LYNYRD SKYNYRD- “WORKS ON PRIDE”

ALLEN COLLINS AND RONNIE VAN ZANT LIVE AT WINTERLAND ON 3-6-76. PHOTO/ART BY BEN UPHAM.

CLICK ON LINKS BELOW TO SEE MORE LYNYRD SKYNYRD PHOTOS & ARTWORK:
WINTERLAND 4-27-75
and
OAKLAND, CA. 9-20-75
and
WINTERLAND 3-6-76
and
SPOKANE, WA. 10-7-76
and
SPOKANE SOUNDCHECK 10-7-76
and
LYNYRD SKYNYRD ARTWORK by BEN UPHAM III

LYNYRD SKYNYRD- “WORKS ON PRIDE”
by MARY CAMPBELL
THE HUTCHINSON NEWS
HUTCHINSON, KANSAS
MAY 30, 1975

When you start talking about the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd, momentarily ignore the fact that it’s so hot, their only two LPs are both gold, and start right in with how to pronounce the name and where it came from.

The first LP’s title explains the first, “Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pronounced Leh’nerd Skin’nerd.” The second LP is “Second Helping.”

The seven-man group took its name from a high school gym teacher, who wasn’t their biggest fan. Guitarist Ed King, the only one who wasn’t reared in Florida and wasn’t there, said that the three founding members of Lynyrd Skynyrd heard cries of “Cut your hair” from Leonard Skinner and the same teacher later got them thrown out of school. Still later, they took his name and put in a y every time he had a more usual vowel. “It was some kind of symbolic thing,” King says.

Lynyrd Skynyrd is a Southern band and these days there seems to be a good deal of interest in Southern bands. King says there isn’t a different band sound in the South, really, except for the Southern accent of the singers.

The song that really brought Lynyrd Skynyrd its most attention was “Sweet Home Alabama.” That was a “Southern and proud of it” song, an answer to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Since then, Young’s “Walk On” has been taken as an answer to “Sweet Home Alabama.” But that exchange seems to have run its course.

There had previously been a single from the first album and a single from the second. After the success of “Sweet Home Alabama,” also from the second album, a fourth single was released, “Free Bird,” from the first album, and it was on the singles chart the first week in February.

There will be another. “South vs. North” song, “I’m a Country Boy,” on the third album. Some people don’t think of Florida as the South but King says they’re thinking of Miami. Jacksonville, near which the members of the group own a farm, is definitely the South, says King. He says nothing is going on in Jacksonville and they’re glad of it because they’re not distracted and can spend their time on the farm writing songs and rehearsing.

They each intend to move a mobile home onto the farm, to live together, separately. Group members don’t like cities, King says, though they “have to like Atlanta,” That’s where they were playing the bar circuit and were discovered by Al Kooper and signed to his new label, Sounds of the South. Their two records were distributed by MCA and their third, already cut, will be on MCA, from which Sounds of the South now has parted company.

A couple of earlier tapes, made at Muscle Schoals and never released, have been bought back by the group. They’ll be released probably later in the year. King says there are good songs on them but the performances need some finishing touches.

“We’re tending now to go in a bit more simple direction than we have in the past,” King says. “The music has changed, but not too much. We’re aware of whatever basic element we have that makes us what we are and makes people like us. There’s no way we can get rid of that. “People are going to hear more of what we’re really all about. Our third album is the best we’ve done so far. Our second is probably the worst. On the third we went into the studio not knowing what was going to happen. We had zero things written. We all worked together and had ideas and wrote songs on the spot and came up with, I think, great material.

“On the second album we had all the tunes written and burned them out on the road. By the time we got them into the studio we could care less about them. “This album we just did could have stood for us to play the songs 10 times in front of people and then take them into the studio. But the way they are on tape, all of us are proud of.
“We’re going to do a live album. Three-fourths of it will be new material. It isn’t going to be ‘greatest hits.’ I can’t stand to buy those. That’ll probably be our best album. Live is where we’re at our best.

“In Detroit last night, we were terrible. We’d been in the studio 12 or 14 hours a day, three and a half weeks. We put the last note on our third album and within 24 hours we were playing in Detroit. We were just horrible; it didn’t happen at all. If I’d have been hit in the head with a tomato and a bottle I would have accepted it. Any other time I’d have been raving mad. The audience was real polite and gave us more applause than we’d deserved.

“Our band works on pride. If it doesn’t turn out, like that, we’re ashamed of it. Our live gigs are what we’re really proud of; they’re what our reputation is built on. When we go out to promote a record, we can back it up. “Tomorrow we’re going to spend all day rehearsing. Playing a bad gig like that will bring your spirits up. You’re feeling so bad about it, there’s no way to go but up.”
The group tours a lot, having two three-month tours last year plus some three week ones. And, says King, you have to save some time for your lady.

King is from California, was in a band that toured the South, fell in love with the South and immediately moved from Burbank to North Carolina. He got to know members of Lynyrd Skynyrd as he was attempting to start a band of his own. When the group’s bass player quit, two and a half years ago — as the recording contract was being signed — they drove to North Carolina and got him.
The bass player, Leon Wilkeson, later was persuaded to return to the group and King moved to guitar, which is how the group got three guitarists and expanded from six to seven.

Other members are Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer; Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, guitars; Artimus Pyle, the newest member, drums, and Billy Powell, keyboards.

King says that the group members originally decided, when asked what Lynyrd Skynyrd meant, to say that it was Southern slang for something. “We thought that might be kind of hip. We decided not to do it. But we could have started something. It ain’t too late.”

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DISCOGRAPHY:
1973 Pounounced Lynyrd Skynyrd
1974 Second Helping
1975 Nuthin’ Fancy
1976 Gimme Back My Bullets
1976 One More From the Road (Live)
1977 Street Survivors
1978 First and Last
1982 Best of the Rest
1987 Legend
1991 Box Set
1998 Skynyrds First (Complete Muscle Shoals)
2000 Collectybles
2009 Live at Winterland 3-7-76
2009 Live at Cardiff 11-4-75

CLICK ON LINKS BELOW TO SEE MORE LYNYRD SKYNYRD PHOTOS & ARTWORK:
WINTERLAND 4-27-75
and
OAKLAND, CA. 9-20-75
and
WINTERLAND 3-6-76
and
SPOKANE, WA. 10-7-76
and
SPOKANE SOUNDCHECK 10-7-76
and
LYNYRD SKYNYRD ARTWORK by BEN UPHAM III