Lynyrd Skynyrd boiled down its potent regional influences–blues, country, soul–into a heady, potentially crippling homebrew. They liked to play; those three lead guitars weren't just for show. 

 Second Helping served up the band's feisty hard-rock twang to a broad national audience. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the consummate Skynyrd platter; the guitars sigh and sting like a stiff breeze as Ronnie Van Zant draws a line in the dirt. 

 Nuthin' Fancy kicks off with further proof of Van Zant's independent thinking; "Saturday Night Special," Skynyrd's hardest rocker, is a full-bore assault against handguns. The rest of the album never exactly slacks off. 

 NEEDS WRITEUP 

 That said, live albums don't get much more exciting than One More From the Road. With new guitarist Steve Gaines stepping in for the departed Ed King, Skynyrd roars through a set of mostly earlier material and two wholly appropriate covers. 

 Street Survivors is much better than might have been expected. Gaines stimulated Van Zant's songwriting as well as axemen Rossington and Collins' playing. 

 Most of the other repackaged hits and live collections suffer, to varying degrees, from weak song selections, too-brief overviews and sluggish performances. The early Gold & Platinum and later Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd are the two best. 

 On Southern by the Grace of God, the younger Van Zant sings his brother's songs with spit and vinegar, but the performance lacks the youthful passion of One More From the Road. 

 The various posthumous releases of the original Skynyrd's music are completely eclipsed by the 1991 box. Lynyrd Skynyrd mixes early demos, unreleased tracks, acoustic outtakes, live cuts, and acknowledged classics in a swaggering, impressive collection. 

 The new Skynyrd continued to tour and release albums throughout the Nineties, winning younger Southern rock converts, but the Ronnie Van Zant-less group could never match the grit and drive of the original lineup. 

 Essential for die-hard fans are Skynyrd's First, the band's complete earliest Muscle Shoals recordings, and the rarities set Collectybles.  

 Most of the other repackaged hits and live collections suffer, to varying degrees, from weak song selections, too-brief overviews and sluggish performances. The early Gold & Platinum and later Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd are the two best. 

 Solo Flytes omits Lynyrd Skynyrd tracks entirely, focusing instead on the generic bar-band boogie by various post-Skynyrd projects.  

 Essential for die-hard fans are Skynyrd's First, the band's complete earliest Muscle Shoals recordings, and the rarities set Collectybles.  

 In recent years, the band has been digging into their live vaults, delivering promising (although slightly hissy-sounding) live shows from their Seventies, Ronnie-led prime. On the 1975 show from Wales, the band slays "Gimme Three Steps." 

 By the time the Johnny Van Zant-led Skynyrd released God & Guns in 2009, their sound had morphed into the sort of slick Nashvillie-ified country perfected by groups like Montgomery Gentry and Brooks and Dunn.