HE’S AS FREE AS A BIRD NOW…
Last standing Lynyrd Skynyrd original Gary Rossington has been pronounced dead aged 71. Rossington yearned to be a pro baseball player, an interest that waned with time but not before meeting his future bandmates on rival high school baseball teams. Liking what they heard during a jam session, they cycled through several names through the 60s before settling on “Lynyrd Skynyrd” in a cheeky nod to their long-hair-adverse high school gym teacher.
Rossington was pivotal to their most enduring hits, co-writing “Sweet Home Alabama” and contributing the famed guitar solo to “Free Bird”. He long wrestled with drug and alcohol addictions, and inebriatedly crashed his Ford into a tree in 1976. This incident inspired Ronnie Van Zandt to pen “That Smell” with its ominous “the smell of death surrounds you” lyrics, words that would become even more pertinent when Rossington survived the 1977 plane crash that killed Van Zandt and several other band members. He recovered enough to tour with the band for the rest of his years, and by the time of Larry Junstrom’s 2019 death, he somehow became their last surviving founding member. Theme team Keeping the band alive!! sees their first reunion of the year.
Gary Rossington
4 December 1951 – 5 March 2023, aged 71
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 👻 = 11 POINTS