Lynyrd Skynyrd’s most recent album, Last of a Dyin’ Breed, came out in 2012.A new documentary promises to tell the full story of one of southern rock’s defining bands, warts and all.
The result has been a long string of replacements, leaving Rossington as the sole representative of the classic Skynyrd lineup. Original drummer Bob Burns, who played with Skynyrd from 1964 to 1975, also died in 2015 after crashing his car into a tree. Powell also died young, at age 56, of an apparent heart attack in 2009.
Wilkeson died in 2001 of chronic liver and lung disease he was only 49. The members either left, were asked to leave, or died. He was 37.Īlthough the worst seemed to be behind them by the ’90s, the reunited Skynyrd lineup’s luck did not endure. Collins was felled by pneumonia in 1989 and died shortly after in 1990. Collins, who was charged with manslaughter for Watts’s death, took the position of musical director of the group - and, as part of his plea bargain, addressed the band’s audience every night on tour from his wheelchair on the dangers of drunk driving. By 1987, it seemed solidified: The late Van Zant was replaced by brother Johnny, while Rossington, Pyle, Powell, and Wilkeson resumed their former duties. Three years later, an intoxicated Collins crashed his car in Jacksonville, killing his girlfriend Debra Lizama Watts and rendering him paralyzed from the waist down and with limited use of his upper body.Īt this point, talk of a Skynyrd-proper reconfiguration had been in the works for some time. Collins made another attempt by starting the Allen Collins Band, which included Wilkeson and Powell and released one album in 1983 to lukewarm response. The tragedy effectively splintered the band by 1982 and threw the grieving Collins into a spiral of substance abuse. Shortly before they were slated to embark on their debut tour in 1980, Collins’s wife, Kathy, died unexpectedly from a miscarriage-related hemorrhage. The Rossington-Collins Band lineup eventually was doomed as well. The new project did not include drummer Artimus Pyle, who - in another stroke of Skynyrd misfortune - had badly shattered his leg in a motorcycle accident. The remaining band members continued to make music through the ’80s under various configurations, most notably the Rossington-Collins Band, who took special pains to distance the new outfit from a “reborn” Skynyrd tag by recruiting a female lead singer, Dale Krantz. He survived the incident and admitted he was under the influence at the time, prompting bandmates Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Allen Collins to write “That Smell” - an ominous tune warning, “Say you’ll be all right come tomorrow, but tomorrow may not be here for you.” (Ironically, Rossington, now 65, is the sole member of the original lineup still performing in the band.) Trouble began for the hard-partying band a year before the plane crash, when guitarist Gary Rossington plowed his brand-new car into a tree along a Jacksonville, Fla., road. It is indisputably the creepiest prediction, but the fiery Street Survivors cover wasn’t the first prediction of deadly events for Skynyrd. In fact, Lynyrd Skynyrd have managed to earn the dubious distinction of “ unluckiest band in history” over the years. (Photo: AP)Īlthough the crash remains now and forever the darkest centerpiece in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s legend - as well as a breeding ground for gruesome urban legends surrounding the demise of various members - fans know quite well it’s far from the first or last tragedy the definitive Southern rockers endured. The small plane had 26 people onboard, and six were killed in the crash, including three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The wreckage of a twin-engine Convair 240 plane lies in a wooded area near McComb, Miss., on Oct.
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