Gary Rossington, founder of Lynyrd Skynyrd and one of the songwriters of ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ has died

Gary Rossington, the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd and who also helped found the band, died on Sunday. He was 71 years old. The cause of death was not disclosed.

“It is with our deepest love and sadness that we have to announce that today we have lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington”, the group said on Facebook. “Gary is now in heaven with his family and Skynyrd brothers and playing well as he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the privacy of the family during this difficult time”.

Lynyrd Skynyrd is best known for his two themes “Sweet Home Alabama” there “Free Bird”.

Rossington has cheated death more than once, as defined by Rolling Stone magazine. In 1976 he survived an accident in which his Ford Torino crashed into a tree.which inspired the band’s warning track “That Smell”. The next year came out alive from the plane crash that killed vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, although both arms and one leg were broken and he suffered punctures to his stomach and liver.

The group broke up after this tragedy, but reformed in 1987 with new members, including Van Zant’s little brother, Johnny, as lead singer.

“It was devastating,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006. “You can’t casually talk about it and not have feelings about it.” Years later, Rossington went through a quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, suffered a heart attack in 2015 and had numerous subsequent heart operations, such as when he left Lynyrd Skynyrd in July 2021 to recover from another procedure. At recent gigs, Rossington has played parts of the show and has occasionally been absent from entire gigs.

Rossington was born on December 4, 1951, in Jacksonville, Florida, and was raised by his mother after his father’s death. After meeting drummer Bob Burns and bassist Larry Junstrom, Rossington and his new friends formed a band which they tried to merge with their love of basketball.

According to Rolling Stone, it was during a Little League game that Ronnie Van Zant hit rival player Bob Burns with the ball behind his back and thus met his future teammates. Rossington, Burns, Van Zant and guitarist Allen Collins met that afternoon at Burns’ home in Jacksonville to play The Rolling Stones’ “Time Is on My Side.”

They named their band Lynyrd Skynyrd, a reference to an athletic trainer of the same name at Rossington High School and a character from the 1963 hit. “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”and they released their first album in 1973.

The album, a collection of blues rock with touches of country and southern soul, included songs that have become classics, such as “Tuesday’s Gone”, “Simple Man” and “Gimme Three Steps”. But it was the final track, the nearly 10-minute song “Free Bird,” that became the band’s calling card, in part because of Rossington’s performance on his Gibson SG.

Rossington told Rolling Stone that he never viewed Skynyrd as a tragic band, despite the drama and death surrounding the band. “I don’t see it as a tragedy, I see it as a life,” he said at the band’s induction ceremony into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. “I think the good l prevail over evil.”

(with information from the AP and AFP)

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