I’ve enjoyed the classic rock songs of Lynyrd Skynyrd and admittedly have been among the crowd that thought they should have permanently hung it up when key original band members died in a plane crash. Which they did hang it up until 1990 when they tried to make their comeback.

As it turns out, I’ve been watching their 30 year concert on Vongo and they can still play the heck out of that working man rock and roll. I mean they can really jam. They are being fronted by Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie Van Zant’s brother and he sounds a lot like his brother. It’s almost creepy how good his vocals are and sort of reminds me of Steve Augeri singing the Steve Perry Journey songs.

In case you missed the details — and I have until today when I looked this up — Skynyrd has come out with six new studio albums with new material under various lineups since 1990:

2003 Vicious Cycle
2000 Christmas Time Again
1999 Edge of Forever
1997 Twenty
1994 Endangered Species
1991 Lynyrd Skynyd

A Skynyrd Christmas album, are they serious? Yeah, seems they were. Something just doesn’t seem right about going from Freebird into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I’m not sure how much these new albums suck but at least live they can keep playing as long as they want because they sound that good.

They haven’t exactly had any hits like they did in the 70’s though, not that I can name anyway, just like it’s difficult to know who is still in the band. Actually two original members are still playing in case you wondered too: guitarist Gary Rossington and keyboardist Billy Powell.. Over the course of their 30+ year music career they’ve had 22 members in the band. I’m trying to think of another rock band with so many revolving doors? Black Sabbath? Deep Purple?

The Lynyrd Skynrd story really is one of resilience, which is their own description. Playing songs that just don’t seem to get old. Yeah, Freebird and Sweet Home Alabama maybe those are tired but how about That Smell, Simple Man, Tuesday’s Gone, Gimme Three Steps … man, they had a number of good songs in a relatively short period of time.

Any other Skynyrd fans here? Gave up on them after the 70s? Contrary to popular belief (ok at least what I believe about them), they’re not all dead yet.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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