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10/20/2007 3:55 AM
Report abusive post | The plane crash that muted Southern rock
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Just how high could Lynyrd Skynyrd have really flown?
By ROGER BULL, The Times-Union
Thirty years ago today, a rented plane took off from Greenville, S.C., headed for Baton Rouge, La. Just before dark, just before it reached the Louisiana line, the plane ran out of fuel and sank toward the Mississippi landscape below.
It first grazed the tops of the pine trees.
"It was like the sound of a billion baseball bats beating the side of the plane." Lynyrd Skynyrd bass player Leon Wilkeson described in an interview a decade ago.
The plane crashed down through the trees to the ground, breaking apart as it went. In the twisted, broken pieces of that 1947 Convair lay what was left of Jacksonville's greatest musical legacy.
Though there were 26 people on the plane, only six died that evening, Oct. 20, 1977. But killed along with the two pilots were three band members and the road manager for Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The long-haired, blue-collar guys had moved from playing the bars of Jacksonville's Westside to filling arenas, taking Southern rock far from their native South. But the dream ended, at least a good chunk of it, in those piney Mississippi woods with the deaths of singer and leader Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, backup vocalist Cassie Gaines.
Though the band would regroup a decade later, something vital had been lost.
"Ronnie was the anchor," said backup vocalist Leslie Hawkins-Johns, who broke her neck in three places in the crash. "He was the one who kept everything going, who kept everything in check."
Southern rock itself, so dominant that decade with Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker and others, never recovered.
But back in 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd was flying high, with no telling how much higher or farther it might have gone. But those in and around the band have some ideas.
Their dream come true
"It was like we had a dream," said guitarist Gary Rossington, who broke both arms, both legs and other bones in the crash. "Myself, Allen [Collins] and Ronnie, we had a dream to make it as big as we could. We saw The Ed Sullivan Show. We saw the British bands, and we just wanted to make it.
"And there we were, after seven, eight years of doing everything we had to do, playing clubs up and down the coast and not making any money. Playing high school dances.
"Now we were selling millions of albums, we were making money. It was a gas to sell out everywhere we played. It was a dream come true."
It was a band not only in its prime but rejuvenated musically with the addition of Steve Gaines. And the band known as much for tearing up hotel rooms as it was for tearing through Free Bird was cleaning up its rough and rowdy ways.
"We were trying to straighten out," Rossington said. "Everyone was having kids."
"It was a turning point," Hawkins-Johns said. "We had just booked Madison Square Garden. The band had a reputation for drinking and drugs but Ronnie said, 'No more.'
"Nothing was allowed in the dressing room other than champagne. [His daughter] Melody had just been born and Ronnie took a turn. It was like 'We're in this for the long haul, we need to straighten out and do it right.' "
Musically, they'd just put out Street Survivors.
"Steve Gaines really seemed to have fired them up creatively," said Atlanta writer Scott Freeman, who wrote, among other things, biographies of the Allman Brothers and Otis Redding. "At the time, I thought they were about to reach a new creative plateau. They'd just come out with their best album since the first or second studio album."
They spent a lot of time together talking on airplanes, and there was talk of changes.
"We talked about Johnny [Van Zant, Ronnie's younger brother] back in those days," Rossington said. "Ronnie wanted Johnny to sing. Ronnie would write the songs, manage us and he'd get into country. There was talk about doing solo albums. But those were all just maybes."
Ronnie's widow, Judy Van Zant, said she never heard anything about Ronnie turning the vocals over to Johnny, who was only 17 and had his own band. But she had heard the talk about country. Everyone agreed that Ronnie loved Merle Haggard. He'd included their version of Haggard's Honky Tonk Night Time Man on Street Survivors.
Hawkins-Johns said Ronnie was planning to make his country album the following spring, the same time that she and Cassie Gaines would record their own album, with Ronnie writing some of the songs and helping produce it.
"We were going to do it the spring before," she said, "but everything was so crazy. You couldn't get things done. That was the reason for the cleanup. So we were going to take a bunch of time off the next spring and do it."
Those plans also ended in those Mississippi woods. Two years after the crash, most of the surviving members formed the Rossington-Collins Band. In 1987, Skynyrd reformed with Johnny Van Zant singing lead vocals and continues to this day. And just like Ronnie once spoke of, Johnny and Donnie Van Zant [his brother and a former member of the band .38 Special] have recently moved into country music.
Last year, after what many considered far too long a wait, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Still, there lingers the question about what might have been.
A legacy unfulfilled
"I'd have hoped we would have lived that for the next five, seven years, however long a group lasts," Rossington said. "Maybe we would have been like Aerosmith or the Stones, and just keep going. And Ronnie, he could have gone out on his own.
"But he loved Skynyrd. He loved being Ronnie Van Zant, being that guy."
And much of what the band would have been depended on what Ronnie might have been.
"I think he'd be regarded as one of the great American songwriters," Freeman said. "If you listen to his songs, the best ones, they all told stories. The Ballad of Curtis Loew, that's just a great song."
"I look at Bruce Springsteen as the same type of writer as Ronnie," Hawkins-Johns said, "real stories about real people He was just coming up. I think Skynyrd would have been like a Springsteen, doing the same thing."
But Judy Van Zant knows it's all just a guess.
"Who knows what would have happened?" she said. "I think Skynyrd's longevity has a lot to do with the plane crash. There's just been so much focus on it over the years. Look at Jim Morrison, look at Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn. I don't know if the band would be popular or still be touring today. I think they probably would have moved on and done other things."
And life goes on for those who remain. Judy Van Zant lives in Neptune Beach, spends her time running the Freebird Live concert hall and playing with her two grandchildren, Melody's children.
Rossington lives on a dozen acres in North Georgia and still tours with Skynyrd.
"We'll do maybe 90-100 shows this year," he said. "We used to do 200-300."
On Nov. 2, they'll play at Gator Growl for the University of Florida's homecoming.
"We'll say hello, play a few songs and watch the game," Rossington said. "I love Tim Tebow."
And he, too, plays with his young grandchildren. Taking them fishing and driving them around his property in his golf cart.
"I've got two lives," he said. "Weekends, I go out and play rock star. Weekdays, I play granddad. You can't beat that."
And he has an idea what Ronnie, who would be three months shy of 60, might be doing. They talked about it often.
"It was his and my dream to one day own a fish camp and lay back, watch the guys come into fish, go out and catch bass anytime we wanted to. That was the way in this life to make it - own a little bitty fish camp.
"I think he'd be right there on the front porch, rocking with about 100 dogs, telling stories, still singing and playing."
Leon Wilkeson's quote about the plane crash came from a 1996 interview with freelance journalist Bruce Pilato.
roger.bull@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4296
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Where are they now?
Of those who were members when the plane crashed Oct. 20, 1977:
ARTIMUS PYLE Drummer: Lives in North Carolina and plays with the Artimus Pyle Band
CASSIE GAINES Backup vocals: Died in plane crash
BILLY POWELL Keyboards: Lives in Jacksonville, still playing with Skynyrd
LEON WILKESON Bass: Died 2001 of chronic liver and lung disease
ALLEN COLLINS Guitar: Died 1990 of pneumonia, following paralysis from a 1986 car crash
LESLIE HAWKINS Backup vocals: Lives in Middleburg, still dealing with health issues from plane crash but sings occasionally with tribute bands
GARY ROSSINGTON Guitarist: Lives in North Georgia, still playing with Skynyrd
RONNIE VAN ZANT Vocals: Died in plane crash
JO JO BILLINGSLEY Backup vocals: Now a minister in Alabama, left band two months before crash
STEVE GAINES Guitar: Died in plane crash
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