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We loved Neil Young and all the music he’s given the world. It wasn’t cutting him down, it was cutting the song he wrote about the South down. Because no matter where you’re from, sweet home Alabama or sweet home Florida or sweet home Arkansas, you can relate. We spoke with Rossington—at age 63, the sole living original member who still plays with the band—about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s place in Southern music history. More than forty years ago, on August 13, 1973, Lynyrd Skynyrd released its debut self-titled album (helpfully subtitled “Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd.”). They were an instant hit, opening for The Who on their Quadrophenia tour, and charting “Free Bird,” which would go on to become one of the most iconic power ballads of the era, if not all time.
"Indian Love Call" was one of our favorites, but we liked other, more "modern" songs, too. They were complex, and we spent a lot of time practicing to get the parts exactly right. My cousin Linda and her husband drove through Cincinnati from Detroit and picked me up on Friday morning, and we set off with high energy. We were glad to see each other and instantly at ease, like slipping into warm bath water. This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. In May 2006, National Review ranked the song #4 on its list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs.
Sweet Home Alabama: Southern Rock Songs
The light, that wonderful golden light, played across the forests and the rocks. The day was so sunny, so clear that I can remember every vista, every glorious blue-sky moment. We gazed into a rich valley of trees from the rock wall of the overlook in the picnic grounds and walked across a dry creek bed, stubbing our toes on sharp-pointed Alabama shale.
Not long after three of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd tragically died in a plane crash in 1977, Young performed a medley of "Alabama" and "Sweet Home Alabama" as a tribute. According to Rolling Stone, he's never played "Alabama" again since. But others interpreted the lyrics as a reminder to Young that not all Southerners are the same. "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," Van Zant later said. The portion of the song referring to Governor George Wallace in particular made some believe that Lynyrd Skynyrd disagreed with desegregation, seeing as how the governor stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".
The Story Behind “Sweet Home Alabama”
"Southern man better keep your head," went the chorus of the former. "Don't forget what your good book said/ Southern change gonna come at last/ Now your crosses are burning fast." Young had expressed his disappointment with racism in the South in two songs, "Southern Man" and "Alabama". The song is credited to Matthew Shafer, Waddy Wachtel, R.J. Ritchie, Leroy Marinell, Warren Zevon, Edward King, Gary Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant. Since "All Summer Long"'s release, the original song has also charted at number 44 on the UK Singles Chart.
“Sweet Home Alabama,” off their 1974 Second Helping album, reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart—and earned an eternal place in the hearts of many Southerners, even beyond the borders of the Yellowhammer State. My nephew played tunes on the guitar, and we sang, it seemed to me, as sweetly as we did when we were children. My cousins remembered the names of old songs we used to know, and we sang them as if we were riding the proverbial bicycle. The family reunion started off as a giant 80th birthday party for my mother, but we weren't all able to convene until the long Labor Day weekend. The weather was perfect, cool and crisp and clear with just a hint of an early autumn ahead.
Five Unique State Park Stays in the South
We had toured there, going all around playing clubs and National Guard armories. When we were out in the country driving all the time, we would listen to the radio. Neil Young had “Southern Man,” and it was kind of cutting the South down.
The band remains connected to Muscle Shoals, where it has recorded on numerous occasions and where it regularly performs during concert tours.
Muscle Shoals
We travel all over the world and it seems like the South is the place where the people are nicest and they think of the fellow man more. In the late 1960s, in Jacksonville, Florida, a clean-cut gym teacher named Leonard Skinner sent student Gary Rossington to the principal’s office because his hair touched his collar. The teenager’s shaggy mop was a brazen violation of Robert E. Lee High School’s dress code. When Rossington and some of his friends and schoolmates—singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Allen Collins, drummer Bob Burns, and bassist Larry Junstrom—were searching for a new name for their fledgling rock group—they drew on memories of the incident. Lynyrd Skynyrd (vowels changed “to protect the guilty”) was born. It seemed like you could see North Alabama with a wide-angle lens from that spot.
Monte Sano is part of the foothills of the Sand Mountains, and according to a local legend an Indian maiden jumped to her death from its peak, but I can't remember why. Looking back, we were as amazed that we'd mastered these intricate pieces as we were surprised to have survived as a family through geographical separations, marriages and the deaths of our elders. Everyone else drifted in a few minutes later, and all of us — sisters and cousins, nephews, nieces and grandchildren, hugging and kissing — moved on up the hill to my sister's house for dinner.
According to Rolling Stone, he was even rumored to have been buried in it. Neil Young, too, owned a Lynyrd Skynyrd Florida Whiskey shirt, and once said, "I'd rather play 'Sweet Home Alabama' than 'Southern Man' anytime." The story of "Sweet Home Alabama" begins not in Alabama but in Jacksonville, Florida. That's where, in 1964, five teenagers formed what would eventually become the iconic rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It wasn't until five years after getting together that they finally settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd though, after their former P.E. Teacher Leonard Skinner who penalized guitarist Gary Rossington for his long hair because it was against the high school's policy.
And so Ronnie just said, We need to show people how the real Alabama is. In 1977, a tragic airplane crash in Mississippi killed three members of the band, including Van Zant. A decade later, the band reformed with Van Zant’s younger brother Johnny as the lead singer. He’s still the frontman today, and the band recently released a live album, is working on a new studio album, and is on tour . Called "Sweet Home Alabama," the single reached number eight on U.S. charts—its popularity due, at least in part, to a controversy hidden in the verses.
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