The first time Rickey Medlocke played the outro lead line from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird was a real test of the guitarist’s mettle – but fortunately, he received Gary Rossington’s seal of approval when he tackled the iconic guitar solo during an early rehearsal.

Medlocke first joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in the early 1970s, completing a brief stint as the band’s drummer. Two decades later, he’d rejoin the band, but not as a percussionist – as their latest electric guitar player.

He’s been with the band ever since, and one of his key responsibilities has been to help take care of Allen Collins' Free Bird guitar solo – a lead effort so legendary that it is widely regarded as undoubtedly one of the finest (and most popular) fretboard workouts of all time.

After rejoining Lynyrd Skynyrd at the behest of founding member Gary Rossington, Medlocke quickly went to work studying the song’s speedy pentatonic runs and, having closely watched Collins compose and record the original effort, was quickly ready to navigate the solo.

Before long, it was time to put it all into practice during a rehearsal with Rossington and the rest of the band.

“When I came back into the band in ’96, I knew that was going to be my lead,” Medlocke told Guitar World. “I broke it down, and I was the drummer in Muscle Shoals when we cut the original Free Bird. I watched Allen, and I knew the licks.

“When I joined in ’96, we had four days of rehearsal in Fort Myers, Florida, and when the day came to play Free Bird, Gary walked in, and goes, ‘Alright, today’s the day.’ I went, ‘Yup. Sure is.’”

Medlocke was fully prepared for the moment. In fact, the first time he played Free Bird, he nailed it, and received the highest praise possible from Rossington.

“I went, ‘Hell, let’s play the damn thing now,’” Medlocke continues. “We rehearsed all the way through the set, got to Free Bird, started it, and when the ending started, I played it on my old reverse-body Firebird.

“At the end of it, Gary came over, shook my hand, and goes, ‘Unbelievable job, Rickey. I couldn’t ask for any better.’”

To this day, Medlocke is in charge of performing the Free Bird solo, and every time he runs through it, it gives him the exact same feeling.

“Every night I play it, the one thing I really love is the energy level it takes from within you. When you get going, and your adrenaline is flowing to where it just takes over, I mean, I know what I’m doing, but it’s like my hands are on autopilot. And when it’s over, I have to snap myself back into reality.”

Right from their self-titled 1969 debut album, Southern rock's founding fathers, the Allman Brothers Band, established an impeccably high standard of lead guitar playing as one of the genre’s central tenets, thanks to Duane Allman's Jedi-level slide work, Dickey Betts’ dexterous, melodic style, and the duo’s pioneering twin harmonies.

When their Jacksonvile, Florida contemporaries Lynyrd Skynyrd launched their recording career with Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd’ (1973), the difference in their approaches became immediately apparent.

While the Allmans are best remembered for Allman and Betts' virtuosity, and their traiblazing jam band style, Skynyrd’s legacy was signposted in the timeless quality of their songs, and the razor-tight chemistry with which they were performed.

Their classic tracks are loaded with bluesy solos, which “...are signature parts that everybody in the audience can sing,” current guitarist Rickey Medlocke astutely observes.

In the 70s, Skynyrd fluctuated between two and three guitar line-ups, each player layering their distinctively-voiced licks to form a cohesive solo, sometimes playing lead breaks in blazing unison.

“You perform as a team,” Medlocke explains to GW. “I was there in the Hell House, playing drums. Ronnie Van Zant was Skynyrd’s strongest point, the most incredible writer. And he got us together as a team – he wanted a band that, when they walked out there, was a machine.”

Medlocke has unique insight into Skynyrd’s sound, having served as their drummer between 1971 and 1972, when Van Zant, and founding guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, were crafting legendary songs like Freebird.

After his own successful career as vocalist/guitarist with Blackfoot, Medlocke was invited by Rossington to rejoin Skynyrd in 1996, as part of the reunion initially begun in 1987 in tribute to Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister Cassie (backing vocals), who’d lost their lives in the tragic 1977 plane crash that ended the original band's career.

Tasked by Rossington with faithfully representing the late Allen Collins’ style, Medlocke has also played a key creative role on all Skynyrd’s post-'96 albums.

Since Rossington's passing in 2023, he and frontman Johnny Van Zant are honoring their fallen bandmate’s wishes in driving the band forward. Now, Medlocke joins Guitar World for a run-down of his Skynyrd guitar predecessors and partners.

Allen Collins

“Allen was a huge Eric Clapton fan,” Medlocke reveals, “and he was into Jimmy Page, Hendrix, and Jeff Beck, like myself. Allen [took] that influence and formulated his own thing.”

Collins' frequently-imitated solo on Freebird is a masterclass in composing memorable minor and major pentatonic phrases, and sequencing them dynamically to reach a searing crescendo, balancing speed and precision.

Collins infused every note with his customary fire and passion, setting a template not just for Skynyrd, but for Southern rock.

Gary Rossington

“Gary idolized Paul Kossoff,” Medlocke recalls. “We all saw Free at the skating rink in Jacksonville. Gary always wanted to play unique signature melodies.”

Like Kossoff, Rossington achieved powerful results with a minimum of notes, as his gut-punch double stops and wailing bends on Saturday Night Special attest.

Also responsible for Freebird’s slide guitar lines, Medlocke notes that, “...in his latter years, Gary loved playing more slide than anything.” Fittingly, the band’s most recent album, Last of a Dyin’ Breed, opens with Rossington breaking out the bottleneck.

Ed King

Joining as bassist in 1972 for Pronounced..., King then became third lead guitarist until 1975, returning between 1987 until 1996.

“Incredible guitar player,” Medlocke says. “Sweet Home Alabama – that lead, it's just unique. He used seashells as a pick, that's where he gets all that squank from on that Stratocaster.”

King’s idea of playing G major pentatonic/G major blues licks over Sweet Home’s borderline G major/D mixolydian progression came to him “...in a dream,” he told this writer. “I got up, picked up my guitar, and played it as I saw it in the dream. Sure enough, it was great.”

Steve Gaines

In 1976, Skynyrd chose Cassie Gaines’ unknown kid brother for the third guitar slot over Mountain’s Leslie West and session ace Wayne Perkins. Ronnie Van Zant told writer Cameron Crowe, “The kid’s a writing and playing fool. He’s... scared everybody... into playing their best in years.”

Gaines' lightning-fast chops and “soulfulness,” as Medlocke aptly puts it, light up 1977's Street Survivors with genuinely dazzling moments like I Know A Little’s intro, and his fluid, lyrical lead break at 0:57 and closing exchange of ascending licks and harmonies with Collins on That Smell.

Randall Hall

When paralysis sustained in a 1986 car accident prevented him from playing on the 1987 tribute tour, Allen Collins selected friend and solo band member Hall as his replacement.

“I knew Randall when we were teenagers,” Medlocke says. “He was well known around Jacksonville – a great guitar player. He took a lot of directions off of Allen. He did great.”

Hall's nimble, bluesy style sat well alongside Rossington's measured approach until his departure in 1993.

Mike Estes

Hall’s replacement, present until 1996, was also a friend of Collins, and of Skynyrd stage manager Craig Reed, who invited Estes to collaborate on songs for 1993’s The Last Rebel.

After befriending King and Rossington, Estes joined for Endangered Species (1994), an acoustic album aimed at the country market, co-writing the highlight Devil In The Bottle.

Rickey Medlocke

Blackfoot's classic albums from Strikes (1979) through Highway Song Live (1982) marked Medlocke out as a ferocious lead guitarist, able to fire off slide licks so sharp you could shave a yak with ‘em.

Considered an original Skynyrd member by Rossington, Collins, and Ronnie Van Zant, Medlocke wrote, played drums and guitar, and sang, on the pre-fame Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.

Sharing influences and a love of Gibson Firebirds with Collins, Medlocke re-energized the reunion-era band in 1996, just as Steve Gaines had the original.

“The exact words out of Gary's mouth were, ‘Rickey, you're the closest thing to Allen I could hope for, and I want to make this band rock again,’” he recalls.

Asked for a favorite track from recent albums, Medlocke chooses drop-tuned bruiser Still Unbroken.

“That was an old riff that I had laying around, I loved playing the lead to it. I'm still a very heavy rocker, because that's what Blackfoot were based off of.”

Hughie Thomasson

Described to this writer by his Outlaws bandmate, Freddie Salem, as “...one of the best American guitarists ever born; the finesse of Chet Atkins and the fury of Jimi Hendrix,” Thomasson would sharpen his picks to rip out biting, warp-speed licks from a glass-toned Strat on classics like There Goes Another Love Song.

Recruited simultaneously with Medlocke, Thomasson remained for nine years, reforming the Outlaws in 2005.

“I loved playing with him,” Medlocke enthuses. “Hughie used to do the beginning of ...Alabama as an instrumental, and it was brilliant. We wish he'd stayed.”

Mark Matejka

“Johnny [Van Zant] knew of Mark,” Medlocke says of Thomasson’s replacement, “and he fit the bill.

“Mark is a very talented player, very educated. He knows that fretboard, and chord structures, like nobody I've ever seen. When we're onstage playing Tuesday's Gone, he adds these little inversions against what I'm playing. He knows every chord in the book.”

Matejka’s lead work in Skynyrd is equally impressive; check out his fleet-fingered, Albert Lee-style hybrid picking on I Know A Little.

Damon Johnson

Prior to playing with Alice Cooper, Thin Lizzy, and Black Star Riders, Johnson's band, Brother Cane, supported Skynyrd in 1993.

Brought in as a substitute while Gary Rossington recovered from heart surgery in 2021, Johnson was kept on Rossington’s insistence. The two played together in 2023 at a gig released this year as Celebrating 50 Years: Live at the Ryman.

“Little did we know, it would be Gary's last show,” Medlocke says. “Gary insisted Damon stay there, next to him, with an acoustic guitar. That was a special calling, insisted [on] by Gary.

“I miss Gary, it's still a very sore spot in my heart. We were very fortunate to get Damon. But the stipulation was to play the exact licks, go for the exact tone. He's using Gary's original rig, because Gary requested it. Damon's done an incredible job. The audiences, for the most part, have accepted it.”

In conclusion, Medlocke surmises, “All the guitar players that have been in this band have been unique, and I salute them.”

Looking ahead, he reveals that, “Johnny and I have got a lot of material that we never recorded. When I first joined Skynyrd, he was only 10 years old, I've known him that long. We’ve even got some of Gary on tape, talking.

“If we do another record, I would hope that Damon would bring that essence of Gary into [it]. Johnny and I are gonna make a decision, along with management, and see about doing a new record.”

First-call Nashville studio guitar ace, Justin Ostrander, has had his fair share of anecdotes. He has, after all, featured on over 20 number-one hit country records, with his recording credits including Steven Tyler, Cody Johnson, Luke Bryan, and David Lee Murphy, to name a mere few.

Being a busy session guitarist means keeping an eye out for guitars and accessories that can give you an edge over other players and help you land the gig – and, in Ostrander's case, one of his trump cards is a Coricidin bottle slide...

The story starts with Ostrander's search for an offset, specifically a Jazzmaster, that he could add to his arsenal.

“So Dan, of Danocaster [Guitars in Nashville] fame, is a huge Fender offset nerd, and I bought a Tele from him a few years ago,” he tells Vertex Effects.

“He said, ‘Well, if you find one that you think you want to buy, let me know, and I'll go with you and we'll check it out. I know those guitars inside and out, or I could just build you one.’”

Ostrander explains he scoured the menagerie of guitar stores in Nashville, but he still didn't find anything that tickled his fancy.

“So I said, ‘Okay, let's do a build then,’ and he asked me what color I wanted. And I said, ‘You know, I've always really liked that Burgundy Mist Metallic from the ’60s.” Dan worked his magic, and lo and behold, the guitar was finished – but, as Ostrander puts it, there's another cool part to the story...

“I went to play it at his house and to pick it up. He told me, ‘No pressure. Play it. See if you like it.’ And he actually had this slide sitting on his [Fender] Deluxe Reverb. And so I picked it up, and I started goofing off.”

The slide wasn't just any slide. As Ostrander notes, “I was like, ‘Man, this sounds different than all the glass slides I have,’ and I noticed that it's kind of wavy on the sides, and it's got this little logo on it.

“It was this old Coricidin bottle – one of the ones that people pay way too much money for on eBay. And I was like, ‘You know what you've got here? Like, this is a really great slide.’”

Traditional bottles of the cough and cold medicine Coricidin, from which DIY glass slides were made, were favored by Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, and Gary Rossington, and famously formed a key part of Duane Allman's signature tone.

They have since taken on a life of their own, with vintage bottles fetching insane amounts on the secondary market.

“And he goes, ‘If you take the guitar, you can take the slide.’ And I was like, ‘Are you sure? Because the last time I saw one for sale on eBay, somebody wanted $300 for it.’”

“I mean, it had the original label in it and everything,” Ostrander details. “But that's literally the Duane Allman slide, and it's real glass. It's not like the Pyrex thing that people do now. And so I got a free slide with my sweet Jazzmaster.”

However, as the guitarist explains, there's a downside to playing such a highly sought-after slide...

“I'm terrified to play at most places because I don't want to drop it!” he adds with a laugh. “Especially [if] backstage has a concrete floor.”

In other session legend tales, Dann Huff recently talked about his intimidating experience recording with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones for the first time.

Charlie Starr has opened up on his experiences of playing one of the most iconic Gibson guitars of all time when he performed a Lynyrd Skynyrd medley using Gary Rossington’s ‘Free Bird’ Les Paul/SG.

In November last year, Starr made headlines when he took to the stage with Rossington’s famed ‘Free Bird’ electric guitar to perform a mash-up of Free Bird and Tuesday’s Gone.

The surprise guest appearance from the legendary 1961 model (originally dubbed a Les Paul in 1961 despite its SG shape owing to naming peculiarities of that year) was part of a new project initiated by the Rossington family and Chicago Music Exchange (CME).

Indeed, the CME was announced as the new custodian of Gary’s guitar collection, with the retailer confirming it would be loaning out the late guitar icon’s Les Paul/SG to a string of high-profile players for live use.

It was a big move. As per CME’s own words at the time, “No-one has ever played these instruments live other than Gary”, with Starr himself describing the whole experience as “sacred”.

Now, in a new interview with AL.com, Starr has reflected on that gig, revealing he decided to slightly subvert expectations when he had Rossington’s six-string in his arms.

“I mean, honored is not the word. Honored, that word is not quite special enough sometimes, but it was really great,” he muses. “There’s actually two of them. They brought two of them, and I chose the one of the two.

“He had several [Gibson SGs] and those two are the ones we’ve all seen the most in video footage and photographs. Anyway, he only really ever played Free Bird on that guitar. So I thought, ‘Wow, this guitar was used as a specific tool for a specific song,’ and I broke rank and played Tuesday’s Gone on it.

“Dale Rossington [Gary’s widow] was there with their daughters, and it was just really emotional. I’m sure other people might think that’s silly, but it was hard to not get emotional holding that guitar.”

Such hallowed guitars are often surrounded by a fair level of mysticism, and when quizzed whether he could feel a spiritual connection with Rossington when he played this particular guitar, Starr adds: “I think so.

“Gary’s, as soon as I played a note on it, it was like, ‘Wow, man,’” he continues. “A lot of these instruments just inherently sound like the tracks that we’re used to hearing them all. Obviously, Gary played a lot of different guitars, but you just hear certain things that ears have become accustomed to hearing, and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s it.’”

It's not the only case we've seen of notable guitars once owned by late guitar heroes being loaned out for live use in recent months.

Last year, it was announced Jeff Beck's own Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster would receive the same treatment – and Steve Lukather and John Mayer have already played it.

Gary Rossington’s iconic Free Bird 1961 Gibson Les Paul/SG – the electric guitar that helped shape one of the greatest rock songs of all time – has been re-homed at the Chicago Music Exchange Vault, and a host of big-name players will soon play it live.

The Lynyrd Skynyrd classic was released in 1974, and Rossington's 1961 Gibson guitar – which was made in the era when SGs bore the Les Paul name before the switch in 1963 – was crucial in its recording. Though lead guitarist Allen Collins played the solo, this particular guitar has become just as famous for its role in such a defining moment in rock history.

Rossington passed in March 2023, and the Chicago Music Exchange (CME) has now revealed it’s been working with the Rossington family “to organize and curate Gary’s entire guitar and amp collection for its next step in life”.

And, in a move that will no doubt delight every guitar fan out there, CME and the Rossington family have no plans to keep the legendary double-cut as a mere museum piece.

Instead, they’re going to loan it out to guitar heroes for live use – and Rossington’s other iconic instruments will seemingly follow suit.

“The family wants to ensure the continuing legacy of Gary’s significant contributions to music via the songs he wrote and helped write, along with the instruments he used,” says the CME. “We will bring this guitar for artists to use in performances worldwide.”

Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr has been the first to benefit from the new arrangement. He took to the stage with the instrument on November 7 during the band’s show at St. Augustine Amphitheatre, Florida, and used it for a medley of Free Bird and Tuesday’s Gone, which kickstarted their encore.

“This next song, we’ve never done before because it’s sacred,” Starr said prior to the performance. “With the utmost humility, we tip our hats to Mr. Gary Rossington.”

The CME has called Starr’s involvement in the new Rossington-honoring project “a dream way to begin this adventure”.

“No one has ever played these instruments live other than Gary,” it continues. “We are excited to share these iconic instruments with the world and can't wait to see them making music on stages for generations to come.”

The Exchange will have a display of Rossington’s “hell house” Peavey Mace combo amps, complete with numerous cigarette burns, two Peavey Mace stacks, his ’70s Dobro resonator guitar, and the Free Bird axe in The Vault for the rest of the year. It says it will “continue to painstakingly document every guitar and amplifier in his collection”.

The trailblazing Southern rock outfit has seen many line-up changes over the years. Current lead guitarist Ricky Medlocke recently discussed his experiences handling the Free Bird solo for the first time and getting Rossington's approval with Guitar World.

Back in November 13, 2022, Gary Rossington took to the stage for what would be his last-ever live Lynyrd Skynyrd performance before he passed away at the age of 71 in March last year.

For the occasion, Rossington was joined at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium by an all-star array of guest stars, which included the likes of John Osborne, Jelly Roll, Donnie Van Zant and Brent Smith.

Electric guitar hero Marcus King had also been invited to attend the star-studded show, and joined in to perform Saturday Night Special – a track that had hugely influenced King as a guitar player.

In a new interview with Guitar World, King reflects on the experience of playing at Gary Rossington’s last-ever live show – and what it was like playing a track that had been so profoundly important to him in front of the man who originally performed it.

“They'd [Lynyrd Skynyrd] done a PBS thing and had a bunch of friends sit in," King recalls. “They asked me what song I wanted to do, and I said, ‘We gotta do Saturday Night Special!'

“Gary [Rossington] wasn't feeling too good at the time, but he was at rehearsal, and I played Gary's solo because that's the solo I grew up with and learned. I saw a twinkle in his eye when I played that.”

“When we played it for the show, he came over and played it with me, and 12-year-old me was just floating on a cloud,” King continues. “He and I connected in this real spiritual way, and through divine intervention – it was like our souls were tangled in the astral realm. He left that night; that was his last gig, he passed away shortly thereafter.”

Playing with Rossington was no doubt a special experience for King, but playing Saturday Night Special with one his biggest heroes made the whole night even sweeter.

In the same Guitar World interview, King name-dropped the 1975 Skynyrd cut as one of his favorite riffs.

“When I was a kid, my father still had a straight job working 9 to 5, so he'd leave me with a record. Not necessarily as homework, but as something we'd kinda go over later,” he says.

“One of those songs was Saturday Night Special, and you know, when it finally drops, the verse is just so heavy, and it's got this gut-bustin', almost like a Mountain riff played with three guitar players.

“They had tremendous restraint in giving the song what it needed. When it finally drops into the groove, it's so welcomed.”

Steve Morse has had a stellar career. From founding the Dixie Dregs to becoming Deep Purple's longest-serving guitarist, his name is forever etched in rock history.

However, he recently revealed that there was a period in his life when he quit playing guitar professionally altogether. Instead, he embarked on a career as a commercial airline co-pilot before Lynyrd Skynyrd reignited his passion for music as a profession.

“The [Dixie] Dregs kind of broke up in 1981. We've done six records. I felt like maybe the music business was a little bit too weird for me. So I started doing some odd jobs, running a bulldozer, cutting hay for people, stuff like that. Not trying to work as a musician. It didn't last too long, because I felt like I really missed it,” he says in a new interview with Ernie Ball.

“So I had to figure out something to do, you know, to eat and pay my bills. Phil Walden from Capricorn Records was encouraging me to try to make my own band, you know, 'Wherever the problems were, in the past, do your own thing.' You know, I thought that if I had a trio, I could manage everything and get through the lean times better.

“It would be a real workout for me, musically, but that's something I really relished. So we did the Steve Morse Band, starting in the early to mid-'80s. And went through that for, I don't know, we went for years. And kind of burned out. Or, you know, we've been around the circuit enough times where it was getting repetitive.

“I got the opportunity to work on a new song with Kansas that turned into me doing more songs with Kansas and finally turned into me doing an album and then a tour, then another tour, then another album and tour.”

After this rollercoaster of a career, Morse became jaded by the highs and lows of the music industry, and seriously considered switching jobs.

“I felt maybe I should take advantage of the fact that I had a bunch of flying time from flying my band around. My friends, they were airline pilots. They were telling me what a great job that would be.

“And I thought, ‘You know what? If I had that job, I could just record anything I wanted. And I could do music without having to worry about, you know, pleasing anybody in the business end.’ And that really appealed to me.

“So during that time, I recorded my first solo album called High Tension Wires. And the whole intent of that to record company people was just, ‘I don't care. I'm here to make music and that's it.’

“Getting that job was a lot of fun. A big challenge and I really enjoyed it. But once I did it and did it repetitively, I realized every job has things you don't like about it. Sometimes you just have to deal with stuff.”

It was at this point that Lynyrd Skynyrd got in touch with Morse and offered a spur-of-the-moment opportunity that would change his life forever. “I remember coming back from a long, long day.

“It started in two in the morning and I still have my uniform on, and on the phone was Gary Rossington [Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist] and said, ‘Hey, we're down at the Omni [an indoor arena in Atlanta, Georgia]. Man, you gotta come down. Bring your guitar. We're recording tonight.’

“I said, ‘I've been at work all day and I cut off all my hair.’ He said, ‘Bring your guitar. I'll see you at six.’ I didn't make it at six. I couldn't. I mean, I'm too far away.

“So I [finally] got there. They're already playing. They look over, and Gary gets the message that I'm here. He says, ‘All right, everybody, we're gonna bring up Steve Morse to play on the song Gimme Back My Bullets.’

“So somebody pushed me up on stage. And here's an amp I've never plugged in before…”

Morse didn't have time to think things through, as the band had already started recording what would later become 1998's Southern By The Grace Of God: Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour 1987.

“One of the Lynyrd Skynyrd albums is me sitting in with them. And I said, ‘If it's ever going to be this cool again, I should get back into music full-time. Because this is awesome.’”

Morse would go on to join Deep Purple, who he played with 28 years before stepping down in July 2022. The following year, he reunited the Steve Morse Band for their first tour in 10 years, all while battling pain in his picking hand.

2023 was a standout year for the guitar – 12 months that saw fantastic innovations in the gear space, and players of all genres raise the bar, and move the instrument forward in amazing, unique, and unexpected ways. 

Sadly, though, it was also a year in which we had to say goodbye to a staggering amount of guitar geniuses who were just as innovative in their day, and helped lay the bridges that today's players cross. 

Here, we recognize those guitarists, and their contributions to the instrument. 

This list is presented in chronological order.

Sebastian Marino

A veteran heavy metal guitarist, Sebastian Marino did tours of duty with both Anvil – playing on their 1991 album, Worth The Weight – and Overkill, contributing to the latter group's The Killing Kind, From The Underground And Below, and Necroshine albums, respectively. 

Later, Marino pivoted to backstage work, becoming a sought-after guitar tech and crew member for a number of notable rock acts. 

“Seby was a dear friend and I will miss him profoundly,” wrote Anvil singer/guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow of Marino. “Worth the Weight was an extremely special Anvil album and it will keep Seby alive through our history forever!”

Alan Rankine

A beloved figure in Glasgow, Scotland's music scene, Alan Rankine helped found Electric Honey Records, a student-run label headquartered at Glasgow's Stow College (now Glasgow Kelvin College). Electric Honey served as the home for early releases by Biffy Clyro, Snow Patrol and Belle and Sebastian, and provided those and many other groups crucial support and exposure in their formative years. 

Rankine also played guitar in The Associates – a unique post-punk group that found success in the UK in the early '80s with the top 20 hits Party Fears Two and Club Country – and found success as a producer, manning the boards for releases by Paul Haig and Cocteau Twins. 

In a statement posted to Belle and Sebastian's Facebook page, the band's drummer, Richard Colburn, said, “If it wasn’t for Alan, our path would’ve been very different. We owe a lot to him. Alan was a fantastic, generous and talented person who will be sorely missed by everyone that knew him. He was an unbelievable musician and his musical legacy will live on forever.”

Jeff Beck

By any measure, Jeff Beck was one of the greatest, and most influential, guitarists of all time. His aggressive, fearless approach to the instrument seamlessly blended influences from blues, jazz, and... well, whatever else caught Beck's fancy. His fingerstyle playing was always expressive – ignoring showiness in favor of powerful, flawlessly executed melodic runs, pinpoint phrasing, and jaw-dropping bends.

Stepping into the giant shoes of Eric Clapton as his replacement in the Yardbirds in the mid-'60s, Beck pushed the popular group to new artistic heights, influencing countless psychedelic-, blues- and garage-rock-minded guitar players in the process. It was on his own, though, that Beck displayed the full, staggering breadth of his talent and creativity.  

Beck began his solo career with a pioneering, thundering instrumental titled Beck's Bolero, and would go on to innovate for the remainder of his life. He helped shape the sound of blues- and hard-rock guitar with 1969's Beck-Ola, combined rock and fusion approaches as no one had before with 1975's Blow by Blow, returned to his rockabilly roots on 1993's Crazy Legs, flirted with techno on 1999's Who Else!, and touched on classical orchestral arrangements on 2010's Emotion & Commotion.

“If you ask me about some other players, I might lean toward their early work but with Jeff Beck, I immediately think of his most recent record,” Joe Satriani said of Beck's constant evolution in a 2021 Guitar World interview.

“How does he make us all feel that the most happening Jeff Beck is the one that’s happening right now? That’s pretty remarkable in an industry that’s so focused on what you did decades ago or your highest-charting thing. 

“As you and I are talking,” Satriani continued, “he’s working on something that’s going to blow us away, and we’re not going to know about it for a bit, but you know he isn’t just sitting around doing nothing and he’s certainly not thinking about something he did in 1972! It’s a combination of pure talent, constant innovation and fearlessness.”

David Crosby

A legend in the annals of '60s and '70s rock, David Crosby was a larger-than-life figure who served as a rhythm guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the Byrds, and subsequently Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Neil Young). Grounded in folk techniques, plus an eclectic mix of other influences, Crosby's playing helped bolster his greatest strength – his songwriting. 

After growing dissatisfied with, and departing, the Byrds in the late '60s, Crosby teamed up with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, creating with them a hugely influential soft-rock sound powered by dazzling harmonies and killer songcraft across the board. Though he wasn't the supergroup's foremost hitmaker, Crosby's contributions to CSN(Y) – such as the defiant counterculture anthem, Almost Cut My Hair – brought a more daring, experimental, and atmospheric side to the group's radio-friendly catalog.

Crosby brought that same restlessness to his solo career, which began with 1971's If I Could Only Remember My Name, an often sparse but strong LP whose foreboding, hazy atmosphere forecasted the sounds of the indie-folk explosion of the 2000s and 2010s. Though his career was derailed by a much-publicized battle with addiction in the '70s and '80s, Crosby – once sober – would remain active onstage and in the studio for the remainder of his life.

“The soul of CSNY, David’s voice and energy were at the heart of our band,” Neil Young wrote in tribute to Crosby. “His great songs stood for what we believed in and it was always fun and exciting when we got to play together.”

Antony “Top” Topham

Before Clapton, Beck and Page, there was Antony “Top” Topham, who co-founded the Yardbirds and served as the band's first lead guitarist. Though he'd leave the group in late 1963 – before any of the band's studio material – he helped establish their energetic, blues and R&B-influenced sound.

Topham pivoted to session work in the late '60s and the beginning of the '70s, notably lending guitar work to future Fleetwood Mac keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie's solo debut, Christine Perfect. He released his first, and only, solo album, Ascension Heights, in 1970, and would go on to join the Subud spiritual movement, after which he changed his name to Sanderson Rasjid.

Remarkably, a full 50 years after his original departure from the group, Rasjid rejoined a reconstituted Yardbirds in 2013, before leaving the band for good two years later.

“He’d been my best friend at school, and had introduced me to the music I fell in love with,” Yardbirds guitarist Chris Dreja said of Rasjid in 2007. “Pretty soon, we were playing four or five nights a week. which made it a paying proposition.”

Tom Verlaine

With fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine drove the sound of Television, a proto-punk quartet that specialized in nervy, arty rock driven by tight rhythms and Verlaine and Lloyd's interlocking, weaving guitar work.

Though never commercially successful, Television left a significant mark on New York City's nascent punk scene in the mid-'70s, which included a number of bands that would go on to significantly eclipse them in popularity years later, such as Talking Heads, the Ramones, and Blondie.

Influenced by avant-garde music and jazz as much as rock, Verlaine brought his unique musical vocabulary to the guitar, and helped define Television's revolutionary debut single, Little Johnny Jewel, Parts 1 & 2, and their seminal 1977 debut album, Marquee Moon.

Verlaine, Patti Smith once wrote, played “lead guitar with angular inverted passion, like a thousand bluebirds screaming.”

Jesse Gress

A perennially underrated Strat-slinger, Jesse Gress spent many years in Todd Rundgren's band, and also played with the Tony Levin band, and with former Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty.

Gress is most well-known, however, as an instructor. He was a longtime contributor to Guitar Player magazine, and authored both tab and score books – for the Beatles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Guns N’ Roses, and more – and his own lesson tomes, such as The Guitar Cookbook and Blues Lick Factory.

“Jesse was an institution,” Guitar Player editor-in-chief Christopher Scapelliti said of Gress. “His lessons were like gold to our readers, and everyone was a better player for the knowledge he shared with us. I was sorry that he left the magazine to focus on his music and writing, but we were all very lucky to have benefitted from his wisdom, insights, and talents for so many years. God bless him.”

David Lindley

A multi-instrumentalist and session guitar great, David Lindley featured prominently on albums by Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, Ry Cooder, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Rod Stewart, and, most famously, Jackson Browne.

Lindley contributed to each of Browne's albums from 1973's For Everyman through 1980's Hold Out, shining on lap steel in particular. With the country tinge of his steel work, Lindley helped – through his contributions to Browne's work and to many similar albums of the period – shape the sound of West Coast soft-rock in the process.

Lindley's session schedule remained busy far beyond the '70s, and he even found time to record a number of albums with oud/hand drum master Hani Naser, experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser, and drummer Wally Ingram.

“The loss of David Lindley is a huge one,” Jason Isbell wrote on Twitter upon hearing of Lindley's death. “Without his influence my music would sound completely different. I was genuinely obsessed with his playing from the first time I heard it. The man was a giant.”

Gary Rossington

Guitarist Gary Rossington was a key member of Lynyrd Skynyrd – arguably, along with the Allman Brothers Band, the most popular and influential Southern rock band of all time – for their entire history. Indeed, at the time of his death, Rossington was the band's last surviving original member.

Along with Allen Collins and first Ed King, then, later, Steve Gaines, Rossington was an integral part of the band's trademark three-guitar attack. That three-guitar-sound, coupled with frontman Ronnie Van Zant's unapologetic but nuanced lyrics about the Skynyrd's rough 'n' tumble life in the South, won them a national audience that transcended genre. 

Free Bird – the closing track on the band's 1973 debut album, (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) – has become, in the 50 years since its release, one of the most iconic rock songs of all time, while Skynyrd's funky 1974 hit Sweet Home Alabama (co-written by Rossington) has become a classic rock staple, especially in the South. 

Rossington survived the tragic 1977 plane crash that claimed the lives of Van Zant and Gaines, and, a decade later, helped spearhead the band's reunion – with Johnny Van Zant taking his older brother Ronnie's place on vocals.

“Gary was not only a great guitar player, he also composed a lot of the classic guitar melodies that Lynyrd Skynyrd is known for, and he co-wrote so many of their timeless songs,” Warren Haynes wrote in tribute to Rossington. “Their unique blend of influences, filtered through their own musical personalities, created a style of music all to itself which became the soundtrack to millions of people’s lives. Gary was leading the charge.” 

Jim Durkin

A thrash/progressive metal guitar veteran, Jim Durkin co-founded the band Dark Angel, and played on their first three albums – 1985's We Have Arrived, 1986's Darkness Descends, and 1989's Leave Scars. 

Though they never reached the commercial success of the so-called Big Four of thrash, Dark Angel were influential, and well-respected by their peers, with Durkin's equally brutal and complex guitar work leading the way. 

In a GoFundMe created to help Durkin's family with funeral and memorial costs, Durkin's loved ones spoke of both his guitar acumen and kindness. 

“While best known for creating ear-blistering, adrenaline-inducing, soul-slaughtering guitar riffs and writing songs that would become legendary in a genre of metal that his band helped create,” the statement reads in part, “he [Durkin] was also a gentle giant with an incredible singing voice who would stop everything to move an injured animal – insect, bird, reptile, mammal – out of harm's way.” 

Mick Slattery

As a co-founder of Hawkwind, Mick Slattery played a brief but significant role in the development of what would come to be known as space-rock. 

Though he left the group in 1969, before their debut album, Slattery featured featured on the band’s first demo, and played with them at their legendary first shows at the All Saints Hall in Notting Hill. Decades later, Slattery re-surfaced as a guitarist in Space Ritual, a band comprised mainly of former Hawkwind members. 

In a social media post announcing Slattery's death, Hawkwind singer/guitarist Dave Brock wrote of his “fond memories from our younger days.

“In the late ’60s, we used to rehearse in my upstairs flat in Putney and also in the basement of Bob Kerr's music shop in Gwalior Road, playing loud music, much to the annoyance of our neighbors.”   

Wayne Swinny

For almost three decades, Wayne Swinny served as the lead guitarist for nü-metal mainstays Saliva. Swinny brought a brawny, hard-riffing classic rock element to Saliva's sound, opening them up to listeners slightly turned off by the Korns and Slipknots of the world, and making them a crowd-pleasing live favorite. 

In a statement following Swinny's death, Saliva vocalist Bobby Amaru said that Swinny “was a guitar hero onstage, with all the rock ‘n’ roll swag that most guitar players dream of.”

Tom Leadon

The younger brother of Eagles multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon, Tom Leadon served as one of the guitarists in Mudcrutch – the band Tom Petty fronted before he found fame with the Heartbreakers. 

Though Leadon fell out with Petty in the early '70s, and departed from Mudcrutch before the latter transformed the band into the hugely successful Heartbreakers, Leadon would go onto lead a fruitful music career in Southern California.

With his brother, Bernie, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey, Leadon co-wrote the Eagles' Hollywood Waltz, played in Linda Ronstadt’s backing band, and with the band Silver, which scored a top 20 hit in 1976 with the song, Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang.

After decades out of the spotlight, though, Leadon – at Petty's request – re-joined the latter and his former bandmates in a reunited Mudcrutch. The resurrected Mudcrutch – with Leadon and Campbell on guitar, and Petty on bass – would go on to record two albums, 2008's Mudcrutch and 2016's Mudcrutch 2, and stage multiple successful tours, before disbanding following Petty's untimely death in 2017.

Leadon's Mudcrutch bandmate – and Petty's six-string sidekick in the Heartbreakers – Mike Campbell, described Leadon as his “deepest guitar soul brother.”

“We spent countless hours playing acoustic guitars and teaching each other things,” Campbell said of Leadon. “A kinder soul never walked the earth. I will always miss his spirit and generosity. Sleep peaceful my old friend.”

Guy Bailey

As the guitarist and co-founder of Quireboys, Guy Bailey helped bring straight-ahead, no-nonsense rock back to the upper regions of the UK charts, just before the arrival of the grunge tidal wave. 

The co-writer of all of the tracks on the band's hugely successful 1990 debut album, A Bit of What You Fancy – including the album's UK Top 20 hit single, Hey You – Bailey was a low-key, but integral, Keith Richards-like presence in the band; both personality-wise and on guitar.

“Guy was the kindest, funniest man you could have the pleasure of being around,” the Quireboys' frontman, Spike, wrote of the guitarist. “He was loved by everyone he ever worked with, all the bands he ever toured with and all the Quireboys fans he ever met. He certainly loved you all more than you will ever know.”

Ian Bairnson

Though the name Ian Bairnson may not immediately ring a bell, you've definitely heard his skilled fretwork. 

A native of the Shetland Islands, Bairnson was an A-list session guitarist who appeared on albums by Paul McCartney & Wings, Kenny Rogers, Tom Jones, and, notably, lent an acrobatic, bend-heavy solo to Kate Bush's 1979 smash, Wuthering Heights. 

Bairnson was also a key member of the Alan Parsons Project, serving as the group's chief guitarist on every single one of their studio releases. So, if you've ever wondered who played the thundering guitars on the Parsons Project tune Sirius, a dramatic instrumental that became immortalized as the entrance music for the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls, that's Ian Bairnson. 

Remembering his late bandmate, Parsons said that Bairnson was “a musical genius.”

“He was a true master of the guitar,” Parsons said, “he knew every possible playable guitar chord and how to describe it – 'G Minor Sixth Add 9' or 'C Sharp Major Ninth Add 13,' but amazingly, he never took the time to learn conventional musical notation. 

“Another indication of his incredible talent was when he picked up the saxophone and played it like a pro on stage with the British incarnation of The Alan Parsons Live Project – he had only spent a few short weeks learning the instrument.” 

Lasse Wellander

Though never an official member of the band per sé, Lasse Wellander helped drive ABBA's world-conquering sound as their stage and studio guitarist of choice. 

In the studio, Wellander's precise, song-serving playing was a crucial ingredient to the band's incredible string of hits. Onstage, though, the superstar quartet gave Wellander a surprising amount of room to stretch out – a particular example being his soulful solo on the Live At Wembley Arena version of Eagle. 

“If you listen to the Live At Wembley Arena album, for example, it was much looser than on the records,” Wellander explained to Guitar World in a 2022 interview. “Of course, we played the things that belonged to the song, but there were parts where it was much looser. It sounded rockier live than on the record, and there were some solos.”

Eagle, Wellander told Guitar World, was his favorite ABBA song to play live. 

“I liked Eagle because I had a long guitar solo in that song,” he said. “I enjoyed it all, actually, but I looked forward a bit more to that number. It was amazing being out on the road. We played six days at Wembley Arena, full house.”

Mark Sheehan

Mark Sheehan was a prolific, much-sought-after session guitarist, but it was with the band The Script that Sheehan made his greatest impact.

Influenced by R&B and hip-hop, Sheehan's deft touch on the guitar helped make the band a bona-fide sensation, particularly in their native Ireland.

Irish President Michael D Higgins led the salutes to Sheehan after his untimely death, citing his and the Script's “originality and excellence.” 

“Through their music, Mark and The Script have played an outstanding part in continuing and promoting this proud tradition of Irish musical success across the world.” 

Otis Redding III 

A son of soul legend Otis Redding, Otis Redding III was a guitarist who worked extensively to promote the musical legacy of his late father, and also played guitar in the The Reddings, and with soul veteran Eddie Floyd. 

Having picked up the guitar at a young age, Redding formed The Reddings as a teen with his brother, Dexter, and a cousin, Mark Lockett. One of their early singles, 1980's Remote Control, became a top 10 hit on the Hot Soul Singles chart, and made the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.

After The Reddings split up in 1988, Redding briefly joined soul veteran Eddie Floyd's band as his guitarist, but on one condition. 

“He [Floyd] said, ‘You can play guitar with me, but you’re going to have to sing a few of your dad’s songs,’” Redding told WCSH-TV in 2018. “I was like, ‘Huh? I don’t sing,’ you know. And he was like, ‘Well, you’re going to sing Dock of the Bay with me tonight.’”

From then on, Redding began to more frequently play and sing his father's songs, working to – with the help of his family's Otis Redding Foundation – preserve the musical legacy of his father. Redding also worked with the Foundation to organize summer camps that help teach children to play music, and served as the board president for the local chapter of Meals on Wheels.

Gordon Lightfoot

Alongside the likes of Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot was part of a wave of elite singer-songwriters to emerge from Canada in the late 1960s. 

Lightfoot was both commercially and critically successful, scoring major hits with 1970's somber If You Could Read My Mind and his 1976 epic, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which fully established him as one of the world's pre-eminent guitar-slinging storytellers.

“We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,” wrote Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau upon learning of Lightfoot's death. “Gordon Lightfoot captured our country’s spirit in his music – and in doing so, he helped shape Canada’s soundscape. May his music continue to inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on forever. To his family, friends, and many fans across the country and around the world, I’m keeping you in my thoughts at this difficult time.”

Tim Bachman

The brother of guitarist/singer Randy Bachman and drummer Robbie Bachman, Tim Bachman co-founded Bachman–Turner Overdrive with his brothers and bassist Fred Turner in the early '70s.

Though he left BTO, as they came to be known, in 1974, Bachman still lent a deft six-string touch to some of the band's major early hits, including Let It Ride and the ubiquitous Takin' Care of Business. He would return to the BTO fold a decade later, playing guitar and contributing backing vocals to their final album, 1984's Bachman–Turner Overdrive.

“I am the last of my family on this side with all my memories of our life growing up in Winnipeg,” Randy Bachman said of his brother in a Facebook post, “So grateful for that. I’m sure my parents welcomed him home with my other two brothers who have passed in quick succession since the pandemic. I was the oldest. Rest in peace.”

Rob Laakso

A veteran guitarist best-known for his time with Kurt Vile & the Violators, Rob Laakso was an understated indie guitar hero and multi-instrumentalist.

Aside from his well-regarded time with the Violators, Laakso also played guitar in the renowned indie bands Swirlies and Mice Parade, and worked as an audio engineer on projects for Google, Apple, and Adidas.

“Rob and I worked close together on [Vile's] B'lieve I'm Goin Down... and Bottle It In,” Vile wrote of his late bandmate. “He co-produced many of the tracks alongside me, engineering often [and] playing many different instruments, slaying with ease.

“Wakin on a Pretty Daze was his first full time Violators record and you can see the shift [in] epic proportions from [2011's] Smoke Ring for My Halo to it.” 

Tony McPhee

Though less of a household name than contemporaries like Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, Tony McPhee was a pillar of British blues-rock guitar in the late '60s and beyond.

As the guitarist and singer for the Groundhogs for the majority of their 50-year existence, and a go-to session guitarist – McPhee toured and swapped licks with a who's who of British rock royalty, including Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and John Mayall.

As a testament to McPhee's blues acumen, he and the Groundhogs backed the legendary John Lee Hooker on multiple UK tours in the mid-'60s, which, in turn, led to the band baking other visiting blues luminaries, such as Little Walter and Jimmy Reed. 

Though they had stiff competition, Hooker regarded the Groundhogs as “the number one British blues band” of their time.

Ryan Siew

A beloved figure in metalcore guitar, Ryan Siew got his start as a teenager on YouTube, garnering attention with his pinpoint covers of finger-twisters by Killswitch Engage, Intervals, and Periphery.

Siew would go on to further prominence as a guitarist in the Australian metalcore band Polaris, who received ARIA award nominations for their first two albums; 2017's This Mortal Coil and 2020’s The Death Of Me.

YouTuber Ryan ‘Fluff’ Bruce was one of many guitarists to salute Siew, writing in an emotional statement, “We were literally just talking about 5150s and Friedman BEs like we always did. It was such a pleasure to know you and see you grow into a world-class musician. I am crying for your family and your band. Rest easy, brother.”

Rick Froberg

A post-hardcore guitar hero, Rick Froberg served as the frontman and guitarist for a number of bands, most notably Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes.

Often working with his guitar partner-in-crime, John Reis, Froberg was unafraid to experiment, and all too happy to change his style on a dime – from the ambitious noise of Drive Like Jehu and his and Reis's pre-Jehu band, Pitchfork, to the battering-ram, garage-punk force of Hot Snakes.

Of his friend and musical partner, Reis wrote, “He will forever be remembered for his creativity, vision and his ability to bring beauty into this world.”

George Tickner

Alongside Neal Schon, the band's sole constant member and lead guitarist to this day, George Tickner was one of the co-founders of Journey. 

Though he left the group before they became permanent radio fixtures with giga-hits like Don't Stop Believin', Tickner helped shape their early material, performing on their 1975 self-titled debut album. Tickner was the co-writer of a number of its tracks, including Mystery Mountain and Of a Lifetime.

Though Tickner left the group after their debut, the material he wrote with Journey continued to be used by the band in the coming years, with songs co-written by the guitarist appearing on their second and third full-lengths – 1976's Look Into The Future and 1977's Next.

“Godspeed, George,” Schon wrote in tribute to Tickner, “thank you for the music.”

Edwin Wilson

Edwin Wilson was a master luthier who – during his decades-long tenure at Gibson – served as a major figure in the development of the company's True Historic and Collector’s Choice series, and in the creation of signature models for some of guitar's biggest names. 

Starting with Gibson in 1985, Wilson initially Custom Art and Historic department, before taking the reins at the company's True Historic builds division. After three decades with Gibson, Wilson left to take up a role as the Head of Research and Development at Vista Musical Instruments Ltd., the parent company of the revived Harmony brand and Heritage Guitars. 

“Very sad to hear of the passing of Edwin Wilson,” Joe Bonamassa wrote of the luthier on Instagram. “Back in the day, Edwin was instrumental in developing prototypes for both my signature Les Paul and 335 models as well as the Collector's Choice series for Gibson Custom. He was a good dude – gone too soon.”

Sinéad O'Connor

A native of Ireland, Sinéad O'Connor rocketed to international fame in the early 1990s. Despite generating considerable controversy with her outspoken political views – particularly an infamous 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live that saw her tear a photo of Pope John Paul II to pieces on live television – O'Connor's raw, straightforward songwriting touched millions of listeners worldwide, and forecasted the wholesale post-'80s transformation of popular music. 

O'Connor channeled her traumatic childhood into her self-produced 1987 debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, and became a superstar in 1990, when her re-interpretation of the sweeping Prince ballad, Nothing Compares 2 U, topped the charts in the US, UK, and a number of other countries. 

O'Connor's originals addressed political issues and the singer's struggles with her mental health with incredible candor, helping open the door for countless other songwriters to do the same in their own material.

Though her commercial standing never recovered from the aforementioned SNL performance, O'Connor remained unbowed, politically, in the face of criticism, a boldness that also extended to her eclectic studio output.

Her 1992 LP, Am I Not Your Girl?, explored the world of jazz standards, while 2002's Sean-Nós Nua returned the singer to her traditional Irish roots. 2005's Throw Down Your Arms, meanwhile, saw O'Connor taking on classics from the reggae catalog.

“Really sorry to hear of the passing of Sinead O’Connor,” Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar said of the singer in a statement. “Her music was loved around the world and her talent was unmatched and beyond compare.”  

Randy Meisner

As a first-call session bassist and guitarist, and a member of Poco and, most prominently, the Eagles, Randy Meisner was one of the key figures in the development of the breezy folk- and country-influenced West Coast soft-rock sound that dominated the airwaves and charts throughout the '70s. 

Meisner joined Poco in the late '60s, and though he left the band before the dawn of the '70s, the exposure helped him land a number of high-profile session gigs, including spots with Rick Nelson, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt. Those sessions, in turn, led him to Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Bernie Leadon, with whom Meisner would co-found the Eagles. 

Meisner played bass with the group until 1977, contributing to the band's trademark harmonies and singing lead on a number of tunes, most prominently the classic Take it to the Limit. 

Saluting Meisner, the Eagles wrote that he was “at the forefront of the musical revolution that began in Los Angeles, in the late 1960s,” while recognizing him as “an integral part of the Eagles and instrumental in the early success of the band.”

Sixto Rodriguez

To say that singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez had a unique career would be quite the understatement. He released only two studio albums in his lifetime – 1970's Cold Fact and 1971's Coming from Reality – each featuring plain-spoken, acoustic-driven folk songs á la early Bob Dylan, often couched in luscious string and horn arrangements. What really made Rodriguez, as he was known, stand out, though, were his lyrics.

Mincing no words, Rodriguez documented the many woes of his native Detroit, telling tales of addiction and poverty while scorning the corrupt politicians and businessmen that played a significant role in the city's marked decline from its post-World War II heyday. 

Commercially, however, the two albums flopped, and Rodriguez soon left music, and took up a series of manual labor jobs in Detroit.

Entirely unbeknownst to him, though, Rodriguez's two albums found their way into South Africa, where their focus on the mechanisms behind oppression, poverty, and racism connected in a profound way with citizens segregated by the country's brutal apartheid regime. 

The Detroit native became a massive star in the country, but remained for decades unaware of his belated success, all the while never earning a cent from his ample South African record sales.

His incredible story was the focus of the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, which helped finally bring Rodriguez the Stateside fame he long deserved in the early 2010s. 

Though he was cheated out of royalties and didn't see success until his twilight years, the singer/songwriter harbored no regrets or bitterness. 

“There have already been rewards just from the opportunity to do all this,” he told The New York Times in 2012. “I guess we all want to get there right away, but I believe it’s never too early, never too late.”

Robbie Robertson

As the guitar-slinger for The Band – who backed Bob Dylan on some of his most influential work, before embarking on a remarkable career of their own – Robbie Robertson left an indelible mark on rock guitar, and had a major role in shaping the sound of the 'Americana' genre (even though he himself was Canadian).

The Band shepherded Bob Dylan through his infamous mid-'60s transformation from protest singer to Strat-wielding rocker, and, later in the decade, established themselves as roots-rock pioneers with one of the greatest debut/sophomore album opening salvos in rock history – 1968's Music From Big Pink and 1969's The Band.

Robertson was the band's leader, and that very creative dominance would lead the group – despite their enormous success – to call it quits with an epic concert they called The Last Waltz. Packed to the brim with the group's superstar friends, it was captured for posterity by Martin Scorsese, and went on to become one of the most famous rock concert films of all time.

Indeed, Robertson's most prominent post-Band work would come with Scorsese, with whom he worked on over a dozen film soundtracks – collections that showed the true breadth and scope of Robertson's musical talent and knowledge. Their last collaboration was Robertson's score for Killers of the Flower Moon, which was released in October of this year, after the guitarist's death. 

In his final Guitar World interview, originally published in 2019, Robertson credited Dylan with inspiring him to bring a cinematic sense to his guitar playing and songwriting – with the Band and on his own. 

“There was a tremendous sense of freedom from what Bob uncovered and revealed to the world. It was like, there are no rules. 

“Even years later when I started making solo records I found I was almost scoring the songs as opposed to strumming along or picking a little riff behind it. It was almost like it was going to be a sonic experience – and that’s continued.”

Bernie Marsden

Best known for his four-year tenure in Whitesnake, Bernie Marsden was an incredibly accomplished rock and blues guitarist, respected and loved by players across the genre spectrum.

Having previously played with Paice Ashton Lord, UFO and Glenn Cornick’s Wild Turkey, Marsden co-founded Whitesnake with frontman David Coverdale in 1978. The guitarist would contribute significantly to the band's first five albums – most prominently co-writing the song Here I Go Again – before departing in 1982. 

With his beloved 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, “The Beast,” Marsden went against the era's prevailing trends by relying more on phrasing and soul than speed to express himself on the instrument – a distinct touch that continued to shine throughout his prolific solo career, and in gigs with Ringo Starr, Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa, and Robert Plant. 

Joe Bonamassa, a close friend who collaborated with Marsden, cited the guitarist as “a great encourager, a confidant, a brilliant writer and most of all… a dear friend. 

“He was the best of the best and championed so many young careers while being such a brilliant musician on his own. I never saw him happier than the time we camped out at Abbey Road Studios for a month writing music together for what would become [Bonamassa's] Royal Tea album. So much talent wrapped up in such a wonderful human being.”

Jack Sonni

Jack Sonni spent years in the late '70s and early '80s toiling as a relatively obscure session guitarist and Rudy’s Music employee, before he was recruited by Mark Knopfler to join Dire Straits in the mid-'80s.

Sonni joined in time to make a small contribution to the band's extraordinarily successful 1985 album, Brothers in Arms, and performed with the band at that year's record breaking Live Aid mega-concert. 

Sonni only remained with the group for two years, but would go on to work for Seymour Duncan and, later, assist in the development and launch of the game-changing Line 6 POD. 

“A sad farewell to our old friend Jack Sonni, whom I met when he was working at Rudy’s Music Stop on 48th St,” Knopfler said of his late bandmate on social media.

“Jack was a genuine guitar enthusiast who loved to play, jam, and talk guitars and amps all day. He joined us on tour during the Brothers in Arms era and took to life on the road with the band like a fish to water.”

Sammy Ash

The COO of instrument retailer Sam Ash, Sammy Ash helped guide the company – founded by his grandfather – through an era that saw the demise of many formidable names in music retail.

Knowledgable and much-loved in the industry, Ash also happened to have come up with the name of one of the most famous effects pedals of all time; the Ibanez Tube Screamer.

“The name was suggested by the Sam Ash Music family, by Jerry [Ash]'s son Sammy Ash,” Tube Screamer inventor Susumu Tamura told Guitar Player in an interview earlier this year. 

“Sammy asked, ‘Do you know how the Cry Baby pedal got its name?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it sounds like a baby crying.’ And he said, ‘This sounds like a screaming tube amp.’ So when the Maxon OD808 Overdrive Pro was born, Ibanez’s overdrive was named the TS808 Tube Screamer Overdrive Pro.”

“The guitar business has lost one of the greats,” Gibson Director of Brand Experience Mark Agnesi wrote in tribute to Ash. “Sammy Ash was a legend in the industry, a great father, and a passionate guitar nerd. I’m proud to have called him a friend. My condolences to the Ash family.”

Angelo Bruschini

The longtime stage and studio guitarist for the British electronic group Massive Attack, Angelo Bruschini helped bring a brooding rock edge to the band's atmospheric trip-hop sound.

Bruschini made a number of important contributions to the Massive Attack discography, including guitar work on the band's hugely successful 1998 album, Mezzanine. Of note on that album is Bruschini's playing on the song Angel, which sets the guitarist's alternately ethereal and industrial soundscapes over a dark, brooding beat. 

Massive Attack, in a note posted to their social media accounts, cited Bruschini as a “singularly brilliant & eccentric talent.

“Impossible to quantify your contribution to the Massive Attack canon,” they wrote. “How lucky we were to share such a life together.”

Geordie Walker

The long-serving guitar player and foundational member of the iconic post-punk band Killing Joke, Geordie Walker cast a long (and often overlooked) shadow.

Perhaps the most famous example of Walker's uncredited influence is his ominously jangling opening riff to Killing Joke's era-defining single, Eighties, which was blatantly lifted by Kurt Cobain on Nirvana's smash, Come As You Are. 

Part of Walker's wholly unique tone – described by Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan as “a massive sound that has influenced so damn many of us” – came from his unconventional (for post-punk, at least) six-string of choice: a Gibson ES-295.

“Originally I got that guitar because I wanted a distorted sound while still being able to hear the notes if I played a complex chord,” Walker told Guitar World in 2016.

“So the idea was that I should get a semi-acoustic distorted sound, put a contact mic in it, and blend the two sounds. But I saw that [ES-295] in an old magazine and then found one in a little store in West London for £640, which at the time was like $1,000. And as soon as I plugged in, there was the sound.”

Shane MacGowan

As the legendary frontman and sometimes guitarist for the Pogues, Shane MacGowan seamlessly blended punk rebelliousness with Irish musical tradition.

MacGowan's most famous song is the Pogues' Christmas classic, Fairytale of New York, but over the course of five albums with the band, he established himself as a world-class songwriter, contrasting his and the band's boozy and rowdy reputation with evocative, beautifully sketched out and structured lyrics. 

Upon MacGowan's death, Irish president Michael Higgins weighed in on the singer's legacy, saying “Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists. So many of his songs would be perfectly crafted poems, if that would not have deprived us of the opportunity to hear him sing them.”

Myles Goodwyn

An icon of Canadian rock, Myles Goodwyn served as the singer/guitarist for April Wine, a band that – despite never quite achieving household name status in the US – sold over 10 million records worldwide. 

Starting out in the early '70s and stretching into the following decade, April Wine enjoyed a string of FM Radio-friendly hits – many of them written by Goodwyn. 

Famously, April Wine served as the co-headliners of a 1977 show at Toronto's El Mocambo Club, playing alongside “the Cockroaches,” who turned out be the Rolling Stones under a false name. 

Denny Laine

Aside from Paul and Linda McCartney, Denny Laine was the sole constant member of Paul McCartney & Wings, and was an integral part of the post-Beatles band's sound, doubling McCartney's parts, or adding color and depth where needed. 

“If Paul writes a song on guitar, and it’s a very simple thing, I would probably just try to add to that,” Laine explained to Guitar World of the band's process in his final interview earlier this year. “I wouldn’t be the main rhythm guitarist, because what the song needed was accompaniment. 

“I was always pretty in with what Paul was playing, which probably makes it sound more like one part. We did that a lot, where I would play lead parts in unison with him, like on Helen Wheels [from Band on the Run].”

Though not the group's star attraction, Laine was integral to their framework, helping keep Wings together during the infamously troubled sessions for what would become their best-known and most-acclaimed album, Band on the Run. Though he – by his own admission – rarely took solos with Wings, Laine's soulful lead break on that album's Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five is a terrific display of his skill and soulful voice on the instrument.

Laine – who also a co-founder of the Moody Blues, playing guitar and singing lead on the group's smash hit cover of Bessie Banks' Go Now – maintained a prolific solo career after Wings' dissolution in 1981, and toured frequently. Laine played live even well into 2023, revisiting classics from both his Moody Blues and Wings years.

“I can’t be strictly a studio guy. That’s how I came up, playing live,” Laine told Guitar World. “I think that’s the way the best records are made. You take that energy you get from performance and bring it into the studio. Then you come out with something good. It’s a hard thing to do in this business, but that’s what you need to do. It’s all about balance.”   

Gary Rossington was one of the founding members of southern rock legends Lynyrd Skynyrd. His legacy will survive for many years after his recent and untimely death in March 2023.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1951 Rossington swapped a love of baseball for music, when as a teenager he heard The Rolling Stones. At the time of his death, he was the final surviving member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band that had suffered many losses including a plane crash in 1977 that devastated the line-up, claiming the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines. 

However, the band’s legacy had been firmly set in place with songs like Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird becoming the calling card for an entire musical genre. Many groups have taken inspiration from Rossington and Lynyrd Skynyrd, including the Black Crowes, and perhaps less obviously so, Metallica. 

Skynyrd are regularly placed in lists of the greatest and most influential artists of all time, and have gone on to sell almost 30 million records in the USA alone. Unsurprisingly, they have also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Rossington himself was inspired by artists such as Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy, and it’s these blues-rock influences that can be heard in our lesson. It’s a 12-bar chord progression in the key of E major (E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#) and the main rhythm guitar parts are built using single-note lines from that scale.

You’ll find a typical bluesy minor 3rd to major 3rd move (G-G#) on several occasions, and a minor 3rd to major 2nd (G-F#) as well. Additionally, another staple of the Skynyrd sound is the minor 3rd to major 3rd to root note movement, and this can be heard over the A major chord, with the notes C-C# followed by a high A.

The solo is constructed around the E minor pentatonic scale (E-G-A-B-D) for the most part, but then switches to A minor pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) over the A chord. It also makes use of notes from B major pentatonic (B-C#-D#-F#-G#) over the B chord. 

You’ll notice a country-style 6ths phrase that moves up the scale on the third and first strings. This is another indication of the blend of styles that can be heard in southern rock, which took shape by combining rock, blues and country. 

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 5, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 7, Reverb 3

Rossington was primarily a Gibson Les Paul player, so a humbucking tone is the best place to start. That said, a Stratocaster or Tele will work to good effect for the Lynyrd Skynyrd sound. 

A Fender or Marshall amp tone with enough grit to rock but not too much preamp saturation is the way to go, with minimal effects save for a touch of reverb and perhaps some tape delay-style echo.

Example 1. Rhythm

You’ll notice a blend of rock aggression but also some restraint and finesse in this style of guitar playing, so don’t hit the strings too hard on either the rhythm or lead parts. There’s also some hybrid picking (pick and fingers) in bars 5, 6 and 9, so work on this technique if it’s new to you.

Example 2. Lead

There’s nothing too tricky in the solo, but make sure the hammer-ons from major to minor 3rd are executed cleanly, and that your bends reach their target pitch accurately. Although quite jaunty, you’ll need to maintain a relaxed and laid-back feel here and, as always, avoid rushing!

Lynyrd Skynyrd has released footage of Gary Rossington’s final performance with the band, recorded as part of their 50th Anniversary concert at the Ryman Auditorium on November 13, 2022.

The clip captures the group’s performance of the song Gimme Three Steps, which featured on the band’s 1972 debut, (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), and here sees Rossington in fiery form. 

A full film – The 50th Anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd – is reportedly on the way and will document a night that featured a host of guitar talent, including Brothers Osborne guitarist John Osborne and Marcus King, alongside Shinedown vocalist Brent Smith and country rapper Jelly Roll.

The band are promoting the film with a cross-country premiere at theaters and venues on July 8.

“We are excited to share this special night and celebrate 50 Years of Skynyrd music with the Skynyrd Nation and fans of these timeless songs,” says Johnny Van Zant. 

“We were fortunate to capture this special evening with Gary Rossington and Dale Krantz Rossington and all of the special guests that were able to join us on stage. It is certainly bittersweet because this was Gary’s last show, but we are so fortunate that we were able to share one last special night together on stage, doing what Gary loved.”

Rossington – the band’s last surviving founding member – passed away in March of this year, following ongoing heart trouble. During his five-decade tenure with the group, he co-wrote Sweet Home Alabama and provided the emotive slide that captured hearts on Free Bird.

“The way we lived came out in our instruments, our singing and our songwriting,” Rossington once told Guitar World’s Alan Paul. In the same chat, he recalled an early engineer telling him that they looked mad when they played. “We weren’t always mad,” he commented. “But we learned to play hard and mean.”

Watching the footage above, it shows he kept that spirit until the end of his playing career. As Van Zant comments in his introduction: “Gary... Sick ’em!” 

For more information on the film and to purchase tickets for premiere events, head to the 50th Anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd site.

As Guitar World’s unofficial Southern rock correspondent for the past 33 years, I interviewed Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who passed away March 5 at age 71, many times over many years. He was always insightful, good natured and happy to talk.

A few conversations really stand out. Circa 1996, we did a great phone interview, speaking at length about his sobriety, which was quite new at the time. Shortly after we hung up, my office landline rang again.

“Alan, it’s Gary. I need to talk.”

“Ok, Gary, what’s up?”

“I told you a lie and it’s really bugging me.”

He corrected himself and apologized. The “lie” he had told me was minor and inconsequential – not something that would’ve been in the story anyhow – but he couldn’t live with it. He was making amends and following the 12-step commitment to honesty, and I was touched by that. 

Gary was a survivor and a fighter. Most famously, he survived the October 1977 plane crash that killed singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines. Rossington was the last-surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, though drummer Artimus Pyle, who joined the band later and survived the crash, is still with us. 

All of the crash survivors were badly injured. Bassist Leon Wilkeson had his broken arm set in such a way that he had to play in an upright position, prompting me to once ask Rossington if the metal plate he had inserted in his left arm forced him to alter his playing style in any way. 

“Not really,” he dryly drawled. “I just had to get used to constant, day-in, day-out pain.”

He said that with a laugh, adding that he had broken “just about every bone in my body.”

Long before the crash, the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd had a reputation for hard living, heavy drinking and regular brawling, and without a doubt, their lifestyle fortified their music with intensity, grit and honesty. 

“The way we lived came out in our instruments, our singing and our songwriting,” Rossington said. He recalled an early studio engineer saying that they always looked mad when they played. “We weren’t always mad,” he said. “But we learned to play hard and mean.” 

The group’s three core founding members – Van Zant, Rossington and guitarist Allen Collins – abandoned baseball and turned to music in eighth grade after seeing the Rolling Stones on The Ed Sullivan Show. And although seeing Gregg and Duane Allman, as well as Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley’s pre-Allman Brothers group Second Coming, had a profound impact on the young musicians, British blues-based riff rockers remained their guiding lights.

“We were influenced by Cream, the Yardbirds, Free, the Animals, the Stones and the Beatles,” Rossington said. The underlying key to their sound was filtering that British blues rock sound through their own Jacksonville, Florida, sensibilities and marrying it all with Van Zant’s country-tinged songwriting and singing. “Ronnie was really a country singer in a rock ’n’ roll band,” Skynyrd guitarist Ed King said.

Collins and Rossington had distinctly different styles, as did King and Steve Gaines, who joined the band in 1977, and every other picker who served in the band since their reunion. 

One thing that always held them together and kept them out of each other’s way was Rossington’s sturdy, crunchy, rooted playing and his ability to not over play and to stay out of everyone else’s way. “We even share solos,” Rossington said. “I think having the different sounds keeps things interesting – especially live, when you never know who’s doing what.”

Two years after the crash. Rossington and Collins formed the Rossington Collins Band, which also included Wilkeson and Skynyrd pianist Billy Powell. Wanting to develop their own sound and avoid comparisons with Lynyrd Skynyrd, the group hired female lead singer Dale Krantz, a move that was as savvy as the Allman Brothers Band replacing Duane Allman with pianist Chuck Leavell; the best way to replace an irreplaceable legend is to pivot. 

Krantz and Rossington were married in 1982 and she survives him. The Rossington Collins Band released two strong albums before disbanding. 

Sadly, Collins remained dogged by tragedy. His wife Kathy died while miscarrying their third child in 1980. His drinking and drug use were out of control, and in 1986, he crashed his car into a ditch, killing his girlfriend and sustaining injuries that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He died in 1990.

Collins served as a non-playing musical director when Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited in 1987 for a Tribute tour with Van Zant’s brother Johnny on lead vocals, and then again in 1991. Though it would’ve been impossible to predict it at the time, they’ve pretty much stayed together ever since. No one was more surprised by that than they were.

“It’s amazing,” Rossington said. “After the plane crash, I honestly thought we’d never play together as Lynyrd Skynyrd again. On the Tribute tour [in 1987], the audiences were real receptive and they knew the words to every song.” 

Rossington said he was especially touched by seeing parents and children singing along together. “The people wanted us to get back together. We weren’t planning on it.”

The band kept going, recording and releasing new music through a variety of lineup changes over the ensuing 32 years. Wilkeson died in 2001 and Powell in 2009, leaving Rossington as the lone surviving original member in the group.

In 2016, Gary and Dale released Keep It on Faith, a stripped-down, bluesy album under the name Rossington. It was his first work outside of Lynyrd Skynyrd in 30 years. 

“We kept getting requests from fans to do something like this again, and it was really touching that people liked Rossington Collins so much, so we really wanted to do it for them,” Rossington told me. “After all these years of being married and having kids and grandkids, it brought us back together and thinking about those early days in really nice ways.”

I last spoke to Gary last year for my upcoming book, Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and the Album That Defined the ’70s, which includes a fair amount about Lynyrd Skynyrd and the birth of Southern rock. He was, as ever, happy to look back at the band’s career from the perspective of a successful elder. 

We spoke about the impact of the Allman Brothers Band and the power of being an aspiring musician standing in front of Gregg and Duane, who were just a few years older than them, and contemplating what it would take to be that good. But the real turning point for him, Collins and Van Zant, he said, was seeing Free at Skateland, a Jacksonville skating rink that hosted concerts some nights – after the skating. 

“We had heard how good this band was and went to see them,” Rossington said. “They were late arriving, so they came dragging out Marshall amps and setting up their own gear. They were so cool looking, and then they started playing. And, man, Paul Kossoff was so good and so loud – and there was Paul Rodgers singing his ass off. We were really inspired. 

“Right after that show, the three of us went out and spoke for hours about how it was time to buckle down and get tight. From the time we woke up until we went to bed, we only thought about music from that moment. We were trying to figure out how to get better, what it took. We just wanted to make our mark.”   

Dolly Parton has shared details of her upcoming rock album – aptly titled Rockstar – for which she’s recruited a suite of high-profile guitar stars.

Parton’s out-and-out rock album has been hotly anticipated ever since the country icon confirmed her plans to release a rock ‘n’ roll LP in a bid to “earn her keep” as a newly anointed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

What we didn’t know, though, was just how monumental the studio record would be, with Parton now revealing Rockstar’s mega 30-track setlist, as well as the names of those that were recruited for the outing.

The roles of John 5 and Nikki Sixx were already confirmed, but now Parton has revealed Peter Frampton, Richie Sambora, Warren Haynes, Melissa Etheridge, Sting, Steven Tyler and Steve Perry will also be involved in proceedings.

Joining the above are Brandi Carlile, Ann Wilson, Chris Stapleton, Joan Jett, Mick Fleetwood, and Stevie Nicks, as well as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Fogerty.

The late Gary Rossington will also feature on Rockstar, with the Lynyrd Skynyrd legend set to feature on a cover of the band’s 1973 hit, Free Bird.

A handful of other pop icons and vocalists will be joining the fray, with Parton tapping P!nk, Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, Elton John, Emmylou Harris and many more to feature on Rockstar.

This mammoth collection of A-list musicians will be spread out across Rockstar’s generous tracklist: the two Beatles will feature on a cover of Let It Be, Frampton will play on a rendition of his own Baby, I Love Your Way, and Haynes will feature on a cover of I Want You Back.

Likewise, Sambora will perform on the album’s original title track, while Stapleton will be heard on a version of Night Moves. From a non-guitar perspective, more eyebrow-raising tracks include a cover of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction featuring P!nk and Brandi Carlile, and a rendition of Stairway to Heaven with Lizzo and Sasha Flute.

The full tracklist – along with the names of each guest star and their respective spots – can be found below.

1. Rockstar (special guest Richie Sambora)
2. World on Fire
3. Every Breath You Take (feat. Sting)
4. Open Arms (feat. Steve Perry)
5. Magic Man (feat. Ann Wilson with special guest Howard Leese)
6. Long As I Can See The Light (feat. John Fogerty)
7. Either Or (feat. Kid Rock)
8. I Want You Back (feat. Steven Tyler with special guest Warren Haynes)
9. What Has Rock And Roll Ever Done For You (feat. Stevie Nicks with special guest Waddy Wachtel)
10. Purple Rain
11. Baby, I Love Your Way (feat. Peter Frampton)
12. I Hate Myself For Loving You (feat. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts)
13. Night Moves (feat. Chris Stapleton)
14. Wrecking Ball (feat. Miley Cyrus)
15. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (feat. P!nk & Brandi Carlile)
16. Keep On Loving You (feat. Kevin Cronin)
17. Heart Of Glass (feat. Debbie Harry)
18. Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me (feat. Elton John)
19. Tried To Rock And Roll Me (feat. Melissa Etheridge)
20. Stairway To Heaven (feat. Lizzo & Sasha Flute)
21. We Are The Champions
22. Bygones (feat. Rob Halford with special guests Nikki Sixx & John 5)
23. My Blue Tears (feat. Simon Le Bon)
24. What’s Up? (feat. Linda Perry)
25. You’re No Good (feat. Emmylou Harris & Sheryl Crow)
26. Heartbreaker (feat. Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo)
27. Bittersweet (feat. Michael McDonald) 
28. I Dreamed About Elvis (feat. Ronnie McDowell with special guest The Jordanaires)
29. Let It Be (feat. Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr with special guests Peter Frampton & Mick Fleetwood)
30. Free Bird (feat. Ronnie Van Zant with special guests Gary Rossington, Artimus Pyle and The Artimus Pyle Band)

“I’m so excited to finally present my first rock 'n' roll album, Rockstar,” Parton commented. “I am very honored and privileged to have worked with some of the greatest iconic singers and musicians of all time and to be able to sing all the iconic songs throughout the album was a joy beyond measure. I hope everybody enjoys the album as much as I’ve enjoyed putting it together.”

Rockstar's lead single, an original titled World on Fire, will drop tomorrow (May 11), with the album itself set to arrive on November 17.

Parton's rock renaissance kicked off when she was nominated – and later inducted, despite her attempts to withdraw – into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Soon after, the country legend flexed her heavy chops during the show's ceremony, wielding a $99 mini guitar for an original track, Rockin'.

• Rockstar is available to preorder now.

Lynyrd Skynyrd have announced the band will continue following the passing of Gary Rossington, the group’s last surviving founding member, last month.

The band say they have been in discussions with each other and the families of past members and have come to the conclusion that the group should continue to tour and perform.

Alongside the announcement, the band has shared an extensive list of dates, including a string of previously announced late summer/fall shows with ZZ Top on the Sharply Dressed Man tour, which they intend to honor. 

“I recently lost my husband and partner of over 41 years,” reads a statement from Rossington’s widow, Dale – who performs in the band. “He was an amazing father, grandfather, brother and friend, but most importantly was a world class musician and songwriter.

“It’s been my honor and privilege to share the stage with him for all these years. His music touched so many millions of people around The World, and Gary was always the first to say how, ‘Skynyrd’s music is bigger than me or any one person.’  

“Gary made it known at every chance to express how timeless the music was, and it was always his goal to keep the music alive for his brothers because that was always their dream. He spent his entire life trying to carry on that dream for Ronnie, Allen, Steve and all the others over the years. 

“While he was not able to physically be on stage with the current lineup over the last couple years, he supported them in every way. His dream will continue thanks to Johnny, Rickey and the rest of our band mates to continue to carry his legacy and music on for future generations.”

Vocalist Johnny Van Zant (brother to Skynyrd’s founding member Ronnie Van Zant) has also issued a statement. 

“Gary was not only my brother, bandmate and friend,” writes Van Zant. “I think he loved me as much as I loved him. We would do anything for each other.  We laughed, we fell, we cried and made up, and shared the stage for the last 36 years. Gary, along with my brother Ronnie and Allen started this band and left us all a legacy of music that has stood the test of time, and crossed three generations of fans.  

“The music they created, and the music we created, together since 1987, was always meant to be experienced LIVE. We have come together with the founding band member estates, and everyone involved, and feel the music should continue for everyone to love and enjoy.  So we will continue to perform for the Skynyrd Nation.”

The band’s forthcoming tourmate Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, recently joined Slash and Warren Haynes as part of an all-star tribute to Rossington at last weekend’s CMT Awards. Skynyrd’s full list of live shows can be viewed below. 

2023 Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top tour dates

• 7/21  West Palm Beach, FL                    iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
• 7/22  Tampa, FL                                       Midflorida Credit Union Amphitheatre
• 7/23  Alpharetta, GA                               Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
• 7/28  Rogers, AR                                      Walmart AMP
• 7/29  Fort Worth, TX                                Dickies Arena
• 7/30  Woodlands, TX                               The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
• 8/07  Denver, CO                                     Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre
• 8/10  Mountain View, CA                        Shoreline Amphitheatre
• 8/11  Wheatland, CA                                Toyota Amphitheatre
• 8/13  Phoenix, AZ                                     Ak-Chin Pavilion
• 8/17  Maryland Heights, MO                  Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO
• 8/19  Tinley Park, IL                                 Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - Chicago, IL
• 8/20  Noblesville, IN                                Ruoff Music Center
• 8/25  Cincinnati, OH                                Riverbend Music Center
• 8/26  Clarkston, MI                                   Pine Knob Music Theatre
• 8/27  Toronto, ON                                    Budweiser Stage
• 9/01  Charlotte, NC                                  PNC Music Pavilion
• 9/02  Columbia, MD                                 Merriweather Post Pavilion
• 9/03  Burgettstown, PA                            The Pavilion at Star Lake
• 9/08  Saratoga Springs, NY                      Saratoga Performing Arts Center
• 9/09  Hershey, PA                                     Hersheypark Stadium
• 9/10  Holmdel, NJ                                     PNC Bank Arts Center
• 9/15  Raleigh, NC                                     Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
• 9/16  Ocean City, MD                              Ocean City Bike Fest
• 9/17  Camden, NJ                                     Freedom Mortgage Pavilion

Other 2023 Lynyrd Skynyrd live shows

• 4/29  Brandon, MS                                   Jubilee Days – Brandon Amphitheater
• 5/05  West Panama City Beach, FL        Thunder Beach at Frank Brown Park
• 5/19  Bushkill, PA                                    Lost Highway Motorcycle Show & Concert 2023
• 5/20  Cleveland, OH                                 Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
• 5/27  Laughlin, NV                                   Laughlin Event Center
• 6/16  Santa Rosa, CA                                Country Summer Music Festival
• 6/17  Del Mar, CA                                    Toyota Summer Concert Series
• 7/14  Prior Lake, MN                                Lakefront Music Fest 2023
• 7/15  West Fargo, ND                               Red River Valley Fair
• 8/04  Sweet Home, OR                             Oregon Jamboree Music Festival 2023
• 8/06  Sturgis, SD                                       Sturgis Buffalo Chip

For more information and tickets, head to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s official site.

An A-list ensemble of electric guitar heroes and music heavyweights joined forces at last night’s CMT Music Awards show to pay tribute to the late Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist, Gary Rossington.

As reported late last week, the CMT Rossington tribute was headed up by Slash, Warren Haynes and Billy Gibbons, who sought to emulate the Southern rock outfit’s triple entente of six-string action with the help of a handful of guest vocalists as they performed a medley of the band’s biggest hits.

Paul Rodgers, Cody Johnson, LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna Judd assumed vocal duties, with longtime Rolling Stones touring keysman Chuck Leavell also making an appearance.

Since 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the band’s debut album, (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), Slash and co kicked off with a track from the 1973 effort, Simple Man, for which Johnson and Rodgers shared lead vocal duties. 

Layering up the emotive progressions of the verses, the Gibson Les Paul-wielding duo of Slash and Haynes took turns to embellish proceedings with plenty of pentatonic licks in between vocal lines, with Gibbons getting involved with some tasty turnarounds of his own via the fretboard of his Red Devil Fender Stratocaster as the cover reached its peak.

Towards the end of their two-minute take of Simple Man, Haynes can be seen switching from his own Les Paul to a red Fender Stratocaster – a more apt sonic choice for the ensemble’s second Skynyrd track, Sweet Home Alabama, for which the Allman Brothers star took the lead.

Slash’s humbuckers proved a potent partner to Haynes and Gibbons’ single-coil antics, instilling the twangy track with plenty of beefy licks before the trio were each given eight bars to let loose on a quick-fire guitar solo.

Members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd family were in attendance for the show, including Rossington’s wife and band backing singer Dale Krantz Rossington. Some of Skynyrd’s touring operation was also present, including singer Johnny Van Zant.

Rossington passed away early last month at the age of 71. His passing prompted an outpouring of tributes from a huge range of musicians and guitarists.

The band served up their own tribute to Skynyrd's founding guitarist with a touching rendition of Tuesday's Gone during their first performance after Rossington's passing.

Elsewhere on the CMT Music Awards show bill, Gary Clark Jr. paid tribute to blues guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan with a blazing cover of The House Is Rockin’ from the fretboard of what looked like a charcoal flame burst Gibson ES model.

The forthcoming CMT Awards will pay tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington with a live performance featuring Billy Gibbons, Slash and Warren Haynes, among a host of other rock and country music talent. 

The last of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s founding members, Rossington passed away earlier this month (March 5). The 2023 CMT Awards show will take place on April 2 and will take time to celebrate the life of the guitarist in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of ’Skynyrd’s first album (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd).

As you’d hope, Gibbons, Slash and Haynes will handle electric guitar duties for the tribute. Vocals will be provided by former Free vocalist Paul Rodgers and country star Cody Wilson. 

Elsewhere, the lineup features Rolling Stones (and former Allman Brothers Band) touring member Chuck Leavell sitting in on keys, while backing vocals will come from the somewhat over-qualified pairing of LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna Judd –performing here as ‘The Honkettes’.

Other members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd family will be attending the show, including Rossington’s wife and band backing singer Dale Krantz Rossington, plus vocalist Johnny Van Zant and guitarist Rickey Medlocke.

Rossington passed away aged 71 on March 5 and his death drew tributes from a huge range of guitarists and other musicians, many of whom had crossed paths with the ’Skynyrd legend across his 50 year career. 

His cause of death has not been revealed but the guitarist had suffered with ill health and recurring heart problems across recent years. On March 12, Lynyrd Skynyrd paid their own tribute to Rossington during a performance of Tuesday’s Gone at their first show since his passing,

The 2023 CMT Awards will be hosted in Austin, TX and broadcast live via CBS at 8pm ET / 11pm PT. For more information, head over to CMT.

Lynyrd Skynyrd played their first show since the death of Gary Rossington on Sunday (March 12), headlining Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, FL.

The band put in an emotional performance, with guitarist Damon Johnson taking on Rossington’s parts, as he had done previously during Rossington’s bouts of ill health.

During Tuesday’s Gone, the band displayed a montage of photographs and video clips of Rossington, drawn from across his near-60-year tenure with the band. 

Fan footage of the show has now found its way online, and during the performance, present-day vocalist Johnny Van Zant can be heard introducing Johnson, telling the crowd: “Damon Johnson playing it pretty for Mr. Gary Rossington, up in rock ‘n’ roll heaven.”

Tuesday’s Gone featured on the band’s 1973 debut album (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) and set something of a template for the southern rock movement.

Written by former vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, the lyrics captured the realisation that, having signed to their record label MCA and with the big-time beckoning, life as they then knew it was set to change.

It is thought to be about saying goodbye to the present, with an uncertain future ahead and therefore feels doubly appropriate as a tribute to the group’s last surviving founding member. Not least because the lead guitar on the song is considered to be among the Skynyrd legend’s finest work.

Rossington passed away on March 5, aged 71. The guitarist had survived a number of close calls in his life, most notably the band’s tragic 1977 plane crash and a previous automobile accident.

His cause of death has not been revealed. However, in recent years his health had waned. In 2015 Rossington suffered a heart attack and in 2021 underwent emergency heart surgery.

Of all the artists to emerge from the southern states of the USA, Lynyrd Skynyrd are perhaps the defining band – although they achieved success in their own way.

Fusing the fire of British blues-rock with southern folk and country sensibilities, the group cooked up a hard-hitting gumbo that resonated with audiences in the US and beyond.

The autobiographical lyrics of frontman Ronnie Van Zant were a big part of their appeal – tales of his alcohol-fueled antics were a sharp contrast to the Tolkien-esque scriptures of the prog scene booming at the time of Skynyrd’s 1973 debut, (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd).

But the band’s other USP was their triple-guitar attack – comprising Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and first Ed King, then, later, Steve Gaines – which propelled the band to legendary status, particularly on Free Bird, one of rock music’s all-time greatest epics.

Here, we pay tribute to the Southern rock legends by ranking their best tracks, complete with recollections from Rossington and King on how they made some of the most iconic rock songs of all time.

25. Honky Tonk Night Time Man

Album: Street Survivors (1977)

Like their take on JJ Cale’s Call Me the Breeze and Robert Johnson/Cream’s Crossroads, Lynyrd Skynyrd reimagined Merle Haggard’s Honky Tonk Night Time Man in an original fashion that stamped it as their own even while tipping their hat to a hero.

“We did this song to show our love for Merle and for all country music,” says Gary Rossington. And, like all of Street Survivors, the song was animated by Steve Gaines’ dynamic playing.

“Steve played an incredible solo here and it was a live first take,” says Rossington. “He only knew that it was a G progression and went out and played a mind-boggling solo. He didn’t even hardly know the song, but he played the shit out of it. We were standing in the control room with our jaws dropped, and he strolled in and said, ‘How’d I do?’ We told him to go home and call it a day, because we knew it couldn’t get any better.”

24. Poison Whiskey

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd) (1973)

Despite, or perhaps because of, many of the Lynyrd Skynyrd members’ struggles with addictions, Ronnie Van Zant was never shy about addressing the evils of overindulging. From Poison Whiskey on their first album to That Smell on Street Survivors, Van Zant directly addressed the dangers of over-indulging. Van Zant and Ed King wrote the song in one fell swoop.

“We sat down on his couch and wrote it after dinner one night,” King recalled.

This spontaneous songwriting was typical of Van Zant. “Ronnie believed that if you had to write something down to remember it, it couldn’t have been any good,” says Gary Rossington. “Who knows how many songs got away because of that? He would write constantly in the shower, walking around, wherever.”

23. Whiskey Rock-a-Roller

Album: Nuthin’ Fancy (1975)

Skynyrd’s purest romantization of the musicians’ vagabond lifestyle – boozin’, cruisin’ and lady choosin’ – was a vehicle for Ed King’s snapping Strat and Billy Powell’s straight-up Johnnie Johnson piano riffs. It’s a shot of basic rock and roll that resonated with the group’s hard-partying fans.

So no surprise that the song became a staple of concerts and ended up on side two of the pre-crash lineup’s only live album, albeit with Steve Gaines playing King’s parts. All three guitarists were Peavey endorsers at the time, as a glance at One More from the Road’s back cover amply displays. Gaines and Rossington both used the Peavey Mace, a versatile twin-speaker combo now long out of production, onstage.

22. Swamp Music

Album: Second Helping (1974)

Besides their Southern heritage, Skynyrd also shared a taste for harmonized guitar parts with the Allman Brothers.

That’s on display in the chorus of this Ed King and Ronnie Van Zant number from the band’s hit-laden sophomore album, when King and Gary Rossington team up on a descending melody line that packs an extra hook into the chorus. King sets up the tune with his biting Strat tone, and Rossington delivers the guitar break with a little extra punch from his Les Paul.

Along the way Van Zant conjures an idyllic fantasy version of the rural South as an escape from big city life, name-dropping Delta blues icon Son House and pining for long days hunting with his coon hounds. Van Zant was an avid outdoorsman, so the sound of a yelping pack was likely music to his ears.

21. Comin’ Home

Album: Skynyrd’s First and…Last (1978)

This is another track recorded during the band’s initial Muscle Shoals studio sessions of 1971-72, released posthumously on Skynyrd’s First and…Last (and Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album) as well as 1998’s The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Comin’ Home, an original track written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant, displays more of a country/rock feeling than many of the harder, bluesier tunes recorded during these sessions, and displays the influence of west coast late Sixties rock bands like the Youngbloods and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Collins’ flat-picked arpeggiated guitar part has a fingerpicked, banjo-esque feel, embellished by country style piano fills. The classic harder-edged Skynyrd feel comes in right at the song’s powerful chorus section, accentuated by Rossington’s bluesy and melodic slide guitar licks. The guitar solo section ramps things up a notch higher with a classic, high-energy Allen Collins solo, after which the song settles back into the quieter verse arrangement.

20. Was I Right or Wrong

Album: Skynyrd’s First and…Last

Was I Right or Wrong is a song recorded during the band’s very first recording sessions in 1971-72 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. The songs recorded during these sessions were first issued in September 1978, about a year after the October 1977 tragic plane crash, as Skynyrd’s First and…Last, and later reissued in 1998 as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.

With guitars and bass tuned down one half, the primary rhythm guitar during the verse sections arpeggiates through the D5/D7-G5-C5 chord progression in steady 16th notes, over which Ronnie Van Zant sings a bluesy/Appalachian folk melody while guitarist Gary Rossington adds subtle slide guitar fills in standard tuning.

The simple and plaintive feel of the music is reminiscent of one of the band’s biggest influences, the British band Free, which featured legendary guitar great Paul Kossoff.

The song then kicks into another gear at 2:32, locking into a Gimme Three Steps-type feel, featuring rhythm parts similar to the Rolling Stones’ Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.

A demo of this tune is also included as a bonus track on the 1997 reissue of Second Helping, and the track was also subsequently included on the 1998 compilation, The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd.

19. Don’t Ask Me No Questions

Album: Second Helping

Gary Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant wrote this song on a fishing trip – a getaway from the pressures of the band’s increasingly complicated business affairs. Rossington’s big grinding chords and Ed King’s slide guitar deliver its message about music industry dishonesty with blunt force, but the song also works as an anthem for anybody who puts up with bullshit to hold down a job.

The tune is part of a canon of Skynyrd tunes mocking “the Man” that also includes Mr. Banker and, of course, Workin’ for MCA. It was released as a single in April 1974 and stiffed, but after Sweet Home Alabama followed in June and hit the top 10, Skynyrd would carry a big stick in subsequent dealings with label brass.

18. Gimme Back My Bullets

Album: Gimme Back My Bullets (1976)

As the title and opening track of the band’s fourth studio album, issued in early 1976, Gimme Back My Bullets makes reference to some of the trials and tribulations that the band had suffered at that point, mostly as the result of excessive partying and substance abuse.

Ronnie Van Zant, who at the time was making a concerted effort to get clean, sings on the chorus, “I ain’t foolin’ around ’cause I done had my fun… ain’t gonna see no more damage done,” and adds in the last verse, “I’ve been on top and it seems I lost my dream… But I’ve got it back and I’m feelin’ better everyday.”

With the departure of guitarist Ed King, Skynyrd were now a two-guitar band, and the rhythm/lead roles of Rossington-Collins are more well-defined on this release. On this particular track, Collins lays down the rhythm guitar while Rossington adds succinct, bluesy fills earmarked by pinch harmonics with a hard-driving Billy Gibbons–type delivery.

17. Tuesday’s Gone

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)

Though well known for their rockers and hard-charging attitude, some of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s greatest, deepest, most profound moments occurred on slower tunes; no one could do a power ballad better, as illustrated on Tuesday’s Gone, a melancholy song just begging to be played before an arena full of waving lighters.

“We’ve always liked doing the pretty songs,” says Gary Rossington. “I mean, we grew up on the Beatles.”

Perhaps more relevant than the Fab Four to Van Zant’s approach to ballads is Ed King’s comment: “Ronnie was really a country singer in a rock and roll band.” Songs like Tuesday’s Gone illustrate just how much of an impact Skynyrd had on Nashville, with its acoustic guitar driving the tune atop a steady backbeat, with a surging string section and sweeping piano flourishes making the bed for a muscular guitar solo.

16. On the Hunt

Album: Nuthin’ Fancy

On the Hunt was recorded during the tumultuous sessions that resulted in the band’s third album, 1975’s Nuthin’ Fancy; just prior to entering the studio, original drummer Bob Burns left the band to be replaced by Artimus Pyle, and soon after the recording, both producer Al Kooper and guitarist Ed King stopped working with the band.

Nevertheless, the album was their first to reach the Top 10, peaking at Number 9 and quickly achieving Gold status, though it includes none of the band’s most well-known songs.

On the Hunt prominently illustrates the band’s three-guitar attack, as dual harmonized lines played by Allen Collins and Ed King join Rossington’s single-note driven primary intro/chorus riff. The heavy rock feel of the tune recalls Mountain and Free with a groove very close to the Rolling Stones’ Slave, which was also recorded in 1975.

15. Needle and the Spoon

Album: Second Helping

The Gibson players take the spotlight on this one: Gary Rossington wielding his Les Paul and Allen Collins delivering the meaty, wah-wah–colored solo and transitional riffs with his right-arm guitar, a 1964 Firebird I.

The guitar sported a mini-humbucker in the neck slot and a P-90 in the bridge, for a more snarling, throaty sound. And you can also hear Collins tug on the custom vibrato tailpiece he had mounted on the instrument.

The song is another of Ronnie Van Zant’s cautionary drug tales. And hypocritical, too, considering that his own intake – chronicled in Mark Ribowsky’s band history Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars: The Fast Life and Sudden Death of Lynyrd Skynyrd – was notoriously prodigious.

14. Ballad of Curtis Loew

Album: Second Helping

With Ed King and Gary Rossington alternating slide guitar melodies and producer Al Kooper on piano, this is the classic Skynyrd lineup’s acoustic centerpiece – the tale of an old Black blues guitarist inspiring a young white man to a life in music. But they performed the song just once onstage – at a basement gig in a hotel, according to King.

However, Curtis Loew became a staple of the resurrected Johnny Van Zant-fronted version of the band and remained in their repertoire during subsequent reunions. Perhaps that’s because the song’s subject is really a composite of several musicians the Skynyrd crew knew growing up, including current guitarist Ricky Medlocke’s father, Shorty Medlocke.

The elder Medlocke wrote Train, Train, which became a Top 40 hit for Medlocke’s previous group, Southern rock stompers Blackfoot, in 1979.

13. Down South Jukin’

Album: Skynyrd’s First and…Last

This early Rossington/Van Zant original is another song recorded during the band’s nascent Muscle Shoals sessions in 1971/72, released posthumously in 1978 on Skynyrd’s First and…Last and reissued in 1998 as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.

The song combines the groove of Gimme Three Steps with guitar riffs and a chord progression very similar to What’s Your Name. This song offers a perfect example of the band’s signature lock-step dual guitar parts executed to perfection by Rossington and Collins.

The countrified solo licks, based on a series of oblique bends (two- and three-note figures wherein one of the two or three notes is bent while the others are fretted conventionally) played over the majority of the chords serve to bring elements of country and blues/rock music together, a definitive signature of the Skynyrd sound.

12. Workin’ for MCA

Album: Second Helping

After Skynyrd lifted this musical middle finger as the first song at a showcase they played for MCA label reps in Atlanta, it became the regular opener of their concerts.

The band’s classic Les Paul, Firebird and Stratocaster lineup of Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Ed King define the nexus of Pete Townshend bash and chooglin’ boogie as Ronnie Van Zant unfurls lyrics that are half band bio and half protest against what felt like record company indenture as their debut album sold at a trickle and the band members struggled with poverty.

Rock legend Al Kooper, who produced the first three albums and discovered Skynyrd in an Atlanta bar called Funocchio’s, is the “Yankee slicker” in the lyrics, and they really did sign their contract with MCA for $9,000.

11. I Know a Little

Album: Street Survivors

“This song sums up what Steve Gaines, who wrote it, meant to the band,” says Gary Rossington. “He was a great songwriter and singer – and an incredible guitarist. I’ve never heard anybody, including any of us, play his picking part quite right.

“Steve had a lot to do with the writing and arrangements throughout this album and his playing was so good it really inspired us. When he joined, we were kind of in a lull. We were still selling a lot of tickets and records, but the music was getting a little boring to us. We needed a spark of inspiration, and Steve provided it. He put us back in the frame of mind we had had at the beginning; we started getting together and jamming at night.

“Steve was so good, he was a freak of nature. He used to piss us off because he could do so many things that me and Allen couldn’t. Every time I ever went to his house or his hotel room, he had his black Les Paul on. He’d order room service and eat with his guitar on. He’d sit around and talk and not play it for an hour, but it would be strapped on. He’d watch TV with it on and play during commercials. It was like his third arm.”

10. You Got That Right

Album: Street Survivors

Lynyrd Skynyrd was in a bit of a rut by the time of their fourth album, 1976’s Gimme Back My Bullets. Ed King had left and the band lacked its three-guitar attack.

The solution was close at hand in the form of Steve Gaines, the kid brother of backup singer Cassie.

Recalls Gary Rossington, “She asked if he could jam and I said, ‘Fuck, no!’ But she convinced us to give him a shot. So he joined us onstage one night, with no rehearsal or anything, and as soon as he started playing Allen and I looked at each other and our jaws dropped. We offered him the job, and he quit his band that night and joined the next day. He could play anything – chicken pickin’, country, blues, hard rock.”

Gaines animated all of Street Survivors, but You Got That Right may bear his stamp most of all; in addition to his usual great guitar picking, he wrote the song and sang it as a duet with Van Zant.

9. Call Me the Breeze

Album: Second Helping

The late Oklahoma guitarist and singer J.J. Cale wrote After Midnight and Cocaine, both of which became hits for his friend Eric Clapton. On a whim, Lynyrd Skynyrd decided to play Cale’s Call Me the Breeze.

“We always liked J.J. Cale and we heard Breeze one night sitting around the house and Ronnie said, ‘Let’s do that!’” says Gary Rossington, who wrote a completely new arrangement for the laidback shuffle.

“It didn’t work for us the way he did it – a real straight shuffle,” says Rossington. “If we had changed the lyrics, it would have been a completely different song. We did the same thing to Merle Haggard’s Honky Tonk Night Time Man.”

8. I Ain't the One

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)

Ed King mostly played bass on Skynyrd’s debut album, temporarily replacing Leon Wilkeson, so the three-guitar lineup that helped the band to history wasn’t yet in place when this song was initially cut.

But many of the group’s signatures, like the twin guitar introduction to this tune, which opened that first album, were.

Gary Rossington and Allen Collins share the bluesy main riff and toss fills between their Les Paul and Firebird, but Collins takes the solo, picking bright cold-chiseled sprays of notes punctuated by tugs on his guitar’s custom whammy bar. It’s a big, rockin’ slab of prototypical southern-fried boogie, made even bigger by the addition of King’s replacement Steve Gaines on One More from the Road.

7. Saturday Night Special

Album: Nuthin’ Fancy

Deep in its guts, this is a blues song built on a shuffle beat and flamed up by Ed King’s E minor pentatonic solo played on his ’60s Strat, likely plugged into a Fender Twin.

But Skynyrd spun it into a Top 40 hit by bolstering the structure with their on-top-of-the-beat attack. The band kicks in on the second beat of the second bar, making the tune edgy from the start.

Add in the storyline about jealous murder with a cheap handgun and it’s a dark and stormy look into the black heart of America’s obsession with firearms – maybe even more timely today than when it was written by King and Ronnie Van Zant in 1974.

6. Gimme Three Steps

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)

Like many of Skynyrd’s best songs, Gimme Three Steps was based on something that actually happened to Ronnie Van Zant.

Says Gary Rossington, “Ronnie went into a bar to look for someone and me and Allen were too young to get in so were waiting for him outside, and he came running out with a big ol’ guy chasing him, yelling. He had started dancing with this chick and this guy came in and was going to beat him up and Ronnie said, ‘Just give me three steps and I’m gone.’ The guy had a gun and he was a redneck and he was drunk – a nasty combination of things – and Ronnie said, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, it’s going to be in the ass or in the elbow.’

“And he took off like a bat out of hell. We got in the car and split and he told us what happened and we were laughing and we kind of wrote the song right there, drove over to Allen’s house, got his guitar and finished it.”

5. What’s Your Name

Album: Street Survivors

Although Skynyrd had hits, those hits were always on their own sonic terms.

What’s Your Name, inspired by the sexual and alcoholic exploits of rock-star life on the road, is the most overtly pop tune in their catalog. Hanging on one of Gary Rossington’s fat, hooky riffs, complimented by the snap of Steve Gaines’ Stratocaster and buoyed by Allen Collins’ mid-song Firebird solo, the tune was calculated; Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant purposely set out to write an upbeat smash with a lighter sound and scored the Number 13 slot on the pop charts.

Unfortunately, Van Zant never got to see their experiment succeed, as the song was released the month after the October 20, 1977, plane crash.

4. That Smell

Album: Street Survivors

Gary Rossington’s booze and drug fueled exploits inspired Ronnie Van Zant’s lyrics and this song’s dark, rumbling, highway-to-hell attitude – and made the Street Survivors sessions drag on. Van Zant calls Rossington out by his nickname “Prince Charming” and sings about the night the guitarist crashed his new Ford Torino into a tree and a house.

But Rossington’s musical redemption comes in the soaring feedback and beefy bawl of his Les Paul sparring with Steve Gaines’ fusillades of singing Stratocaster. Rossington’s burly toned introduction grips from its first note to its perfect feedback trail. And lines cautioning that “the smell of death surrounds you” and “tomorrow might not be here for you” proved horrifically, if more broadly, prophetic when the band’s plane crashed three days after the album’s release, killing Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines.

3. Simple Man

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)

Simple Man, co-written by Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington, has become one of the group’s trademark songs. The epic power ballad about a heartfelt message from a blue collar mother to her striving son starts slow and builds to a powerful Rossington solo; the music hammers home the message, which continues to resonate.

“Ronnie was a great storyteller,” says Rossington. “He wrote about things that were going on, things we saw every day and people related to it – and they still do.

According to Ed King, the group had to fight to even record the song.

“When we were just about done cutting the first album, we played Simple Man for [producer] Al Kooper, and he said, ‘You guys are not gonna record that song,” says King.

“So Ronnie took Kooper out to the parking lot, opened the door to Kooper’s Bentley, and said, ‘Get in.’ Kooper’s sitting there behind the wheel, and Ronnie shut the door and said, ‘When we’re done cutting it, we’ll call you. We cut the whole tune without him. When a band knows what it wants to do, it has to go with its heart and not listen to people on the outside.”

2. Sweet Home Alabama

Album: Second Helping

“I knew Sweet Home Alabama was a classic the minute we wrote it,” said guitarist Ed King, who was primarily responsible for the song’s music, most notably its defining riff. He wrote it on his first day as the band’s guitarist.

King had met Lynyrd Skynyrd when his band the Strawberry Alarm Clock opened for them. When bassist Leon Wilkeson abruptly left the band, they asked King to fill in. When Wilkeson returned, King slid over to Strat, and their dual guitar lineup became a triple threat. Gary Rossington came up with a simple, evocative fingerpicked D, C, G progression – which he terms “the banjo/steel guitar part” – and feeling like he was onto something, kept playing it over and over.

“Gary had been playing his riff for 15 minutes when I walked in and threw mine in to bounce off of what Gary was doing,” recalled King. “That was what you know as the Sweet Home riff, and when Ronnie heard it, he locked in and wrote the words.”

“He had all the lyrics within an hour,” says Rossington. “We used to travel through Alabama a lot and get onto back roads and just marvel at how pretty it was and how nice the people were. And Neil Young was, and still is, one of our favorite artists, so when he came out with Southern Man and Alabama, criticizing the South, we said, ‘Well, what does he know? He’s from Canada!’ So we threw that line about him in there.

“We were told by some people to take out the parts about Neil Young and [former Alabama governor] George Wallace, but we said, ‘Hey it’s just a song. And we’re going to record it the way we wrote it.’”

“I wrote the choruses and everything up to Billy’s piano solo. It was a three-way collaboration as my part inspired Ronnie and I never would've been inspired to write my part without Gary's contribution,” King added.

“Right after we wrote it, Ronnie said to me, ‘Well? There’s our Ramblin’ Man.’”

1. Free Bird

Album: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)

Guitarist Allen Collins came up with the music to Free Bird very early in the band’s songwriting process. But while everyone recognized the grace of the chord progression, Ronnie Van Zant could not come up with a suitable vocal melody.

Recalls Gary Rossington, “Allen had the chords for the beginning, pretty part for two full years and we kept asking Ronnie to write something and he kept telling us to forget it; he said there were too many chords so he couldn’t find a melody. He thought that he had to change with every chord.

Then one day we were at rehearsal and Allen started playing those chords again, and Ronnie said, ‘Those are pretty. Play them again.’ He said, ‘I got it,’ and wrote the lyrics in three or four minutes – the whole damned thing!”

Like Stairway to Heaven, one of its chief competitors for the unofficial title of rock’s most epic song, Free Bird starts out as a ballad before becoming a solo-fueled rocker. That was not by design, recalls Rossington: “When we started playing it in clubs, it was just the slow part. Ronnie said, ‘Why don’t you do something at the end of that so I can take a break for a few minutes.’

“I came up with those three chords at the end and Allen and I traded solos, and Ronnie kept telling us to make it longer; we were playing three or four sets a night, and he was looking to fill it up and get a break.”

The structure of Free Bird was set, but it was still lacking one final element; the elegant piano intro, which was written by then-roadie Billy Powell. “One of our roadies told us we should check out this piano part that another roadie had written as an intro for the song,” says Rossington. “We did – and Billy went from being a roadie to a member right then.”

The original album version of the song clocked in at almost 10 minutes and according to Rossington and Ed King, MCA objected to putting such a long song on the band’s debut album. A 3:30 radio edit was cut and the single, at 4:10, became a Top 20 hit.

“MCA said we couldn’t put a 10-minute song on an album, because nobody would play it,” recalls King. “Of course, that was the song everyone gravitated toward!”

On Skynyrd's first live album, 1976's One More from the Road, Van Zant can be heard asking the crowd, “What song is it you wanna hear?” The overwhelming response leads into the 14-minute version of the song that became iconic. Though Van Zant often dedicated Free Bird to Duane Allman, contrary to urban legend, it was not written for him.

Yesterday (March 5), it was announced that Gary Rossington, the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, had passed away at the age of 71.

The band’s official social media account broke the news with a statement that read, “It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today.

“Gary is now with his Skynyrd brothers and family in heaven and playing it pretty, like he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time.”

As the last of the band’s classic guitar lineup – and only founding Skynyrd member to appear on all of the iconic Southern rock outfit’s albums since the band’s inception as My Backyard in 1964 – Rossington has left behind a profound legacy, having carried the Skynyrd torch throughout the decades despite mounting health problems.

In response to the immeasurable inspiration Rossington gave both his peers and aspiring guitar fans alike, the guitar world has come out in full force to pay tribute to music and memory of the Skynyrd founder.

On Twitter, an especially emotional post from Joe Bonamassa read, “This has been [the] worst week in my memory. Literally everyday another legend or friend has passed away. Rest in Peace Gary. Thank you for being so nice to me over the years.”

Metallica frontman James Hetfield, who played alongside Rossington during Metallica’s 30th Anniversary shows in 2011, wrote, “RIP Brother Gary. Thank you for bringing me so much joy with your guitar playing and songwriting in one of my all time favorite bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

Further tributes from Zakk Wylde, Neal Schon, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and more can be found below. 

As we commemorate the life of Southern rock guitar great Gary Rossington, who has died aged 71, we are unearthing some of his most memorable conversations with Guitar World. This feature was first published online in March 2009.

“We used a lot of D-C-G progressions,” Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington says with a shrug and a laugh about his band’s songwriting process. “There’s only seven chords, so you got to use the same ones over and over. It’s all in what you do with them. I could write a dozen different songs with the same three or four chords but they’d all be entirely different.”

Rossington and company certainly have always had a knack for doing a lot with a little. For while Skynyrd are renowned for their aggressive, three-guitar attack and the seemingly endless soloing such a lineup inevitably produces, what’s really made Skynyrd a staple of classic rock radio is their songs: instantly memorable four-minute rockers like Sweet Home Alabama, Gimme Three Steps and What’s Your Name, as well as extended ballads such as Simple Man, Tuesday’s Gone and, of course, Free Bird.

Remarkably, the latter, one of rock’s most-played, best-loved songs, was one of the first songs Lynyrd Skynyrd ever wrote – penned when singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington were still in their teens.

Like virtually all of their material, Free Bird was written as a collaboration between Van Zant and one the group’s guitarists. This loose but consistent formula served Skynyrd extremely well, producing classic songs which quickly made them one of the nation’s most popular bands.

By 1975, however, when third guitarist Ed King left the group suffering from burnout, Skynyrd had fallen into a bit of a creative rut, as reflected by Gimme Back My Bullets, an unusually flaccid affair. Before anybody could write the band’s epitaph, however, they added guitarist Steve Gaines, whose songwriting and phenomenal playing infused them with a new energy.

The rejuvenated band shines on 1976’s live One More for the Road and the following year’s Street Survivors. The latter is one of the best-arranged and played guitar albums in rock history.

Tragically, before the group could reap the fruits of this rebirth, their chartered plane crashed into a Mississippi swamp on October 20, 1977, killing three members –including Gaines and Van Zant – seriously injuring everyone else and seemingly forever putting an end to the group.

A decade later, the surviving members of the group got together for a “Tribute” tour with Van Zant’s brother, Johnnie, taking over as vocalist. Enthusiastic audience response led to a full-time reunion, which has produced numerous albums, including 2003’s Vicious Cycle (Sanctuary). Here, Rossington recalls the origins of some of the band’s best-loved tunes.

1. Free Bird

Album: (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) (1973)

“I don’t remember that one. Could you sing it for me? Oh, okay. Allen had the chords for the beginning, pretty part for two full years. We were just beginning to write – that was actually one of the first songs we ever completed – and Ronnie kept saying that there were too many chords so he couldn’t find a melody for it. He thought that he had to change with every chord change. We kept asking him to write something to these chords and he kept telling us to forget about it!

“Then one day we were at rehearsal and Allen started playing those chords, and Ronnie said, ‘Those are pretty. Play them again.’ Allen played it again, and Ronnie said, ‘Okay, I got it.’ And he wrote the lyrics in three or four minutes – the whole damned thing! He came up with a lot of stuff that way, and he never wrote anything down. His motto was if you can’t remember it, it’s not worth remembering.

“So we started playing it in clubs, but it was just the slow part. Then Ronnie said, ‘Why don’t you do something at the end of that so I can take a break for a few minutes.’ So I came up with those three chords at the end and Allen played over them, then I soloed and then he soloed. It all evolved out of a jam one night.

“So we started playing it that way, but Ronnie kept saying, ‘It’s not long enough. Make it longer.’ Because we were playing three or four sets a night, and he was looking to fill it up. Then one of our roadies told us we should check out this piano part that another roadie, Billy Powell, had come up with as an intro for the song. We did – and he went from being a roadie to a member right then.

“Everybody told us that we were crazy to put the song on our first album, because it was too long. Our record company begged us not to include it. And when it first came out, they did all kind of awful edits until it got big enough where it didn’t matter any more. It humbles us to think that it’s been played so much – and it’s still played. But it’s not magic – it’s still just a song to us.”

2. Gimme Three Steps

Album: pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd (1973)

“This is another true story. Ronnie went into a bar to look for someone and me and Allen were too young to get in so were waiting for him outside, and we were waiting and waiting, then he came running out with a big ol’ guy chasing him, yelling.

“He had started dancing with this chick and this guy came in and was going to beat him up and Ronnie said, ‘Just give me three steps and I’m gone.’ The guy had a gun and he was a redneck and he was drunk – a nasty combination of things – and Ronnie said, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, it’s going to be in the ass or in the elbow.’ And he took off like a bat out of hell.

“We got in the car and split and he told us what happened and we were laughing and we kind of wrote the song right there, drove over to Allen’s house, got his guitar and finished it.

“The more wild experiences you have the better songs you can write. I’m not necessarily proud of everything we ever did, but that’s just true. We always just considered ourselves a working-man’s band and thought every song should tell a story that people could relate to. When we finish a song, you know what it’s about, whereas some groups have songs you may dig but not understand. I think that’s why our songs have lasted as long as they have.”

3. Sweet Home Alabama

Album: Second Helping (1974)

“I came up with the banjo/steel guitar part – it’s just a fingerpicked D, C, G progression – and the little opening riff, which I kept playing over and over again. Ronnie started writing lyrics at rehearsal one day and saying, ‘Play that again. Play that again.’ And after about an hour he had all the words. Then Ed [King] took it home and put in all the little fills and licks and arranged it.

“It was basically a joke song. We used to travel through Alabama a lot and get onto back roads and just marvel at how pretty it was and how nice the people were. And Neil Young was, and still is, one our favorite artists, so when he came out with Southern Man and Alabama, criticizing the South, we said, ‘Well, what does he know? He’s from Canada!’ So we threw that line about him in there. We were told by some people to take out the parts about Neil Young and [former Alabama governor] George Wallace, but we said, ‘Hey, it’s just a song. And we’re going to record it the way we wrote it.’

“Most of our songs come through us. It either happens real quick or it doesn’t happen at all. Actually, Ronnie wrote most of his lyrics either driving around Jacksonville checking out different neighborhoods – especially poor ones, black and white – or in the shower.

“You know how people sing in the shower? Well, Ronnie did that, but he made up songs – melody, verse, chorus, bridge and all. Many times when we were on the road, he’d end up running into my room with a towel around his waist, dripping wet, saying, ‘Check this out. Write some music to that real quick.’ So I’d try to write a few chords to get a rough idea of where the song was going, then either Allen or Ed or I would go back and finish the song.”

4. Call Me the Breeze

Album: Second Helping (1974)

“We always liked J.J. Cale and we heard Breeze one night sitting around the house and Ronnie said, ‘Let’s do that!’ But it didn’t work the way he did it – a real straight shuffle – so I wrote the arrangement, which was completely different. If we had changed the lyrics, it would have been a completely different song. We did the same thing to Merle Haggard’s Honky Tonk Night Man.”

5. Crossroads

Album: One More For The Road (1976)

“We did that as a tribute to Cream, one of our all-time favorite bands. We saw them on their Farewell tour and they completely blew our minds, so we made this a regular part of our set. In fact, it was our encore for years, until Free Bird became so big that we basically had to do that last.

“By the time we recorded the live album, it had been such a part of our set for so long that we felt we had to include it. Also, our producer, Tom Dowd, engineered the Cream version and he told us the story about how it came together, and that really inspired us to want to re-record it.”

6/7. I Know a Little / You Got That Right

Album: Street Survivors (1977)

“I think these two songs sum up what Steve Gaines meant to the band. He wrote both of them and sang You Got That Right as a duet with Ronnie. He was a great songwriter and singer – and an incredible guitarist. I’ve never heard anybody, including any of us, play the picking he did on I Know a Little quite right.

“Steve had a lot to do with the writing and arrangements throughout this album and his playing was so good it really inspired us. When he joined, we were kind of an in a lull. We were still doing well – selling a lot of tickets and records – but the music was getting a little boring to us. We needed a little spark of inspiration, and Steve provided it. We started getting together and jamming at night. It put us back in the frame of mind we had had at the beginning.

“Steve was so good, he was a freak of nature. He used to piss us off because he could do so many things that me and Allen couldn’t. Every time I ever went to his house or his hotel room, he had his black Les Paul on. He’d order room service and eat with his guitar on. He’d sit around and talk and not play it for an hour, but it would be strapped on. He’d watch TV with it on, play it during commercials, then stop. It was like his third arm.”

8. Honky Tonk Night Time Man

Album: Street Survivors (1977)

“This is a Merle Haggard song, which we did to show our love for him and for country music in general. Steve played an incredible solo here also, and it was a live first take.

“We only knew that it was a G progression and he went out and played a mind-boggling solo. He didn’t even hardly know the song, but he played the shit out of it. We were standing in the control room with our jaws dropped, and he strolled in and said, ‘How’d I do?’ We told him to go home and call it a day, because we knew it couldn’t get any better.”

9. What’s Your Name

Album: Street Survivors (1977)

“Me and Ronnie were just sitting in a hotel room one night and I had those chords which I had just written that day. And he right off the bat started singing. The original lyrics were, ‘It’s eight o’clock and boy is it time to go.’ Ronnie had just gotten an itinerary from his brother Donnie, who was in .38 Special and their first stop was Boise, Idaho. So Ronnie changed the first line to ‘It’s eight o’clock in Boise, Idaho,’ which immediately made it a real on-the-road song.

“But it’s all basically a true story. One of our road crew got in a fight at a bar with one of the hotel guests and they kicked us out, and we said we’d leave if they’d send a bottle of champagne to our room. It’s just about being young and free – 21 and unmarried. We’d go to a town and meet a chick, then forget her name. And when you’d come back to town, you’d say, ‘What was your name, honey?’”

10. The Last Rebel

Album: The Last Rebel (1993)

“This is a very moody song. We had to really get in the mood to record it, then we just cut it live. I wrote the music and named it at my house in Wyoming. Then Johnnie and Michael Lunn and Robert Johnson wrote the lyrics. The first verse is about a civil war soldier and the second verse is about me, they say, and the third verse is sort of about us – the last rebels, out on the road, still doing our thing.

“It’s one of my favorite songs to do live, which is a good sign – it really holds up with our old material. When I see it on our set list, I go, ‘All right.’ But we never get sick of playing any of our songs, because of the adrenaline we get from the audience’s response.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd have announced that Gary Rossington is set to miss a number of upcoming tour dates as he recovers from “emergency heart surgery”.

Alabaman electric guitar star Damon Johnson has been recruited by the legendary Southern rock outfit to temporarily fill in during the next leg of shows while Rossington recovers.

Posting to social media, Lynyrd Skynyrd reported, “Our thoughts and prayers are with Gary Rossington as he recovers from emergency heart surgery. Gary is home resting and recovering with his family. He wants everyone to know he is doing good and expects a full recovery.

“After this past year, the country being shut down and everything we have all been thru, The Rossington’s encouraged the band to go perform in his absence,” they continued. “Music is a powerful healer! We all felt playing the shows and bringing the music to y’all was a better option than cancelling the performances.

“We wish Gary a speedy recovery and we will see the Skynyrd Nation very soon!”

Rossington is the sole remaining member of the band’s original set-up from, with Lynyrd’s line-up currently comprising frontman Johnny Van Zant – brother of late Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant – as well as Rickey Medlocke, Michael Cartellone, Mark Matejka, Peter Keys and Keith Christopher.

Lynyrd’s lead guitarist experienced similar health difficulties six years ago, which forced the band to cancel the last two shows of their 2015 tour.

In his own statement on social media, Johnson – founder of Brothers Cane, former Alice Cooper band member and touring guitarist for Thin Lizzy since 2011 – wrote, “Gary Rossington’s guitar playing consumed me from day one of discovering Skynyrd’s music in my youth.

“It was an honor to lend a hand to the band this weekend, and my family is sending buckets of healing energy [in] Gary's direction. Thank you, Skynyrd Nation.”

The Alabaman guitar man lined up alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd for two performances last week: on July 22 at Twin Cities Summer Jam in Shakopee, Minnesota, and July 23 at North Dakota State Fair.

Lynyrd Skynyrd are next slated to appear on August 9 at the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, which will precede shows at Jackson County Fair, Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood and Rock the South.

For a full list of tour dates, head over to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s official website.

In this excerpt from the GW archive - the February/March 2005 issue of Guitar World Acoustic, to be exact - Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington shares the story behind the band's iconic song, Free Bird.

“Ronnie [Van Zant, Skynyrd vocalist] didn’t like it in the beginning. He complained that the opening chord progression was too complicated, and he couldn't find a melody for it. Every once in a while we’d bring it up again, and he’d just tell us to forget about it.

"Then one day we were at rehearsal and Allen [Collins, guitarist] started playing the chord progression, and Ronnie said, ‘That’s pretty.’ And he wrote the lyrics in three or four minutes - the whole damn thing!

"We started playing Free Bird in clubs, and initially it was just a slow ballad.

"Then Ronnie said, ‘Why don’t you do something at the end of that so that I can take a break for a few minutes.’ So I came up with the ending chord progression and Allen played over them, then I soloed and then he soloed - it all evolved out of a single jam we had one night.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd have been out on their Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour since the spring of 2018. Now, the iconic southern rock outfit have announced a new leg of what is being billed as their final trek, scheduled to kick off May 10 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

The band will be joined by Bad Company, Hank Williams, Jr. and Cody Jinks on select dates. Tickets are on sale February 8 at 10 A.M. local time.

Back when the tour was first announced in 2018, guitarist Gary Rossington, Skynyrd’s only remaining original member, said in a press release: “It’s hard to imagine, after all these years, the band that Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins and myself started back in Jacksonville, would resonate for this long and to so many generations of fans. I’m certain they are looking down from above, amazed that the music has touched so many.”

“We’ve been blessed by these great songs and the messages they carry to the fans," added Jonny Van Zant, the band's lead singer. "It’s been a true honor to try and fill in my brother’s footsteps for the past 31 years, keeping the music and his spirit, alive.”

You can check out the full itinerary below. 

For more information, head to LynyrdSkynyrd.com. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd tour dates:

April 27 – Indio, CA @ Stagecoach *
May 10 – Tuscaloosa, AL @ Tuscaloosa Amphitheater +
May 11 – Arlington, TX @ KAABOO Texas *
May 17 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center ^
May 18 – Lafayette, LA @ Cajundome ^
May 24 – Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
May 31 – Gilford, NH @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion ^
June 1 – Bangor, ME @ Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion ^
July 13 – Canandaigua, NY @ Constellation Brands–Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center: CMAC
July 19 – Welch, MN @ Treasure Island Resort & Casino *
July 20 – Walker, MN @ Moondance Jam *
July 26 – Portland, OR @ Sunlight Supply Amphitheater #
July 27 – Seattle, WA @ White River Amphitheatre #
August 9 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
August 16 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
August 17 – Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
August 23 – Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre presented by Mercury Insurance
August 30 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion ^
August 31 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center ^
September 13 – Southaven, MS @ Bank Plus Amphitheater +
September 14 – Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre +
September 20 – Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheater +
September 21 – Denver, CO @ Fiddler’s Green
September 27 – Jackson, MS @ Brandon Amphitheater +
September 28 – Orange Beach, AL @ The Wharf Amphitheater +

+ with Cody Jinks
^ with Hank Williams Jr
# with Bad Company
*Previously announced U.S. dates

Country music legend Charlie Daniels has been hosting his (sort-of annual) Volunteer Jam concerts in Tennessee since 1974. As you can probably imagine, there have been scores of kickass shows and guests over the decades, including the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, Carl Perkins and more.

That said, the 1987 version (Jam XIII) has gone down in history as one of the best. It was, after all, the show where Stevie Ray Vaughan shared the stage with Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band and, of course, Daniels.

Above, check out an energetic performance of JJ Cale's "Call Me the Breeze," which, at that point, had appeared on Skynyrd's Second Helping and One More from the Road albums.

At 1:29, singer Joel "Taz" DiGregorio (the Charlie Daniels Band's keyboardist) steps away from the mic and lets Vaughan do his thing. At 2:10, Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle joins Taz at the mic. The other guitar solos include Mason Ruffner (2:29), the Marshall Tucker Band's Toy Caldwell (3:30), Skynyrd's Ed King (4:30) and Gary Rossington (5:02) and the Charlie Daniels Band's Tommy Crain (6:30).

After Skynyrd guitarist Randall Hall solos at 7:10, Skynyrd bassist Leon Wilkeson plays a John Entwistle-influenced bass solo at 7:31 (remember that Skynyrd opened for the Who back in the day). Enjoy!

The iconic Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd have announced that—after one final American tour this summer—they will disband.

Though only one member—guitarist Gary Rossington—remains from the band's original, best-known lineup, they have been a touring institution since 1987, when they returned after a decade-long hiatus following the death of their lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant, in a plane crash.

The Last of the Street Survivors tour will run from early May to the beginning of September, and will send the band across the United States. Tickets for the tour will go on sale to the general public on November 2 at 10 a.m. on livenation.com.

“It’s hard to imagine, after all these years, the band that Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins and myself started back in Jacksonville, would resonate for this long and to so many generations of fans. I’m certain they are looking down from above, amazed that the music has touched so many,” Rossington said in a press release.

“We’ve been blessed by these great songs and the messages they carry to the fans," added Jonny Van Zant, the band's lead singer. "It’s been a true honor to try and fill in my brother’s footsteps for the past 31 years, keeping the music and his spirit, alive.”

The band will be joined by a long list of friends throughout the tour, including but not limited to Kid Rock, Hank Williams Jr., Charlie Daniels Band, Bad Company, Marshall Tucker Band, 38 Special, Blackberry Smoke and Blackfoot.

You can check out the band's full itinerary below.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour

• May 4 – Coral Sky Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, Fla.
• May 5 – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa, Fla.
• May 11 – Starplex Pavilion, Dallas, Texas
• May 12 – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Presented by Huntsman, Houston, Texas
• May 18 – Ak-Chin Pavilion, Phoenix, Ariz.
• May 19 – Mattress Firm Amphitheatre, Chula Vista, Calif.
• May 25 – Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, Calif.
• May 26 – Glen Helen Amphitheater, San Bernardino, Calif.
• June 22 – PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, N.J.
• June 23 – Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, N.Y.
• June 29 – Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh, N.C.
• June 30 – PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, N.C.
• July 6 – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, Va
• July 7 – Jiffy Lube Live, Bristow, Va.
• July 13 – Darien Lake Amphitheater, Darien, N.Y.
• July 14 – Xfinity Theatre, Hartford, Ct.
• July 20 – Xfinity Center, Mansfield, Mass.
• July 21 – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, N.Y.
• July 27 – Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
• July 28 – Hersheypark Stadium, Hershey, Pa.
• Aug. 3 – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, Ill.
• Aug. 4 – Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center, Noblesville, Ind.
• Aug. 10 – DTE Energy Music Theatre, Detroit, Mich.
• Aug. 11 – Budweiser Stage, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Aug. 17 – Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Aug. 18 – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, St. Louis, Mo.
• Aug. 24 – Lakeview Amphitheatre, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Aug. 25 – KeyBank Pavilion, Burgettstown, Pa.
• Aug. 31 – Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, Pelham, Ala.
• Sept. 1 – Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood, Atlanta, Ga.

Lynyrd Skynyrd founding guitarist Gary Rossington reportedly suffered a serious heart attack on October 8 and has been under observation since then.

Rossington’s daughter Mary Elizabeth posted the news at the Ronnie Van Zant fan page on Facebook.

“We were very close to losing him this time and just pray that they will develop even better techniques soon to deal with heart disease,” she writes.

According to the note, the 63-year-old guitarist—the only founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the current lineup—has been battling heart problems for years. After this most recent heart attack, doctors have added and repaired stents inserted in previous surgeries, including during a quintuple bypass he underwent in 2003.

“They went in to repair and unclog the two stents they did previously in the year which had a blood clot,” his daughter notes, “added a third stent to one vein and in two weeks we will need to go in to do a fourth stent in one of his bypassed veins from 12 years ago.”

Former Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle sent a message of support to Rossington via social media that read: “I love you, Gary. Our band loves you. Stay strong and ‘May the force be with you.’”

Rossington was hospitalized earlier this year with an abdominal infection that forced Skynyrd to cancel a tour date. Two shows in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, have been cancelled due to his heart attack and will be rescheduled for 2016. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tour schedule currently shows just two more performances for the remainder of this year.

Rossington cofounded Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1964 in Jacksonville, Florida, with his friend Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, at which time they were named My Backyard. He was among the survivors of the October 1977 plane crash that killed Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, among others.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s One More from the Road is among the greatest live rock concert albums—in the pantheon alongside the Who’s Live At Leeds, the Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys and Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same.

It captures the band of misfits from Jacksonville, Florida, at their absolute instrumental peak, featuring the scalding three-guitar lineup of Skynyrd co-founders Gary Rossington and Allen Collins and then-newcomer Steve Gaines.

The 1976 double-LP also introduced the definitive 13:30 version of “Free Bird,” which became a Top 40 hit, a staple of FM radio and one of the most enduring rock songs—and punch lines—of the late 20th century.

“Free Bird” was Skynyrd’s “Whipping Post,” the 22-minute song recorded live in 1971 at New York City’s legendary Fillmore East by a band they idolized, the Allman Brothers.

It was also, along with the follow-up studio album Street Survivors in 1977, the last great hurrah for Southern rock, a style that apparently none of its trailblazers ever intended to invent.

“We just wanted to be a rock band,” says Rossington today, via phone from his mansion in Georgia. “Sure, we were from the South and we grew up on blues and country, but we really loved the blues and rock that was coming from England, and that’s what we wanted to play.” Like the Allman Brothers’ Dickey Betts, who thought of his band with Duane and Gregg Allman as progressive rock, Rossington made peace with the brand over time.

Today, Rossington, who’s 63, says he’s also made peace with his demons. The original Lynyrd Skynyrd were a hard-partying bunch, inclined to an excessive amount of excess—booze, drugs, groupies and fights that sometimes sent its members to the hospital, all chronicled in Mark Ribowsky’s new book Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars: The Fast Life and Sudden Death of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The first half of that title is pulled from the opening lines of “That Smell,” a song original Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant wrote for Street Survivors after Rossington smashed his new Ford Torino into an oak tree and a house while on a bender.

“I did get in a car wreck, but we got a good song out of it,” says Rossington. “I still remember the day we cut that in the studio. My guitar sound was hot…with the feedback.

“Eventually I learned that drugs are just horrible for you,” he continues, “but that’s the way it was in rock and roll in our time. I can’t do any of that stuff now. I’m not in such great health. I’ve had some heart problems and I’m on the straight and narrow. It’s a lot better than being fucked up all the time, and I thank God I made it through those days.”

Rossington is the sole survivor of the original incarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which lasted for 11 years. The group’s decade-long hiatus began with a nightmarish post-concert plane crash on October 20, 1977, near Gillsburg, Mississippi, that killed Van Zant, Steve and Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray just three days after the release of Street Survivors.

The accident understandably hangs over Rossington’s conversations about the band like a ghost. He rarely mentions it directly, preferring to complete relevant sentences with terms like, “until, well, you know…” or simply pausing to skip a beat.

He understandably prefers to dwell on the positive stuff, including the concert the current version of Skynyrd—featuring him, Blackfoot frontman Rickey Medlocke and Mark Matejka on guitars—played on November 12, 2014, celebrating One More from the Road. Like the original, it was staged at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre and recorded. It’ll be released later this summer as a DVD and CD called One More for the Fans! featuring a slew of guests including Gregg Allman, Peter Frampton, Robert Randolph, Warren Haynes, Blackberry Smoke, Charlie Daniels, Jason Isbell and John Hiatt.

“All the guests got to pick a Lynyrd Skynyrd song,” says Rossington. “I wish all the guys who wrote them could have heard it. I think I had the most fun playing with Robert Randolph, who came in carrying his pedal steel under his arm like a purse—no case or anything. And when he plugged in…man! He is so good it’s scary.”

There’s more Skynyrd on the way, too. In early April the band convened at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville to record two concerts. The first featured the songs from their debut album, 1973’s (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd), played in its entirety, and the next night they did the same for the 1974 follow-up, Second Helping. And the group is starting to write songs for what will be the 14th Lynyrd Skynyrd studio album.

But Rossington says he’s still got a special place in his heart for One More from the Road and the people who he shared the stage with during its recording on July 7, 8 and 9 in 1976, which is where our conversation begins:

One More from the Road caught Skynyrd at an instrumental peak, although the July 7 show was only Steve Gaines’ third gig with the band. What did Steve bring to Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Steve was a great player and a great songwriter, and he had a hand in writing some of our best songs for Street Survivors, like “I Know a Little,” and would have written a lot more great ones if things hadn’t worked out the way they did.

After Ed King quit the band, Allen and I played as just two guitars for about a year. But we decided we needed another guitarist so we could get back to playing those double and triple leads. We played with Leslie West in New York, and he was going to join us, but that petered out.

Then Barry Harwood, who Allen and me later started the Rossington Collins Band with, nearly joined. And then Cassie Gaines, our backing vocalist, introduced us to her brother and told us he was a great guitar player. Everybody says that, but when we met him and he sat in, he had a slide and he was playing the hell out of it! He grew up more on Motown and country, which was different than the blues we came up on. And when he played with us, it was kind of country and jazzy, and that expanded our sound.

We rehearsed for a couple of weeks and then recorded One More from the Road. He didn’t even know some of the songs, but he played his ass off. He became a real inspiration to me, Allen and Ronnie.

Steve was one of those cats who always had his guitar strapped to him. Even when he was home, he’d be walking around playing guitar. He’d answer the door with his guitar on and play while he was on the phone. If he was watching TV, he’d play during commercials. He inspired me and Allen to really get back into chompin’ down.

Talk to me about Ronnie. He had a reputation for being rough and mercurial.

Well, you have to understand that there were two versions of Ronnie. When he was a normal, down-to-Earth guy, he’d be your best friend and do anything for you. But sometimes when he drank he’d go nuts.

Mostly, though, we all got along good. He and Steve were close really fast. Steve moved from Oklahoma to a house near Ronnie’s in Florida. He and Ronnie would go to each other’s houses almost every day. They both had little kids and the kids would start playing and Ronnie and Steve would start writing songs. We all used to hang out together all the time, like a big family.

But didn’t Ronnie get in a fight with you on your first tour in Europe that was so bad you both had to go to the hospital?

That was a bummer, man. It was the first time we drank schnapps. People in the South don’t usually drink strawberry schnapps. We went to this bar in Hamburg, Germany, where they served us ice-cold schnapp—so when we drank it, it tasted like water. I don’t think he meant to do that to me, but he was drunk and out of his gourd. He cut up my hands with a broken bottle.

I was hurt, but I could still play. He felt bad about it, and the next day we were friends again. That was all that mattered. My hands hurt when I played and the band was mad at him for a while, but everybody got over it. The bottom line is, we were a band of brothers. All we lived for was playing and being out on the road. That was our dream and it came true.

You and Ronnie grew up together, and even then he had a reputation as a bully who everybody feared. How did you get past that?

Once we got to know Ronnie, he was like a father to Allen and me. My father died when I was 10 and Allen’s mother and father were divorced, so neither one of us had a man around the house. Ronnie was a couple years older and he taught us how to drive, how to fight, how to ask a girl out…

All the stuff you want to learn when you’re growing up. Ronnie and I loved to fish. We learned how to fish together and when we’d get back in town after a tour, we’d go fishing every day or every two days, and maybe even write a song. We were good friends and those were great times.

How important was the influence of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman on you and the band?

We loved Cream and Clapton’s style, and all the guitar players with the British bands—Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and also Hendrix. But mostly it was Clapton because he was so good and he played more of the kind of blues we were raised on. I grew up listening to him and hoping to be that good one day. Of course, I never made it and I never got near Hendrix, either. I don’t know if anybody will ever be as good as Hendrix again.

And Duane and Gregg were big deals to us. They inspired us before they were the Allman Brothers. We would go see all the bands they were in while we were growing up. The Allman Joys played a lot in town, at clubs and teenage dances. We’d go see them anywhere they played.

Duane and Gregg were already great, even then, and you could see Duane get better on guitar every week or two. Plus, they were older than us doing exactly what we wanted to do, and they were driving and smoking and had long hair and were out of school. They were as cool as sliced bread!

My ’59 Les Paul “Bernice” is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sitting right next to Duane’s and Clapton’s guitars. They were my two biggest idols coming up, so having my guitar right between theirs is great!

Are you still a Les Paul guy?

Yes, I’m still playing my Les Pauls and my SGs. I also got a D’Angelico EX-SS. It looks like a great big Gibson hollowbody, and it has a really big sound that’s great for slide. Most of the time I use standard tuning for slide. Early on, we didn’t have the time to change tunings onstage, plus I only had one guitar back then, so I learned to play slide in standard.

I use a Marshall and I still use a Peavey Mace in the studio. I have a signature Peavey Penta amp for myself that’s kind of like the old Peavey Mace, which they don’t make anymore. But nowadays all the good amps sound about the same. If you’ve got tube and analog gear, it’s all gonna sound warm and good.

Today, we've teamed up with Southern rock legends Lynyrd Skynyrd to bring you the exclusive premiere of the new lyric video for "One Day at a Time" off the band's latest album, Last of a Dyin' Breed. Check it out below.

For their latest studio effort, Skynyrd opted for a "live-in-the-studio" approach to recording, hearkening back to the band's glory days.

"That’s the way we always recorded back in the Seventies," said guitarist Gary Rossington. "Maybe we’d fix something up later or play it a few times to get the right feel. But that was it. And that was the way bands did it in general. There wasn’t so much technology around. There wasn’t wireless or digital or anything like that. So you had to really play."

Last of a Dyin' Breed was released earlier this year on Roadrunner Records.

Check out this newly posted (and very funny) video of Gary Rossington and the rest of Lynyrd Skynyrd bemoaning their hillbilly reputation.

The video is a teaser for an episode of E!'s The Soup, which will air 10:30 p.m. EST (9:30 Central) this Sunday, October 21. The episode is called The Goodest Moments Of Redneck Shows.

Best lines: "You know, I'm so sick of this 'hillbilly' nonsense. We should've never turned the song into 'Sweet Home Alabama.' We should've kept it just the way it was."

"But 'Sweet Home Greenwich, Connecticut' just didn't have the same ring to it."

Watch the full video below.

Inspired by our new interview with longtime Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington? Maybe it's time to revisit — and learn, properly — some of the band's best songs with Lynyrd Skynyrd: All-Time Greatest Hits.

The 192-page book features transcriptions for 14 favorites from the hard-living kings of Southern rock.

Songs include: "Call Me the Breeze," "Free Bird," "Gimme Three Steps," "Saturday Night Special," "Swamp Music," "Sweet Home Alabama," "That Smell," "What's Your Name," "You Got That Right" and more.

The softcover book, which is published by Hal Leonard, is available now for $19.99 at the Guitar World Online Store.

Here's a behind-the-scenes photo gallery of Guitar World's recent photo shoot with Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The man behind the lens is photographer Clay Patrick McBride.

The photos are outtakes from a Rossington feature that will apear in the November 2012 issue of Guitar World (on sale September 18), where we catch up with him about Lynyrd Skynyrd's new studio album, Last of a Dyin' Breed.

If you need a little more Skynyrd action, be sure to check out this Guitar World-exclusive clip of Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant laying down vocals and discussing the making of the album, which was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.

“It was great to get back in the studio with Bob for this new album,” Rossington said. “We kind of went back old school this time. All of us playing together in the studio as a band, tracking songs and creating licks. We had a lot of fun and the music really flowed for us, so that’s when you know you are on to something good. We can’t wait to let the fans hear these songs and play ‘em live.”

Last of a Dyin' Breed is out Tuesday, August 21, on Roadrunner Records.

Guitar Legends: Southern Rock brings you rebels, rednecks and triple-threat guitars spanning the seven years of the fast and furious southern rock life. From the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd to the lost interview with Duane Allman, you'll hear about your favorite southern rock artist and learn how to play some of their greatest licks!

Southern rock icons Lynyrd Skynyrd will release their new studio album, Last of a Dyin' Breed, next week on Roadrunner Records.

In this exclusive clip, go behind the scenes as Johnny Van Zant lays down vocals and discusses the making of the album, which was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.

Skynyrd have re-teamed with producer Bob Marlette for the new album; Marlette handled production duties on their last album, 2009's Gods & Guns (buy on iTunes.)

“It was great to get back in the studio with Bob for this new album,” said guitarist Gary Rossington. “We kind of went back old school this time. All of us playing together in the studio as a band, tracking songs and creating licks. We had a lot of fun and the music really flowed for us, so that’s when you know you are on to something good. We can’t wait to let the fans hear these songs and play ‘em live.”

Last of a Dyin' Breed is out Tuesday, August 21, on Roadrunner Records.