45 years ago, Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed and ended a legendary run
Everything was looking up for Lynyrd Skynyrd. After nearly a full decade of work, the southern rock forefathers had finally put together a lineup that was ready to take over popular music. Throughout the 1970s, the band had travelled across the globe, bringing the twangy sounds of southern-fried hard rock to fans from all over the world. With five albums worth of material to cull from, Skynyrd was as potent and powerful as they had ever been in 1977.
Even better was the fact that they had a new powerhouse performer in their lineup. Recent addition Steve Gaines was more than just a guitar player – he was also a singer and songwriter that could match band leader Ronnie Van Zant in terms of talent. Once again equipped with their signature three-guitar attack, Lynyrd Skynyrd now had another creative force that could elevate their material. Gaines’ coming out party was on their most recent album, Street Survivors, where the young phenom penned the boogie-woogie stomper ‘I Know a Little’ and sang co-lead vocals on the track ‘You Got That Right’.
But not all was sound within the world of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Drug and alcohol abuse continued to haunt the band, affecting nearly all of the band members to different degrees. Founding member Gary Rossington’s recent car crash, aided by over-indulgence of cocaine and beer, led Van Zant to pen the cautionary lyrics to ‘That Smell’. Van Zant himself wasn’t immune, having developed addictions to heroin and cocaine that aggravated his already-volatile personality.
At the time, Van Zant became obsessed with his own mortality, frequently commenting to family and friends that he felt his time was coming to an end. “Ronnie and I were in Tokyo, Japan, and Ronnie told me that he would never live to see thirty and that he would go out with his boots on, in other words, on the road,” drummer Artimus Pyle explained in the band’s Behind the Music episode. “I said, ‘Ronnie, don’t talk like that,’ but the man knew his destiny.”
“He said to me many times, ‘Daddy, I’ll never be 30 years old,'” Van Zant’s father Lacy explained. “I said, ‘Why are you talking this junk? You will never be 30 years old?’ and he said, ‘Daddy, that’s my limit.’ God was a jealous god. Taking him for reasons I don’t know.”
In the years prior, Lynyrd Skynyrd had built up a reputation as one of America’s most powerful bands. With a potent guitar-forward attack and a notable southern lilt, Skynyrd were as uniquely American as any band had ever been. While their reputation grew through tireless touring, Skynyrd also achieved crossover pop success thanks to the single ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, a top ten hit in America during the fall of 1974. Working as an opening act for the like of The Rolling Stones and The Who, Skynyrd soon graduated to commanding stadiums as headliners.
All the pieces were set for Street Survivors to make Lynyrd Skynyrd America’s biggest band. After years of playing, Skynyrd had pioneered the genre of southern rock and inspired a litany of acts to follow in their wake, including The Marshall Tucker Band, Molly Hatchet and 38 Special, the latter featuring Ronnie’s younger brother Donnie on vocals. Skynyrd were at the top, and when Street Survivors was released on October 17th, 1977, it proved to be an instant success.
As was the band’s standard practice, Skynyrd were already on the road when the album was released. Three days after Street Survivors came out, the band finished a show at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, South Carolina, and boarded a plane to reach Louisiana State University for a concert the following day. Just before the plane had reached its destination, the crew discovered that they wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to the airport.
Van Zant was sleeping on the floor of the cabin when word got back to the passengers. The pilots were going to attempt an emergency landing, but the only area available was heavily forested. Upon impact, the plane was ripped apart by the trees in the area. Van Zant, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when the plane crashed, was violently thrown from the wreckage and died immediately, as did Gaines and his sister, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines.
Those who survived were suffering from grievous bodily injury. Despite having a number of broken ribs, Pyle was the only band member who could get to his feet and seek out help. “With ribs sticking out of his chest, he went uphill, over barbed-wire fences in the woods, almost completely dark now, in two-foot swamp muck with alligators and snakes coming down on us,” keyboardist Billy Powell recalled on Pyle’s actions.
The devastating loss came at a time when Lynyrd Skynyrd seemingly couldn’t have gotten any more popular. The tragedy would permanently disband the group for more than a decade, with Ronnie’s brother Johnnie joining the band in his brother’s steed. Street Survivors continued to sell after the crash, but the album was recalled due to the front album cover showing the band, and especially Gaines, engulfed in flames. A new all-black cover represented the mourning of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final triumph and deadly tragedy.
