Gary Rossington Won't Be Down

[6PK2GOBEE]

Gary hasn’t been touring with the current Lynyrd Skynyrd band for a while due to his health problems.
Word is the band will continue with its current lineup.
Early(formation-‘77)members still alive: Ricky Medlocke, Leslie Hawkins, Jeff Carlisi, and Artimus Pyle.
Interesting to note that Artimus and Gary patched up their differences and Gary played on the Freebird cut on Artimus’ soon to be released tribute to Skynyrd album, Dolly Parton sings it. Watch for that release!
On a personal level I became a Skynyrd fan back in ‘75 and in ‘76 “One more from the Road” just blew me away-it was because of Allen Collins and Gary Rossington that I picked up guitar which gave me one of the great joys of my life.
In ‘83 I got to jam with Ricky Medlocke and Blackfoot, and in ‘87 I flew down to Atlanta to see Skynyrd kick off their tribute tour at the Omni and had backstage VIP passes. I came home with a lot of great memories and a black and white pre-release “One more from the Road” signed by all the original band members(except Allen Collins)back in ‘76 including Ronnie Van Zant. A gift from the band to “the biggest Skynyrd fan in the north”. Yep, good times!

 

[multimopes]

In ‘83 I got to jam with Ricky Medlocke and Blackfoot,

Blackfoot is another of my favorite bands who I regularly got to see at local NJ clubs. I have all their albums as well. Since you mentioned them, it brought back memories of vendors selling black tee shirts that said BLACKFOOT on the front & DISCO SUCKS! on the back. I still have mine, lol, because it does still suck! I think if I had chosen to listen to Skynyrds "Last of a Dyin' Breed" yesterday, it would have been kinda of freaky! When Blackfoot was just starting to make it, their first album was hard to find. Someone told me some music store in Morristown had it. I went there and didn't see it so asked a clerk about it & a minute later, Charlie Hargrett came out of the back room saying,"Holy ****, I just heard someone ask for our album!"

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

Blackfoot is another of my favorite bands who I regularly got to see at local NJ clubs. I have all their albums as well. Since you mentioned them, it brought back memories of vendors selling black tee shirts that said BLACKFOOT on the front & DISCO SUCKS! on the back. I still have mine, lol, because it does still suck! I think if I had chosen to listen to Skynyrds "Last of a Dyin' Breed" yesterday, it would have been kinda of freaky! When Blackfoot was just starting to make it, their first album was hard to find. Someone told me some music store in Morristown had it. I went there and didn't see it so asked a clerk about it & a minute later, Charlie Hargrett came out of the back room saying,"Holy ****, I just heard someone ask for our album!"

Oh, I hear that-disco has always sucked! Southern rock is #1
Those guys in Blackfoot were so down to earth-we jammed at Record Town in Camillus NY when they were touring to promote “Siogo”. My now brother in law and I went there because the local radio station 95X had a guitar give away and meet the band going on. The guy that won the guitar couldn’t play and Ricky asked if anyone else there could play. Only 2 people stepped up, and the other guy really couldn’t play so that left me. I looked the southern rock part too with my long blonde hair back then.
Ricky wanted to jam on ZZtop “Tush” which he taught me on the spot and we knocked it out of the park to a crowd of about 200 people.
The place went nuts! Ricky told me I was a good player afterwards which I thanked him for. We had Blackfoot albums autographed to mark the occasion. Greg Walker had already split and Charlie Hargrett wasn’t there so we didn’t get their autographs.
We later went to Charlie’s Auburn Star Theatre in Auburn NY to see them. The opening act…an up and coming Stevie Ray Vaughan.

 

[64BEL]

Great stories, 6PK2GOBEE - thanks!

I saw Blackfoot in October of '81. Def Leppard was the lead off band at that show. Blackfoot was fantastic. We were big into "southern rock" back then. I saw Molly Hatchet a bunch of times as well as the Outlaws, ZZ Top, Marshall Tucker, and The Dixie Dregs.

The Outlaws and ZZ are still way up at the top of my all time favorite bands. I think all of the original Outlaws guys are gone, now.

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

Great stories, 6PK2GOBEE - thanks!

I saw Blackfoot in October of '81. Def Leppard was the lead off band at that show. Blackfoot was fantastic. We were big into "southern rock" back then. I saw Molly Hatchet a bunch of times as well as the Outlaws, ZZ Top, Marshall Tucker, and The Dixie Dregs.

The Outlaws and ZZ are still way up at the top of my all time favorite bands. I think all of the original Outlaws guys are gone, now.

Thank you sir, glad to share them!
The Outlaws are one of the greatest bands and very much overlooked by most people. Henry Paul fronts them now and he was in that band in the early days so their current sound is very close to their first two albums-more country leaning.
The lineup they had on the live album was the best though imo.
I like all the southern rock bands you mentioned. I’ve seen Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, The Outlaws, 38 Special, Rossington Collins, The Rossington Band, Blackfoot, Johnny Van Zant Band(one of the absolute best!) I think if Johnny continues Skynyrd he should add in some of his old band mates. It would be a great sound.

 

[multimopes]

If memory serves me, I think Ricky wrote 2 songs on the "First" Skynyrd album. One of them was "Wino" which he also sang on the album and maybe "Preachers Daughter" as well. Correct me if I am wrong. I never got the chance to see Skynyrd live, unfortunately. I thought Greg T Walker was also on that album"First". Thinking back, I do recall Jakson "Thunderfoot" Spires very well; especially when he did a one handed drum solo while chugging an entire 6 pack of Heineken! I was at a gig one night and heard a guy who never saw Blackfoot before pay the highest compliment to Jakson,"Man that drummer is an absolute animal!" By the way,my little sister named one of her sons Jakson, although it may be spelled Jackson?! That is awesome that you got to play with those guys like that, 6pk! That's like a dream come true.

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

You’re right, I forgot about Greg Walker being in Skynyrd in the early days.
Here you go:

Skynyrd's First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album​

1. "Free Bird" (Muscle Shoals demo) (Collins, Van Zant) - 7:26
2. "One More Time" (Original Version) (Rossington, Van Zant) - 5:04
3. "Gimme Three Steps" (Original Version) (Collins, Van Zant) - 4:09
4. "Was I Right or Wrong?" (Rossington, Van Zant) - 5:25
5. "Preacher's Daughter" (Medlocke, Van Zant) - 3:40
6. "White Dove" (Medlocke) - 2:58
7. "Down South Jukin'" (Rossington, Van Zant) - 2:14
8. "Wino" (Original Version) (Collins, Medlocke, Van Zant) - 3:16
9. "Simple Man" (Original Version) (Rossington, Van Zant) - 5:25
10. "Trust" (Original Version) (Collins, Van Zant) - 4:14
11. "Comin' Home" (Original Version) (Collins, Van Zant) - 5:30
12. "The Seasons" (Medlocke) - 4:11
13. "Lend a Helpin' Hand" (Collins, Rossington, Van Zant) - 4:22
14. "Things Goin' On" (Original Version) (Rossington, Van Zant) - 5:12
15. "I Ain't the One" (Original Version) (Rossington, Van Zant) - 3:37
16. "You Run Around" (Medlocke) - 5:39
17. "Ain't Too Proud to Pray" (Medlocke) - 5:26

Ricky sang lead vocals on tracks 6,12,16,& 17

They had some great songs early on that the record label didn’t want to put out because it didn’t fit the “drunken rowdy fighter” image they were projecting of the band.
“He’s Alive” is a good example…

Here’s a live cut of “Gimme back my Bullets” from ‘76 that shows what a great & tight band they were-but more importantly shows what a great guitarist Gary Rossington was, enjoy!

 

[multimopes]

I stand waaaayyy corrected sir, thank you. If I recall, the first release of that particular album was "Skynyrd"s First & Last". I know I'm showing my age, but I'm quite certain I had that on 8 track and it was a much shorter version, not the complete Muscle Shoals recordings. Also, Thanks for posting the above track. That album was very hard to find for a while, maybe because the title might have offended someone somehow. By the way, there used to be a site about Blackfoot called "Blackfootrocks". It doesn't seem to exist any more.

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

I stand waaaayyy corrected sir, thank you. If I recall, the first release of that particular album was "Skynyrd"s First & Last". I know I'm showing my age, but I'm quite certain I had that on 8 track and it was a much shorter version, not the complete Muscle Shoals recordings. Also, Thanks for posting the above track. That album was very hard to find for a while, maybe because the title might have offended someone somehow. By the way, there used to be a site about Blackfoot called "Blackfootrocks". It doesn't seem to exist any more.

Thought I had that one! Right again, the 8-track version is much shorter.
It’s been so long since I’ve looked at them-plus you got my curiosity going-that I had to drag it out.

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

Same aforementioned Record Town around ‘85 had a bin of new 8-tracks in their store when they were phasing them out “any 8-track .50c each” so…grabbed all my favorites since both my ‘69 Dodges have factory am/8-track players.
I have (2) 8-track players in the home. Still like the sound of them!

 

[multimopes]

That is nice, yet tragic! I threw out approx. 300 8 tracks as no one wanted them. I would have cheerfully sent them to you for free! It took a real long time to find and purchase replacement CD's like that. I have some cassettes as well. I might also have some old tape splice stuff if you want it! Let me know! PM me. By the way, in the ancient times, Blackfoot offered to give free cotton to the audience to protect their ears cause it was gonna be LOUD!

 

[dual fours]

My buddy had the LP albums and I had the 8-tracks then graduated to cassettes. I was always moving either on two or four wheels. I do believe that these 8-tracks play better then the cassettes do after being 45 years old but I could be wrong. That goes for the 8-track player also. It just needed a drive belt. Nuthin fancy.

 

[6PK2GOBEE]

I agree, I think the old 8 tracks sound better than the old cassettes-could it be the size and quality of the tape and magnetic particle on it?
Back in the ‘80’s I bought this hardly used 8 track player/recorder and used to get blank 8 track tapes at Radio Shack. Over the years I’ve only had to change the rubber drive belt once. It still works great!