Post by jacksonvillekid on Oct 19, 2007 14:45:22 GMT -5
Part of this article includes quotes from Sharon Lawrence. She's the one that I did the interview with for Southern Fried's last edition. Opening for the Stones and meeting all those famous musicians and celebrities must have really been overwhelming for those guys. Can you imagine?
Remembering Lynyrd Skynyrd
Saturday marks 30 years since plane crash
By RICK de YAMPERT
Entertainment Writer
October 18, 2007
When Lynyrd Skynyrd performed at the Knebworth Festival in England in August 1976, the catwalk part of the stage was sacred ground. That was the altar where the tens of thousands of rock fans gathered in the English countryside would worship the headliners, the Rolling Stones.
"It was forbidden to be used by anyone but the Stones," says Sharon Lawrence, who was working as a management and marketing consultant for such major record labels as MCA, Columbia and Apple.
But, says Lawrence, who was a friend and confidante of the Jacksonville-spawned Skynyrd, singer Ronnie Van Zant had other ideas.
"Ronnie really ran things on stage, to say the least," Lawrence says by phone from her Los Angeles home. "He said to (Skynyrd guitarist) Allen (Collins), 'Get down on that catwalk!' He didn't have to push twice."
Collins was joined by Van Zant and the band's two other guitarists, Steve Gaines and Gary Rossington, for a blistering version of "Free Bird." (The concert is captured on the DVD "Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird -- the Movie," and various Knebworth moments are available on YouTube.)
"The crowd just went nuts," Lawrence says. "After Skynyrd were off, the first people in their dressing room were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jack Nicholson, just worshipping at their feet."
Fourteen months later -- 30 years ago this Saturday -- Skynyrd's glory came to a tragic halt. A chartered plane carrying the band ran out of fuel and crashed in Mississippi, killing Van Zant, Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines.
Many fans and critics felt the same as Joe Nick Patoski wrote in "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll": The tragedy "marked the virtual end of Southern rock as a vital source of new music, even though many of its early exponents continued performing."
"Street Survivors," Skynyrd's sixth album, had been released just three days before the Oct. 20, 1977, crash. By chilling coincidence, the cover depicted the band surrounded by flames, striking fans as eerie and ghoulish. The band's label, MCA, withdrew the album and issued one featuring the same band photo without the flames (although the original cover now appears on Amazon.com).
Jim DeVito, a musician and music producer from St. Augustine, "kind of grew up" with the Skynyrd guys in the late 1960s. DeVito was, he says, "one of the few people who actually lived at 'Hell House,' " a cabin outside of Jacksonville that the band used as a rehearsal space and clubhouse -- given that, by 1970, all the members had dropped out of Robert E. Lee High School.
"The Skynyrd guys were full of spit and vinegar," DeVito says by phone from his St. Augustine home. "Ronnie was a tough little booger. I remember we were in the band house and someone was threatening to quit because they were pissed off about something. He stood in the doorway, the sun behind him, and he goes, 'Look you guys, anybody can quit this band if they want to -- they just got to go through this door.' No one would do that."
The band had played under such names as My Backyard, Sons of Satan and the One Percent, until Van Zant introduced the group at one gig as "Leonard Skinner" -- a goofy homage to the high school gym teacher who tormented them for their long hair. The name stuck but the spelling was altered to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Reuben "Lounge Lizard" Morgan, a musician and former Daytona Beach resident now living in Stuart, was there the very night the lads from Jacksonville took a giant step toward rock immortality.
Morgan was a 17-year-old running the stage lights at the Bistro, an Atlanta club, when Al Kooper came there to perform. Kooper also was scouting talent to sign to the MCA label.
"He said, 'I want to go over and hear Lynyrd Skynyrd,' " Morgan recalls. "They were playing at Finnochio's House of Rock on Peachtree Street. This was the second time I had seen them. They were very powerful with three guitars. And Ronnie Van Zant was right with the crowd. Kooper signed them."
DeVito was on the road with a rock band in the Midwest when he heard "Sweet Home Alabama" on the radio. "We were like, 'damn it them (expletive)!' " DeVito says. "A few weeks later, we were playing a bar called the Slipped Disc in St. Augustine, and Allen (Collins) comes in the front door of the club, with his arms outstretched and his exuberant usual way, going 'We did it! I'm a rock star!' Everybody in the club was thinking he was freakin' nuts."
Both DeVito and Lawrence, author of the book "Jimi Hendrix: The Man, the Magic, the Truth," note that the lads who became the kings of Southern rock had found their inspiration across the ocean.
"Their biggest heroes were a band called Free," DeVito says. "Not Southern artists."
"Their idols were all the English greats," says Lawrence, who introduced them to John Lennon, Eric Clapton and others. "They were proud and humbled to be playing on the same bill with the Stones."
Lynyrd Skynyrd reformed in 1987 with Ronnie's brother, Johnny Van Zant, on lead vocals. Collins died in 1990, four years after being paralyzed in a car crash. The band continues to tour and currently features two original members: guitarist Rossington and keyboardist Billy Powell.
In 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd joined the Stones, Clapton, Lennon and other artists they admired by being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Entertainment/Headlines/entMUS01101807.htm
Remembering Lynyrd Skynyrd
Saturday marks 30 years since plane crash
By RICK de YAMPERT
Entertainment Writer
October 18, 2007
When Lynyrd Skynyrd performed at the Knebworth Festival in England in August 1976, the catwalk part of the stage was sacred ground. That was the altar where the tens of thousands of rock fans gathered in the English countryside would worship the headliners, the Rolling Stones.
"It was forbidden to be used by anyone but the Stones," says Sharon Lawrence, who was working as a management and marketing consultant for such major record labels as MCA, Columbia and Apple.
But, says Lawrence, who was a friend and confidante of the Jacksonville-spawned Skynyrd, singer Ronnie Van Zant had other ideas.
"Ronnie really ran things on stage, to say the least," Lawrence says by phone from her Los Angeles home. "He said to (Skynyrd guitarist) Allen (Collins), 'Get down on that catwalk!' He didn't have to push twice."
Collins was joined by Van Zant and the band's two other guitarists, Steve Gaines and Gary Rossington, for a blistering version of "Free Bird." (The concert is captured on the DVD "Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird -- the Movie," and various Knebworth moments are available on YouTube.)
"The crowd just went nuts," Lawrence says. "After Skynyrd were off, the first people in their dressing room were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jack Nicholson, just worshipping at their feet."
Fourteen months later -- 30 years ago this Saturday -- Skynyrd's glory came to a tragic halt. A chartered plane carrying the band ran out of fuel and crashed in Mississippi, killing Van Zant, Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines.
Many fans and critics felt the same as Joe Nick Patoski wrote in "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll": The tragedy "marked the virtual end of Southern rock as a vital source of new music, even though many of its early exponents continued performing."
"Street Survivors," Skynyrd's sixth album, had been released just three days before the Oct. 20, 1977, crash. By chilling coincidence, the cover depicted the band surrounded by flames, striking fans as eerie and ghoulish. The band's label, MCA, withdrew the album and issued one featuring the same band photo without the flames (although the original cover now appears on Amazon.com).
Jim DeVito, a musician and music producer from St. Augustine, "kind of grew up" with the Skynyrd guys in the late 1960s. DeVito was, he says, "one of the few people who actually lived at 'Hell House,' " a cabin outside of Jacksonville that the band used as a rehearsal space and clubhouse -- given that, by 1970, all the members had dropped out of Robert E. Lee High School.
"The Skynyrd guys were full of spit and vinegar," DeVito says by phone from his St. Augustine home. "Ronnie was a tough little booger. I remember we were in the band house and someone was threatening to quit because they were pissed off about something. He stood in the doorway, the sun behind him, and he goes, 'Look you guys, anybody can quit this band if they want to -- they just got to go through this door.' No one would do that."
The band had played under such names as My Backyard, Sons of Satan and the One Percent, until Van Zant introduced the group at one gig as "Leonard Skinner" -- a goofy homage to the high school gym teacher who tormented them for their long hair. The name stuck but the spelling was altered to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Reuben "Lounge Lizard" Morgan, a musician and former Daytona Beach resident now living in Stuart, was there the very night the lads from Jacksonville took a giant step toward rock immortality.
Morgan was a 17-year-old running the stage lights at the Bistro, an Atlanta club, when Al Kooper came there to perform. Kooper also was scouting talent to sign to the MCA label.
"He said, 'I want to go over and hear Lynyrd Skynyrd,' " Morgan recalls. "They were playing at Finnochio's House of Rock on Peachtree Street. This was the second time I had seen them. They were very powerful with three guitars. And Ronnie Van Zant was right with the crowd. Kooper signed them."
DeVito was on the road with a rock band in the Midwest when he heard "Sweet Home Alabama" on the radio. "We were like, 'damn it them (expletive)!' " DeVito says. "A few weeks later, we were playing a bar called the Slipped Disc in St. Augustine, and Allen (Collins) comes in the front door of the club, with his arms outstretched and his exuberant usual way, going 'We did it! I'm a rock star!' Everybody in the club was thinking he was freakin' nuts."
Both DeVito and Lawrence, author of the book "Jimi Hendrix: The Man, the Magic, the Truth," note that the lads who became the kings of Southern rock had found their inspiration across the ocean.
"Their biggest heroes were a band called Free," DeVito says. "Not Southern artists."
"Their idols were all the English greats," says Lawrence, who introduced them to John Lennon, Eric Clapton and others. "They were proud and humbled to be playing on the same bill with the Stones."
Lynyrd Skynyrd reformed in 1987 with Ronnie's brother, Johnny Van Zant, on lead vocals. Collins died in 1990, four years after being paralyzed in a car crash. The band continues to tour and currently features two original members: guitarist Rossington and keyboardist Billy Powell.
In 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd joined the Stones, Clapton, Lennon and other artists they admired by being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Entertainment/Headlines/entMUS01101807.htm