songs, all three guitarists play at once, as heard on their enduring rock anthems "
Free Bird" and "
Sweet Home Alabama."
Ronnie Van Zant wrote most of Lynyrd Skynyrd's lyrics, but often didn't write them down. He was known for sometimes coming to the studio with the words to songs memorized in his head or coming up with lyrics while singing along to the band's musical tracks.
The band formed in 1964 and settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd in the late '60s. Their very first band name was "My Backyard." The group's lineup at this time consisted of Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Larry Junstrom. Junstrom left the group in 1971, two years before Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded their debut album. He later co-founded .38 Special with Van Zant's younger brother Donnie.
Before settling on the spelling Lynyrd Skynyrd, the band used other variations of the name, including "Leonard Skinnerd" and "Lynard Skynard." The decision to use the "Y"s in their name is believed to be inspired by the popular 1960s folk-rock band The Byrds.
All seven Lynyrd Skynyrd members credited on the band's 1973 debut album have died: Ronnie Van Zant in 1977, Allen Collins in 1990, Leon Wilkeson in 2001, Billy Powell in 2009, Bob Burns in died in 2015, Ed King in 2018, and Gary Rossington in 2023. After Rossington's death, the band issued a statement explaining their decision to continue on without any original members.
"After much discussion with the band, the families of Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, and [Gary's widow] Dale Rossington, the collective has reached unified support," the statement read. "[They] feel that continuing to perform live, and keeping the music alive, is in the best interest of the fans and everyone involved."
In perhaps one of the oddest pairings since Jimi Hendrix toured with The Monkees, Skynyrd opened for Queen at several shows in Germany in late 1974. The groups did not get along.
The initial recordings for their first album took place in 1971 and 1972 at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. These recordings weren't released at the time, but they helped the band land a record deal with MCA. Some of the songs recorded in Muscle Shoals were later refined and appeared on Skynyrd's 1973 debut and other albums. In 1978, versions of nine of the early recordings, with added overdubs, were released on an album titled Skynyrd's First And... Last. An expanded, 17-track version of the collection, Skynyrd's First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album, followed in 1998.
Ronnie Van Zant was known for often performing live barefoot or with just socks. You can see the Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman rocking out without shoes in footage from the 1976 Knebworth Festival in the UK.
In June 2000, the graves of Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines both were vandalized at Jackson Memory Gardens cemetery in Orange Park, Florida. Van Zant's casket was pulled out from its tomb, but not opened, while some of Gaines' ashes were spilled from an urn containing his remains. It's believed that the vandals may have wanted to confirm the rumor that Ronnie was buried in a T-shirt featuring rival Neil Young. Van Zant's body and Gaines' ashes were then moved to more secure locations to discourage further vandalism.
Lynyrd Skynyrd were eligible to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nine years before receiving the honor. They were nominated seven times before finally being chosen for induction in 2006. At the ceremony, Kid Rock was their presenter.
Billy Powell, who was one of the survivors of the 1977 plane crash, died on January 28, 2009 after a history of heart trouble.
Some of Lynyrd Skynyrd's members also played in other well-known bands. Guitarist Ed King was a founding member of the psychedelic rock group Strawberry Alarm Clock; he left the band in 1971 before joining Skynyrd the next year. Rickey Medlocke founded the Southern rock band Blackfoot in 1970 and was their frontman before joining Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1971. Medlocke played drums and guitar with Skynyrd in 1971 and '72, then left the group to relaunch Blackfoot. In 1996, he became a full-time guitarist with Lynyrd Skynyrd and continues to play with the band. Rickey also began performing with Blackfoot again in 2023. Guitarist Hughie Thomasson co-founded the popular Southern rock group The Outlaws, initially playing with that band from 1967 to 1996. He then became a member Skynyrd from 1996 to 2005, before re-forming The Outlaws. He was still playing with The Outlaws at the time of his death from a heart attack in 2007.
On their very first national tour in 1973, they opened for The Who. The band got a great reception from audiences and even got to play some encores. The tour helped show that Lynyrd Skynyrd were ready to headline arenas themselves.
