Skynyrd Fly Again in New Books

Few bands have been as poorly served by the jukebox as Lynyrd Skynyrd. Reduced to a series of sing-a-long choruses by inebriated bar patrons, one of rock & roll's most pure practitioners has received some positive revisionist treatment over the past year. First, the Drive-By Truckers released Southern Rock Opera, a left-field success that revels in the Skynyrd mythology from a narrative that uses the legendary band as a touchstone, all the way down to a reverent co-opting of Skynyrd's three-guitar attack. And more recently, a pair of books released this month, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the plane crash that killed frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and background singer Cassie Gaines, furthers Skynyrd's overdue, reconstructed myth.

First out of the gate is Gene Odom's Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock. Odom was as close as one could get to Van Zant, short of family. A childhood friend, he became Skynyrd's security manager and was one of the survivors in the October 20th, 1977 crash. Odom's remembrance is both loving and pointed, as he makes his case for the band as the most glaring of omissions from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a slight he suspects was prompted by their association with the confederate flag. It's an image that Odom says was pushed on the band by its label as a marketing ploy, but one that was also a regional point of pride. "I think that's what held the boys out of the Rock Hall," Odom says. "[But] nobody in that band was racist. The rebel flag was heritage, and Ronnie was proud of being from the South. To them, it represented the South and the music that they supported, but not one member of that band was racist."

Odom's book also does Van Zant the favor of pulling his lyrics away from the band's thunderous guitar-heavy sound, and giving the songwriter a chance to let his songs be heard. From "Mr. Saturday Night Special," a scathing indictment of cheap firearms ("Hand guns are made for killin', they ain't no good for nothin' else") and substance abuse ("That Smell") to "Free Bird" (a tribute to two dead Allman Brothers Band members, before it became a concert catcall), Van Zant's songs have been smothered by the band's music and image. "For most people, it's about the beat," Odom says. "It's the lick. They don't pay attention to the lyrics. 'Gimme Back My Bullets,' he was talking about the bullets that were on Billboard charts when your song would come out. But people are funny about what they listen to, and it's usually the music that wins their hearts."

Also due this month, Lynyrd Skynyrd: An Oral History, is as its title suggests a collection of quotes and remembrances compiled by writer Lee Ballinger along with Dave Marsh. An Oral History features comments from more than forty sources, including snippets from the deceased (Van Zant and Gaines), as well as recollections from family members, friends, the band's early champion and producer Al Kooper and rock journalists including Cameron Crowe and John Swenson. Ballinger also portrays the band's contradictory nature: A group of longhairs who were every bit Southern outcasts as they were Southern champions.

"Their songs dealt with things like gun control, protesting the Vietnam war, and yet they were brought up in a very conservative area," Swenson, who wrote for Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone, says in the book. "For them to have long hair, they were constantly getting beat up by the rednecks. They were comfortable with 'redneck culture,' underneath all that, because that's where they came from. There's a real contradiction there, and I think that tension fuels their early records."

Like Odom, Ballinger also picks up on the aspects of Skynyrd that have gotten lost in the margins, pointing out the jeering chorus of "Boo! Boo! Boo!," that follows the George Wallace reference in "Sweet Home Alabama": "In Birmingham, they love the Governor."

Both books portray Ronnie Van Zant as a songwriter and a person worthy of reinvestigation. Growing up poor and pugnacious, he didn't even create a popular identity as rock stars are wont to do, but rather used Skynyrd as a vessel to represent himself. Van Zant's presentation for the past several years has been tempered with apologies, but both Ballinger and Odom present a forward-thinking frontman who requires nothing of the sort.

"He wrote about his life," Odom says. "It's that simple. He really appreciated where he came from and their songs all reflected on the working men and their lives, and that means all working men. That's why their songs mean so much, the lyrics are just so simple. There's no pop/rock gimmicks, just a straight shot from the hills."

ANDREW DANSBY
(October 15, 2002)