Lynyrd Skynyrd

   Listen While You Read

                                      (Gimme Back My Bullets)          (Saturday Night Special)

(Gimme Three Steps) 

My all time favorite band and the one that had and still has the most influence on my music is Lynyrd Skynrd. Their three guitar lineup gave them an uncommon driving musical sound formed from country blues, Merle Haggard-style hard country, and the rocking sounds of the British Invasion that were in the air. From all of this Lynyrd Skynrd set the standard for Southern rock.   I also came from playing country music and county blues and with the influence of Lynyrd Skynrd fully embraced Rock and Roll in the early and middle 1970’s.

Lynyrd Skynrd’s bassist was Leon Wilkeson born and raised in Jacksonville Florida. Wilkerson began learning the bass at age 14 and was asked to join a local Jacksonville band named  the Noble Five whose leader was Ronnie VanZant. Wilkerson’s tenure with the Noble Five was short lived though. Because of falling grade in school Wilkeson was forced to drop out of the band. He did continue with his bass playing and by the early 1970’s Wilkerson was becoming one of Jacksonville’s top bassists and when VanZant’s new band, Lynyrd Skynrd, found themselves without a bassist, Wilkerson got he gig. 

Again Wilkeson did not last long with VanZant’s band.  Wilkerson got cold feet and quite the band, stating he felt he was too young and not ready for a life on the road (O’ what a sensitive bunch we bass player are).  It wasn’t long though, after working a “real job”, Wilkerson had a change of heart and was welcomed back into Lynyrd Skynrd. 

This time Wilkeson stayed with the band until that fateful day when the group was involved the plane crash on October 20, 1977 outside Gillsberg MS which left several band members dead (including VanZant) and the rest badly injured. Understandably, Wilkerson and the other survivors stayed out of the spotlight for the remainder of the 1970’s as they attempted to put their lives back together again. In 1980 the surviving band members formed a new group, the Rossington-Collins Band, consisting of Wilkerson, guitarists Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and keyboardist Bill Powell. They put out a single album in 1982 and then broke up. A new venture in 1983 brought together Wilkeson and Allen Collins band but again only one album was issued. 

During the mid eights, little was heard from Wilkeson. Then in 1987 Wilkeson signed on with Ronnie VanZant’s younger brother, Johnny in a reunited version of Skynyrd and went on a sold out tour. But alas, just as it appeared it would be smooth sailing for Wilkeson and the band, Leon Wilkeson was found dead on July27, 2001 in a Florida hotel room of natural causes. This left the band in a bad position. An agreement with Ronnie VanZant’s widow stated that at least three of Skynyrd’s longtime members would have to be in attendance for it to be able to tour and issue albums under the name “Lynyrd Skynyrd”. The group continued on anyway, Wilkeson was replaced by bassist Ean Evans. 

Ean Even a long time studio bassist who during the late 80’s and the early 90’s played with the southern rock band the Outlaws.  He joined the lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd in August of 2001 and continued with the band until his death in May of 2009 of cancer.