LYNYRD SKYNYRD - Asbury Park, New Jersey July 13, 1977

LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Asbury Park, NJ
July 13, 1977
By JAMES SIMON
Associated Press writer
ASBURY PARK, N.J. -
The rebellious, hell-raising image of rock groups is frequently just that — an image, say members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, a Florida band which does its best to uphold the rough and tumble ideal. “Nobody wants to read about ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm ‘ , bassist Leon Wilkeson said with a smile after the band ended a year’s tour with a concert at Convention Hall here. “I’d love to read an article when an interviewer says, ‘Well, I went down to interview the notorious rebels of rock ‘n’ roll, expecting to get a black eye in the process.’ I’d like him to write the truth — they don’t get as drunk as you think, they really don’t get as high and they really don’t fight as much as they’re built up to.” Wilkeson said.

Despite the disclaimer, Lynyrd Skynyrd (pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd ) cultivated the image carefully for four years as the band criss-crossed the country, giving 200 or more concerts a year of rowdy, guitar dominated rock and blues songs and working its way up to headline status. Stories of wild parties, drunken brawls and smashed television sets followed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and the rest of the band wherever they went.

“The band went on tour with the Who first, so I guess some of their insanity rubbed off,” said guitarist Steve Gaines, adding he hasn’t seen any “real violence” in his year with the band. Gaines replaced guitarist Ed King last summer in one of the band’s several personnel changes. He is one of three lead guitarists in the group who give Skynard a full, powerful sound on songs like the show closing “Free Bird,” one of the best extended songs to come out of the 1970s.

But even on the 11-minute “Free Bird,” which fans start calling for as soon as the band walks on stage, the band’s loose and ragged image hides the fact the song is as rigid as any three-minute AM radio hit.

“The song’s got a structure. And it’s always the same way, at least since I’ve played with the band anyway,” Gaines said. “That’s the song they used to play in clubs and Ronnie jokes that they used to throw it in in clubs because it’s a good time waster.” The band’s lineup includes singer Van Zant, bassist Wilkeson, guitarists Gaines. Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, drummer Artimus Pyle, keyboard player Billy Powell and several female backup singers. Most of the attention is on the guitarists, who trade off lead passages easily although their sound is so thick that Powell’s keyboards rarely can be heard.

GUITARIST STEVE GAINES

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DOCUMENTARY

Lynyrd Skynyrd - 1975

A SOUND OF THE SOUTH: LYNYRD SKYNYRD

Salina Journal, Salina, Kansas
June 29th 1975
By ERNEST LEOGRANDE

One of the strongest new sounds in rock music is something that’s been labeled Southern rock, and Lynryd Skynyrd is one of its representative names. Maybe not an easy one to pronounce, but a big one.

Try it this way, the way the band says to do it: Lehnerd Skinnerd. “It was made as a joke,” the band’s leader Ronnie Van Zant, said, “and we’re still gettin’ trouble with it.”

The name goes back to high school days when the band being formed by schoolmates Ronnie Van Zant vocalist, Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, guitarists and Bob Burns, drummer.

They had a gym teacher who used to tell them their hair was too long. They thought it would be a good joke to use his name (changed a little for safety’s sake) for their group. It stuck and now covers a band expanded to take in bassman Leon Wilkeson and keyboard man Billy Powell. Burns just dropped out, to be replaced by drummer Artimis Pyle, “Like in Gomer,” Ronnie said.

What the group used to do a lot was drive the 300 miles from Jacksonville, Fla. where they lived, to play dates in Atlanta, Ga., where Al Kooper discovered them and signed them to a record contract with his new label, Sounds of the South.

“The Allman Brothers were definitely the group that opened up the door for the Southern groups,” Ronnie said. “There are some young musicians down there that are very good. “The Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead had their scene. There was a scene in New York. Now the South has theirs. How long it will last I don’t know. I’m just glad we have it.”

The song which made them famous, “Free Bird”, is an excuberant excercise with sweeping, runaway guitar riffs , dedicated to Duane Allman. “All Southern groups associate with one another, ” Ronnie said.

The song, written by Ronnie and Allen, is a statement of the need to be free, on the road, and not bound by romantic entanglements. The group and road crew are not crazy about flying to gigs, so they’ve done what so many traditional country and western singers have done: bought and outfitted a bus for traveling.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s bus sleeps 12, has a living room with color TV and individual rooms for sleeping. It’s on the truckers’ radio band, a network linking commercial drivers so they can pass information back and forth. Drivers on this band take code names for their vehicles. So if you happen to tune into that band and you hear a message from Free Bird, you’ll know who it is.

Another of their songs, “Sweet Home Alabama”, also proved extremely popular. It was an answer to Neil Young’s “Southern Man”, which had had some hard things to say about life in the South. Ronnie said Al Kooper and Neil Young had bumped into each other and discussed “Sweet Home Alabama”, and there were no hard feelings.

“He was real happy about the song,” Ronnie said, which is hard to believe since at one point the song remarks, “Well, I hope Neil Young will remember/A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow!”

Also, later that night, with Lynyrd Skynyrd headlining a sold-out concert at New York City’s famed Academy of Music, Ronnie responded to the sight of some kids in the front seats waving a Confederate flag and stated, in blunt terms, as the song struck its opening chords, that he didn’t care what Neil Young thought.

At one point in our conversation that afternoon Ronnie had been talking about how much emphasis he put on his arrangements for the group, especially since it has 3 lead guitars. “We put our music together, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “Times we all play together, other times 2 of us play harmony and one rhythm and then at times one will just play the chinks, fillin’ in.”

He said his inspiration for arranging had been the way the Buffalo Springfield worked, which is a bit ironic when you know that Neil Young was one of the key men in the Buffalo Springfield. But then there’s a theory that true art exists on its own, separate from political or sociological feelings.

Anyway, if Ronnie is representative of Southern men, he’s a good representative — genial, accommodating and with a sense of humor. He did lapse into some criticism of New York City as representative of the North. “It’s ridiculous,” he said, “to come from places in the South where you can get all you can eat for $2.50 and pay $12 here and not get filled up.”

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DOCUMENTARY

Lynyrd Skynyrd Video “Whiskey Rock A Roller” – Lynyrd Skynyrd Dixie

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Guitar Army

LYNYRD SKYNYRD: Hell On Wheels Puts On The Brakes
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, October 24, 1976
By Cameron Crowe

When Lynyrd Skynyrd finally broke into the top 10 last month with it’s fifth album, “One More From The Road,” singer-founder Ronnie Van Zant could hardly wait to celebrate by canceling all future interviews. “This band doesn’t owe anything to anybody,” he declared happily. “Most of the media people, especially the press, have consistently portrayed us as either children or a bunch of rowdy drunks. That may or may not be true, but I know I’d much rather deal with the audiences that really put us there.”

After 10 grueling years of almost constant touring, Dixie’s Lynyrd Skynyrd are anything but children. Their notoriously long record of pillage and arrest however, does prove one thing. To the absolute delight of it’s hell-raising following, the band has boozed and brawled it’s way to the top. But now, bolstered by the confidence that only long-sought success can bring, 27 year old Van Zant is talking about changing that too.

“We like to have a good time and we will raise hell, but I assure you there won’t be as much skull-busting going on anymore.” Nursing a whisky in the hotel bar before Skynyrd’s recent apperance at the sold-out Starlight Amphitheater, Van Zant spoke in almost scholarly tones. “There was a point when it looked like everyone was going to be a (Keith) Moon in this band. That doesn’t work. Televisions out the window, fistfights over mistakes in the show… now, instead of people punching each other out, we just levy a fine. The best way to hit a man is in his pocket. Hitting him does no good. Breaking up a hotel room doesn’t change anything.”

“Our manager hit me with a bill the other day for $29,000 worth of damages. Some people work a long time for $29,000 and I tore up that much without even thinking about it. I can’t believe it… and it won’t happen again. Before the success of the live album, (“One More From The Road”), there was a lot of heavy pressure on us, which is no real excuse, I know. But we’ve been trying very hard to become a little bit more professional in our business. Just in our business though. We’d be crazy to start dressing up our stage. And the playing will always be as rough-house as always. I promise you that.”

Formed while the members were still attending high school in Jacksonville, Florida, Skynyrd was the master plan of Van Zant and guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. The name of the group comes from their gym coach, Leonard Skinner, who expelled them for long hair. Now a real estate salesman, Skinner introduced the band at a recent show in their hometown.

“The whole idea of the group,” recalls Van Zant, “was decided in the very beginning. We’ve stuck with it ever since.” It was, basically, to hone their hard rock cum country-blues material into a dense three guitar attack. Adding former Strawberry Alarm Clock guitarist Ed King, keyboard man Billy Powell, bassist Leon Wilkeson and drummer Bob Burns, the band was complete. Their goal? Van Zant: “To have fun, what else?”

It was a good thing. During their six years on the Southern bar grind, there was little else to be had. “Talk about dues, we paid a damn ton of ‘em,” cracks Van Zant. “So many that if things ever went too smoothly, it would ruin the group.”

Eventually, the huge breakthrough success of the Allman Brothers Band, another guitar oriented outfit from the South, paved the way for Skynyrd’s signing with MCA Records in the summer of ’73. Today, Gregg Allman’s recent bitter revelations that his band broke up this year with only $100,000 to split six ways have left Van Zant quieted by the ironic turn of events. “When Skynyrd is through, we will have probably quadrupled that per person,” he somberly reflects. “But if it hadn’t been for them, (Allman Brothers Band), we wouldn’t have gotten one penny.”

Van Zant also refuses to gloat over or publicize the fact that Skynyrd – with three gold and two platinum albums to it’s credit – is now easily the South’s biggest band. “If you ask me,” he says, “we’re closer to the classic British rock groups like Free then anything else.”

Van Zant even brashly dismisses the hit single “Sweet Home Alabama”, Skynyrd’s chest pounding reply to Neil Young’s “Southern Man” as “more of a joke than anything else.” He takes a gulp of of Jack Daniels, “Hey, I love Neil Young. My wife plays his records around the house all the time. He even dug the song himself. He understood that we weren’t serious. You gotta write about something. It’s tough.”

In the two years since “Sweet Home Alabama” though, writing has been the least of Skynyrd’s problems. Drummer Bob Burns – swiftly replaced by Artimus Pyle – was the first to bail out of the group’s never ending tour schedule. Integral writer and instrumentalist Ed King was next to leave in mid-’75, this time out of “total exhaustion”. Initially, the group attempted to restructure it’s sound around the remaining two guitars. Veteran producer Tom Dowd, (who has worked with everyone from Otis Redding to Eric Clapton), was called in to replace their original mentor, Al Kooper. The result was last year’s “Gimme Back My Bullets”.

While Dowd has made enthusiastic believers of the group, (“He taught us more then we ever thought we’d want to learn,” claims Allen Collins), “Bullets” remains the least successful of Skynyrd’s albums.

“Tom is still the best and only producer for this group,” Van Zant states flatly. “We were going for a completely different sound… and it didn’t work. We had always been so heavy and muddy, we decided to make a clean Lynyrd Skynyrd album. The material was good, it was just too… refined.”

The band learned a quick lesson about it’s fans. “We decided immediately to do an honest live album with three guitarists,” he continues, “and get back into the thing that had always worked so well. We had always been saving a Skynyrd live album as our trump. An intact recording of the band in concert. No overdubbing… no ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd Comes Alive’ for us. All we had to do was find a third guitarist.

After auditioning such luminaries as Leslie West and Muscle Shoals session whiz Wayne Perkins, the band finally settled on Steve Gaines, the unknown guitarist brother of one of Skynyrd’s backup girls. “I expect we’ll all be in Steve’s shadow one day,” Van Zant boasts. “This kid is a writing and playing fool. Just wait and see. He’s already scared everybody else into playing their best in years.”

As for maturation of his fellow band mates, Van Zant is decidedly less sure. “We were babies when we started this band,” he states, “and, to me, the other guys still are. There was a time when I’d get really drunk in this bar and say, ‘Who is the meanest mother here?’ You got a date with me outside.’ For the hell of it. The other guys are mostly still at that point. They’ll learn.”

Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, both car crash victims last Labor Day weekend, were slapped with hefty fines. “It’s a terrible thing when you get behind the wheel and you’re so drunk that you can’t drive a car to begin with. Those boys will pay for it. Allen hit a parked Volkswagen and knocked it across an empty parking lot. That was just a fender-bender compared to Gary’s.”

Rossington’s well publicized accident forced Skynyrd off the bill with Aerosmith at it’s recent Anaheim Stadium show. “I can’t tell you how mad I got at him for that,” fumes Van Zant. “We’re glad he’s gonna make it, he’s tremendously lucky to be alive… but it was his fault. He passed out at the wheel of his brand new Ford Torino, with his foot on the gas. He knocked down a telephone pole, split an oak tree and did $7,000 worth of damage to a house. That’s being just plain stupid. I told him that on his hospital bed.”

Van Zant shrugs, “You know, the biggest change in myself that I’ve noticed is that for the first time I’m really thinking about the future. I’m 27 now and I’ve got a baby girl and I plan to stick around and watch her grow up. I also plan to collect for the last 10 years of self abuse.”

With “One More From The Road” only accelerating up the charts, there is still no end in sight. Future plans include a television special, the group’s promotion of a Toyota automobile named ‘Freebird’, (after their in concert tour de force), a country album from Van Zant, another Lynyrd Skynyrd studio album and, of course, a worldwide tour. Just how does a man keep his sanity throughout?

Ronnie Van Zant smiles softly to himself and calls over a cocktail waitress. “Bring me another drink,” he says.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DOCUMENTARY

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Steve Gaines

Florida Times-Union, Saturday October 22 1977
Skynyrd Guitarist Gives His Last Interview
By Roy Simpson – Staff Writer

(EDITOR’S NOTE: On Oct. 15, Times-Union Reporter Roy Simpson taped an interview with two members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band – Allen Collins, guitarist, and Steve Gaines, guitarist and vocalist – at Collins’ Jacksonville home, little thinking that it would be perhaps the last interview for Gaines, who died in the crash of the group’s chartered plane Thursday as did Cassie Gaines, his sister and a backup vocalist for the group.

Collins was seriously hurt in the crash, but is listed in stable condition in a Mississippi hospital.

Gaines was the newest member of the band, having joined in mid-1976, and had participated in only two albums; a live album which used most old tunes by the group and the newest album, “Street Survivors” in which he played a prominent part both as a musician and vocalist and as a songwriter. He had moved to Jacksonville within the past month to be closer to the band. The following is a partial transcript of the interview.)

T-U to Steve Gaines: How long have you been playing Steve?

Steve: Since I was 14 and I’m 28.

T-U: That’s a pretty good while. You’re from Seneca, Missouri? Is that it?

Steve: No, I’m from Oklahoma.

T-U: Was that wrong on the releases?

Steve: No.. you see, when I joined the band I lived on this farm that was right on the Oklahoma/Missouri border. It was in northeast Oklahoma, actually, but I had a Missouri address. It was really strange living on the border. I had to pay long distance to call Oklahoma. It was just weird…

T-U: You’re from Oklahoma then? You lived on a farm there you said?

Steve: Yeah, well I didn’t actually farm. I rented the house and this guy had eight acres and some cattle on it. It was real nice, you know. It’s really pretty up there. We played in Springfield, Missouri, not too long ago and we had everybody down to see the Spring River. We put in canoes and floated down and we had a big cookout. Played baseball. You know – had our day off. It was great. We flew our chartered plane into the Mudville airport – I call it Mudville. It’s Miami, you know, I call it Mudville.

T-U: Miami, Oklahoma. Is that where it is?

Steve: Uh-huh

T-U: Miami, Oklahoma. Sounds pretty niffty.

Steve: (quietly) It’s a dump.

T-U: How did it come about that you got into the group. How were the introductions made?

Steve: Well, I was living there in West Seneca, Oklahoma, you know. And the band I was playing with, we were just playing bar gigs and that particular week that Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing in Kansas City, Missouri, we weren’t playing – so I went. If we had been playing, I wouldn’t have been there. Luckily, it worked out that way and I went up there and Cass (Gaines’ sister) was there and I got in to go to the soundcheck and I listened to the soundcheck and everything…So this was the first time I’d met everybody. Cassie arranged with Ronnie and everybody…and they asked me if I wanted to jam with them. So I said o.k.

T-U: You mean onstage with them or offstage?

Steve: …Just jumped up on stage…

T-U: You mean it was actually during the performance?

Steve: Yeah, during “T For Texas.” Man, I was thrilled to death cause we had a lot of friends there who had come to see Cassie, so I jumped up on the stage. It was just…well, hell. I just loved it!

T-U: So when did it actually come about that you were asked to join?

Steve: Well, about two weeks after that. (After I played with them) I just shook everybody’s hand and left the stage. I didn’t see anybody after the gig or anything. Then Ronnie, (Ronnie Van Zant, the group’s lead vocalist), called me up two weeks later and wanted to know if I’d come to Myrtle Beach. We were playing at that time – the band I was playing with, which was my band – and I said, well boys, I got to go check this gig out. I was really digging it (the old band) but we just weren’t doing anything and it was just a pain in the (posterior) and nothing was going on…things were always “maybe”.

T-U: It gets frustrating doesn’t it?

Steve: Yeah. It was real frustrating. I was getting really down. I was thinking about going on the Holiday Inn circuit. I’d never done that, you know. I always played…I mean, to me that’s the same thing as going to a factory…

T-U: Were there any problems in transition for you. You know, playing bar gigs to all of a sudden doing tours with one nighters and being on the road and the whole bit. Or were you travelling quite a bit with your group, just on a smaller scale?

Steve: …I was doing everything in the old group. I was singing. I was writing all the songs. I was playing guitar. I was booking the band; managing us. You know it was crazy. I couldn’t get anybody to do it for me…Now, I just jumped into this (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and all I have to do is play my guitar. They tell me where to go, there’s my room, here’s your key and that’s it. It’s so easy, you know. Takes some adjustments to get used to that.

T-U: You live down here now. I understand you just bought a house?

Steve: (Describes location of house)

T-U: You think you’re going to like living in Jacksonville?

Steve: I love it here, man. You know, I couldn’t have asked for anything better if I just sat – before I met these guys or anything – if I just sat and tried to think of what I always wanted to do. Man, it would be to make a record and get it out…and there it is…and I’m living in town and Florida’s the greatest place in the country to live.

T-U: (to Allen Collins) Allen, as a guitarist Steve seems to be taking a prominent role, at least listening to the cassette of the new album…how do you think he fits in with the band?

Allen: Fabulous…

T-U: What do you think Steve? You’ve got a family, a wife and a child right? How do you see this? As a career? What does a band get, usually, off an album that ships gold?

Steve: This is like a start of what I want to do. This is the beginning. I hope that I can be good enough to keep on going, whether this band goes or not. I hope to be playing for the rest of my life in some way…this is so great because it gives me the independence to think about stuff like that. Before it was just week to week: “Hey, can we play here? How about 75 per cent, huh?” It was crazy, I hated it, you know? I’m glad to be out of that now. I can just…My head’s cleared out and I can just think about music more…This is all I ever dreamed about now, you know? Just doing this.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DOCUMENTARY

If you are a true fan of rock n roll, you know that Lynyrd Skynyrd epitomizes “Southern Rock”. Classic rock stations world-wide continue to spin LS every day. Fans of Lynyrd Skynyrd are true die-hards, never letting go of the principles they were raised with. I was raised the same way. I was recently connected to Gene Odum from a true southern lady named Dianne Graham. A lot of things have entailed since that day.

Gene Odom was Ronnie Van Zant’s best friend growing up in a small town, and his bodyguard during the skyrocket that launched Lynyrd Skynyrd into rock n roll history. Gene and Ronnie continued to be the same best friends through the whirlwind, as they were as little boys fishing together. This story isn’t only about one of the most famous bands in rock n roll history, but one of families facing the challenges of fame.

Gene has written a book detailing the whole experience that no one else on this earth knows. The book will shortly be a movie that will finally tell us the entire real story. I can say that I am still in awe this man has trusted me with information that very few people know. I am just a dude that grew up listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd….and today, I stand to be a part of the healing process. Yea…I’m trippin’…The things Gene told me on the phone were some of the most moving things I have ever heard. After I got off the phone with him, I was pretty shaken, and it takes ALOT to shake me. Here are a few things he said. Here we go…

QUESTION: Can you remember the first album you and Ronnie listened to together?

ANSWER: Not right now. I am old school…mainly country. The one Merle Haggard made after he got out of the pen comes to mind. Ronnie listened to a lot of stuff.
QUESTION: What did you and Ronnie enjoy growing up?

ANSWER: Man, we loved fishing. We would drag a flat-bottomed boat for miles. We were one of the first I know that started liking artificial lures.

QUESTION: Who got the most women in high school?

ANSWER: Man, I never made it to high school. I had to get a job. Ronnie didn’t stay in high school long. He got a girl pregnant, and had to get a job. Hell, he still gets more women even after he died.

QUESTION: What’s the first thing you remember after the plane crash?

ANSWER: The first thing I remember is waking up in a hospital. No one told me during my recovery Ronnie had died. I guess they thought it wouldn’t be good for me during recovery. When I was told I needed to go see Ronnie, I didn’t know it would be his grave. I remember laying Ronnie down in the floor of the plane after the show. He said something about some girls giving him some sleeping pills. He could have been up all night with them, too. I don’t know. I tried to wake him up before the plane crashed. I picked him up and strapped him in between Allen and Gary.

Gene told me a lot more, but I really don’t know what to do with it. I will say the movie, if done correctly, should be one of a kind. I am truly honored to even be a part of the whole process. We are coordinating a book-signing tour for Gene. If you can’t make it, you can get his book here www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com You can also make new “Friends” here

Gene not only survived the plane crash, he also survived seeing families and people he knew and loved torn apart by silly legal entanglements. He is still alive, and he is my friend.

Lynyrd Skynyrd "Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock" - Coach Leonard Skinner, Larry Shankle, Wendell Bristol

by Billy Cox
FLORIDA TODAY June 2, 2006

Leonard Skinner can’t remember exactly which young rebel he sent to the assistant principal’s office for dress-code violations at Robert E. Lee High School in the late 1960s. Maybe Gary Rossington, maybe Bob Burns, he can’t be sure.

Either way, next thing he knew, the Jacksonville gym coach was driving down the road one day when he heard the radio announcer say, “Now here’s a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd.” And Skinner’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, for obvious reasons.

On Saturday, the 73-year-old namesake for one of Southern rock’s seminal bands will appear at Space Coast Harley’s Rock-N-Rumble festivities in Palm Bay for a day-long fundraising party. The 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. gig will feature raffles, live Southern rock performances by Red and Ghost Riders, and culminates with an XL883 Sportster giveaway. Proceeds will benefit the Brevard Alzheimer’s Foundation.

Skinner will be joined by Gene Odom, the Skynyrd security chief and author who survived the band’s tragic 1977 plane crash that killed six members of the entourage in Mississippi, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Both will sign autographs from 10 a.m. until noon.

Formerly known as One Percent, Lynyrd Skynyrd assumed its legendary name as a sarcastic jab at Skinner, who had drummer Burns and guitarist Rossington in his gym class. Decades later, the Army veteran insists he was just following orders.

“We had this new school superintendent who invoked a dress code,” recalls Skinner, who also coached baseball, hoops and football. “For instance, you had to have at least two fingers worth of space between your hair and your eyebrows, your hair couldn’t touch your collar, and no sideburns were allowed below the ears.

“Girls had to wear dresses that didn’t go more than two fingers above their knees, everybody had to wear socks, if you had pants with loops, you had to wear a belt. It was this huge deal.”

Skinner says his job was to be on the lookout for scofflaws, and he ordered a longhaired One Percenter to the assistant principal’s office. The kid was under suspension until he complied with the rules.

“Well, he came back the next day with his daddy,” Skinner recollects, “and his daddy said, ‘My son helps support the family by playing in the band, and you need long hair to play in a band these days.’ The assistant principal just says, ‘Buy a wig.’ ”

It wasn’t until Lynyrd Skynyrd hit it big that the band began to warm up to Skinner, who still lives in Jacksonville. “We kinda tolerated each other for awhile,” he says. “But then it got to the point where they even invited me to introduce them to the crowd at the (Jacksonville) Coliseum. I’ll never forget it. They paid me $100.”

Saturday’s “Rock-N-Rumble Day” will mark a milestone for Skinner, when he and his wife Rosemary observe their 50th wedding anniversary.

Contact Cox at 242-3774 or bcox@flatoday.net

Coach Leonard Skinner, Susan Hughey, and Gene Odom

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s namesake “Coach” Leonard Skinner photos

Lynyrd Skynyrd's namesake "Coach" Leonard Skinner, Susan Hughey, and Gene Odom www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com	Lynyrd Skynyrd "Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock" Race Truck Billy Webb, Leonard Skinner, Wendell Bristol, Gene Odom, and Larry Shankle www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com
Lynyrd Skynyrd "Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock" www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com	Larry Shankle & Leonard Skinner www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com
Leonard Skinner Realty www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com	"Coach" Leonard Skinner the Original Westside Warrior www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com
"Coach" Leonard Skinner and Circle Track Editor Larry Jewett www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com	Leonard Skinner autographs hood of Lynyrd Skynyrd "Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock" Race Truck www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com
"Coach" Leonard Skinner www.LynyrdSkynyrdDixie.com

LYNYRD SKYNYRD DOCUMENTARY