50 Years Ago: Lynyrd Skynyrd Releases “Free Bird,” Debut Album (2024)

This album like all their others still holds up today . In my opinion Skynyrd are the best southern rock band of all time . Even their newer stuff is better then all the new crap that is out there .

16 y/o Florida boy when it was released and driving a ‘71 Plymouth Barracuda 383 blasting that 8 track tape defined a new era that included the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker band, CDB. What an era for all of us that lived it/survived it and oh how it endures…
LORD HELP ME I CANNOT CHANGE

Re :”Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd”:
I don’t think the band had quite broken out into mainstream American culture when the disaster occurred.

I still recall I was watching the 11 O’clock News on WNBC 4 in New York on October 20, 1977, when about half-way through, the anchorman intoned: “Breaking news report. A plane has crashed near Gillsburg, Mississippi with members of the rock band Lye-nerd Sky-nerd reported to have perished…” He kind of paused and stumbled as he attempted to read the name off the paper in front of him.

Great album, great band and great era & area to grow up in.

Such great music. No music collection is complete without the early music of Skynyrd.

I have an informal, mental list of songs I never need to hear again in my lifetime, and “Free Bird” is near the top. Same with “Sweet Home Alabama” and to a lesser extent, “Simple Man.” To give some context, it tends to be songs that I’ve gotten sick of hearing on endless repeat over the years, like “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Billie Jean”, “Hotel California”, “Stairway to Heaven”, etc. Basically, a lot of the same damn songs on every classic rock and pop station that get a spin every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.

I can appreciate to an extent what this music means to certain people, but all it means to me is overplayed and overexposed. A 20-something wanting “Free Bird” played at their funeral is about the most generic, dudebro sentiment I can think of. Everybody with a soul patch thinks that song is about them. That Lynyrd Skynyrd is now a cover band composed of no original members that lucked into the copyright for the original name is just icing on the cake.

All that said, I’ve always had a huge soft spot for “Tuesday’s Gone.” Good song.

The members of the Allman Brothers Band famously downplayed the term “Southern rock.” Gregg Allman was quoted as saying it was akin to saying “rock rock,” implying that the roots and origins of rock and roll came out of the South. And Charlie Daniels said “the Allman Brothers was a blues band, Marshall Tucker was a country band and Lynyrd Skynyrd was a straight ahead rock band.” There is absolutely no question that the Brothers paved the way for the others that followed, but all those other bands carved out their own territory – gloriously! By the way, l encourage all my Southern rock brethren to pick up a copy of Alan Paul’s newest book, “Brothers And Sisters,” a wonderfully written story of the making of that album, the whole era surrounding it, Southern rock and Capricorn Records and the eventual disintegration of the Allman Brothers Band.

Great debut album but the follow up album Second Helping was even better. I remember seeing them live in Liverpool UK supporting Dutch rock band Golden Earing they blew them off the stage!!

Quintessential album.

LS is simply my favorite band of all time. There is not one song that when it starts playing, you instantly know who it is and what it is. Flick said it right. The current version of LS, cover band or no, is better than most anything today. Very good and tight band, especially live.

From the rifts of all LS songs, to the thundering thumb Toy Caldwell and “Can’t You See”, and all the other bands of similar ilk, they are not just my past. They are still my present.

A classic album that stands the test of time well.

I grew up listening to this and it influences my favorite music to this day, I’m looking at you Blackberry Smoke. Most of the songs have been overplayed, but I still pull this album out occasionally. I’m pretty sure they went on tour with the Who to promote this, that had to provide impetus to the band’s rise.

I go back and fourth on which of Tuesday’s Gone or Tuckers Can’t You See is my favorite, lyrically they are basically the same song. I Never Dreamed from Street Survivor’s and Am I Losing from Nuthin’ Fancy are excellent lesser known tunes

Skynyrd, Baby!

I always had a soft spot for Skynyrd, just because my maternal grandparents lived in Jax the last 30 years of their lives, including the period of the band’s debut. But it wasn’t until 2012 that I became completely immersed in the world of Skynyrd on having seen the 3 hour “Gone with the Wind: The Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd.” A British production! The band was perhaps even more popular over there! This was confirmed by my sister-in-law’s British husband, whose head almost popped of when I informed him I knew the location of Hell House. He promptly told me that’s where he wanted to go on their next visit, rather than our usual trip to the Florida Keys. The wives weren’t thrilled until we agreed to make St. Augustine our base, with a day trip to Green Cove Springs. In the 3 months leading up to their arrival the very informative “If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd” premiered on CMT. It enabled me to sweeten the pot, because there were shots of Bob Burns’ childhood home where the boys first played together, as well as other old haunts. Plus, I learned that Gene Odom (Ronnie Van Zant childhood friend) was publishing video tours on YouTube which showed him taking select fans around to places such as the actual oak tree that got in Gary Rossington’s way (per the Street Survivors single “That Smell”), and both Ronnie’s burial sites. Had to do a bit of gumshoe on my own though because Gene was careful not to give actual addresses. Still, other clues like mailboxes and landmarks in those videos, along with info from sources like Ed King’s chat site and findagrave.com helped pinpoint other stuff. We spent over 7 hours poking around the West Side, Orange Park, and of course the pièce de ré·sis·tance – Hell House! Good thing we went when we did, because a Skynyrd-concept gated community had broken ground. Doubt you can even get near the HH site now.

i miss this era of music, when everyone sported hairdos that made them look like Andre the Giant

Their music was nothing sort of magical. However I would have to live in a cave for 30 years to feel the emotional impact now because most of their music has been overplayed into the ground to where I don’t care anymore.

I feel like we’d all be remiss to omit ZZ Top from the Southern Rock pantheon.

I saw Skynyrd quite a few times in the UK. The last time was when they supported Deep Purple. Of course they blew Purple away, so much so everyone was leaving in their droves when Purple came on. They were only there to see the finest Southern Rock Band Ever.

: D Turn it up.

Hmmn, to quote Gregg Allman, calling it Southern rock is like calling it: rock, rock .

It’s all good. We drank a lot of canned beer around the fire to the good music of Skynyrd with the people we loved. I didn’t smoke then and still don’t now, but to this day the smell of Camels, Jack, and co*ke puts me right back there. Thirty odd years, but who’s counting.

OK, I’ll bet a number of the commenters here probably play (or used to play) in a band of some sort. And I’ll bet that most, if not all of those musicians have been on stage when someone in the audience would yell out, “play Freebird!” Heck, I used to have a Cajun/zydeco band up in Michigan, and we would often have someone yell out “play Freebird,” even though that wasn’t the genre of music we were playing. Probably even polka or Irish bands have had someone call for Freebird.

But my favorite LS tune is their cover of J.J. Cale’s “Call Me the Breeze.”

Definitely one of the all time great albums!

Definitely a great album. Most of their stuff is great though. I haven’t really listened to them in a while though. Far as songs being overplayed and not wanting to hear them again, I don’t really get that. I get a new song that is being overplayed and not wanting to hear it but classics, nah I’ll still sing along when they come on. The only songs I don’t want to hear again are songs I don’t like.

My first show was Skynyrd in June 77. I was 14 that summer. I lived in Cape May NJ, at the very bottom of the state. Two weeks later, me and a friend hitchhiker up to Asbury Park and saw them at Convention Hall. I was hooked from hello. Which led me to Charlie, MTB ,Outlaws,Hatchet, etc. That’s the true songbook to my life.

I wasn’t old enough to really be a music fan when this album came out, other than what my parents listened to. But five or six years later I began to really become interested in the music of my friends older brother which was popular rock music of that time. Skynyrd along with many others like ZZ Top, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and so on became the soundtrack of my teen years. Songs like Free Bird, Stairway to Heaven, Smoke On The Water, Slow Ride, Do You Feel Like I Do, were all bigger than life.

I eventually picked up the back catalogs of my favorite bands, and Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd was and is still one of my favorite albums. There are few bands that last from your youth through your adult life that you continue to listen to on a regular basis. I don’t think I’ve ever gone long without playing my favorite Skynyrd mix. Their music still gets me in a good mood.

Summer of ‘73. I was a scrawny, long haired 8th grader going into high school. WXRT started playing Simple Man. Stopped me in my tracks. Bought the album. Brought it to school and evangelized the hell outta that record. It literally changed my life at that point. Saw them first at the Aragon Ballroom, 74’, I believe. I have seen hundreds of concerts big and small. That show still ranks as one in the top ten.

That riff at the beginning of I Ain’t The One being the opening riff of the album is just spot on. Perfect start for a band. The way each pass it builds adding another guitar each time really showcases the way their three guitars work together. Perfect opening track to a bands first album.

I found out about the crash when my buddy Tracy, who at the time played an ES 335 and had hair like Peter Frampton, came up to me in the hallway in high school and said, “Skynyrd’s dead, man.”

They were a big part of my youth. I loved most all of it, including deeper cuts like “I Know a Little”. My mother, who grew up on big band and swing, loved that song too.

A time when you could say you were proud to be a southerner without apology.

Respect & love Skynyrd! They worked hard, played hard. Netflix has a good watch: If I Leave Here Tomorrow

Strawberry alarm clock was a great 60s garage band as well

I listen to it 50 years ago and continue today .
Lynyrd Shynyrd one of the great ones .
But unfortunately today’s Lynyrd Skynyrd just a cover band .

Great band, great album, great article. But I think they recorded their ‚real‘ debut in 1971 in Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with the help of the MSS staff and the rhythm section there, known as The Swampers. For some obscure reasons the album was shelved and not released before 1988 as ,Skynyrds first…and last‘. Btw, in ‚Sweet Home Alabama‘ they do a shoutout to The Swampers. Enjoy the music, and keep up the great work you‘re doing here! Greetings from Germany, really like your website and your content!

“Eat a Peach” came out the year before. “Ramblin’ Man” beat “Sweet Home Alabama” to the charts. Shouldn’t this article be about the Allman Brothers instead?

My first concert out of town on a date along with my best friend and her date when we were in high school, I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top on June 9, 1974 at the Nashville Speedway. It was great.

First time I heard freebird was live at winter land ballroom San Francisco 1974.the very next day I bought the album.been a fan ever since Ed king was playing with them then first time I’ve seen three great guitar players play together very well I was lucky enough to have a balcony seat since it was general admission you had to get there early to get them anyway by the time freebird ended every one that a seat was standing on them with both hands in the air yelling as loud as they could one of my favorite bands of all time fly on Free Bird I just saw them a week ago at shoreline amps theater MTN view California they were excellent Ronnie would of been proud of his younger brother johnny if you have never seen them don’t wait anymore understand see them while you can before they stop touring cheers to my southern brothers you guys rockcheers

My introduction to Free Bird was the live version on One More from the Road. I think I got it for Christmas in ’77, which would have been a couple of months after the plane crash. Then, I got Gimme Back My Bullets through Columbia House (solid album but short of great – Searching being the only song from OMFTR on the album). And then one of my sisters bought Street Survivors. Since half of the songs on the first album (and the two longest) were on OMFTR, I wouldn’t even have considered picking it up, as all I had was allowance money. And since they were such a tight band, the live versions were great. In the CD era, I rebought OMFTR and then Gold and Platinum, which along with studio versions of the classics on OMFTR, added the hits from Street Survivors and a few other songs I didn’t have, like On the Hunt (became one of my faves) and Down South Jukin’. And that’s all I needed at the time. I do remember getting especially sick to death of the Street Survivor hits (What’s Your Name, That Smell, I Know a Little, You Got That Right) being played on classic rock radio, but then I got a CD changer in my car arould ’96 – ’97, which I would load up with CDs every week or so, and I pretty much stopped listening to the radio. Even NPR news and music programs. Nothing was better to listening to music from my collection when I was in the car. And so after some time, I stopped being sick of a lot of good songs and could enjoy them again.

In the 2000’s, I started picking up all of their studio albums (plus the Muscle Shoals sessions one) and eventually began to think of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the same breath as some of my all time favorites like Little Feat and CCR. The catalyst was the album Southern Rock Opera album by Drive-By Truckers, specifically the songs about the band, like Ronnie and Neil, Cassie’s Brother, Life in the Factory, Shut Up and Get on the Plane, Greenville to Baton Rouge and Angels and Fuselage. This line from Life in the Factory is one that drives everything home for me with respect to the band:

They had the fame and all the glory
But folks, it’s still some sad story when legend overshadows the songs and the band

I think it’s the songcraft and the near perfect execution of those songs that sets Lynyrd Skynyrd apart. Their superpower, if you will. And the great Ronnie Van Zant at the head of the band.

Sometimes I wonder about what their trajectory would have been if there had been no plane crash. And would southern rock have had some longer legs instead of morphing into generic rock? Street Survivors was a triumph and Steve Gaines seemed to inject new life into the band. A triple threat – guitar, songwriting and singing. And Ronnie Van Zant secure enough to let him take a turn on lead vocal.

P.S. A couple of deep tracks from the first album that I didn’t know until I bought the CD in the 2000’s are Things Goin’ On and Mississippi Kid. Love the old timey string band feel of the latter. And the former shows RVZ’s capacity for compassion and empathy for the those that are suffering (including those “in the ghetto”) and who he thinks is to blame.

Well, have you ever lived down in the ghetto?
Have you ever felt that cold wind blow?
Well if you don’t know what I mean
Won’t you stand up and scream
Because there’s things going on that you don’t know

Too many lives they’ve spent across the ocean
Too much money been spent upon the moon
Well, until they make it right
I hope they never sleep at night
They better make some changes and do it soon
Do it now, do it to it

Well they’re going ruin the air that we breathe
Lord have mercy
They’re gonna ruin us all, by and by
I’m telling all you beware
I don’t think they really care
I think they just sit up there
And just get high

I think the Tennessean stole your thunder on this.

Saw them in Charlotte Sep. 1, 2023 with ZZ Topp. What a great concert! ZZ is my favorite but Skynyrd took the show! Also saw them with Marshal Tucker at the Charlotte Coliseum in 72 or 73. Ronnie Van Zant fell off the back of the stage during Gimmie Three Steps while taking a drink of liquor. He was taken to the hospital. Bummer. MTB and Skynyrd jammed for s long time but we missed all the other great Skynyrd songs.