RSS FeedLynyrd Skynyrd – Former Lee Coach Recalls Experience With Group
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Leonard Skinner
Jacksonville Journal, October 21, 1977
Former Lee Coach Recalls His Experience With Group
By CHARLES PATTON
Journal Staff Writer
During the 1960′s a group of young musicians of Lee High School formed a rock band known as the One Per Cent. There was a dress code at the time which forbid long hair and the basketball coach sent Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Bob Burns to the principal’s office because they hadn’t complied with that dress code. The teacher was Leonard Skinner and in his “honor” the group, which also included lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, changed it’s name to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Van Zant was one of three members of the group who died when a chartered airplane crashed near McComb, Miss., attempting an emergency landing. Rossington was listed in crtical condition and Collins in stable condition. Burns is no longer with the group.
“The story is an unusual one,” Skinner recalled today. “I really didn’t know who they were until they named a band after me. There was no personal involvement. I was a coach and they were students and apparently I sent some of the members to the principal’s office.”
When he learned the group had been named after him, Skinner said his reaction was “kind of mixed really. When I first heard about it, they were a local band. I guess I could have sued or some such garbage, but it really didn’t bother me.”
The group spent seven years playing around Jacksonville. An apperance in Atlanta in 1973 led to a recording contract on the Sounds of the South label. “We used to really like playing at the Forrest Inn more than anywhere, but it was fun to play at the Comic Book, Woodstock, Sugar Bowl and all those old places,” Rossington recalled in an interview with the Journal in 1973.
Their first album, “Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd,” was an immediate success and MCA bought out the Sounds of the South contract. After the band had become successful, they became friendly with Skinner, who had by that time left teaching to go into the real estate business.
“After I had left coaching and the band caught on, they had me introduce them before one of their concerts,” Skinner recalled. He said that he owned the lounge The Still on San Juan Avenue and members of the group would often show up to jam with the house band.
Skinner was asked to pose for the cover of the group’s third album, “Nuthin’ Fancy,” in front of his real estate office. Skinner’s phone number could be seen on a sign on the cover and he said he began receiving phone calls from around the country at all hours of the day.
“They’d say ‘Who’s speaking?’ and I’d say ‘Leonard Skinner’, and they’d say, ‘Far out.’ Which it really wasn’t at four in the morning. I’d have to explain that I was not a member of the band.” Skinner said that he had recently finished making a 20 minute movie with the band which was intended to be shown with the soon-to-be-released feature film “Grease.”
The news of the plane crash came as a shock to the former nemesis turned friend of the musicians, “I’m just sick over this tragedy.”
Vintage photo of Lynyrd Skynyrd Band at the height of their musical brilliance in 1977. LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com
Lynyrd Skynyrd play FreeBird at Knebworth England on August 21, 1976
