The biopic Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash is out next week, so I thought I'd take a look back at the band's classic era, up through the 1977 plane crash that took the lives of frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines, among others. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Poison Whiskey

2. Things Goin' On

3. I Ain't The One

4. Workin' For MCA

5. The Ballad Of Curtis Loew

6. Swamp Music

7. The Needle And The Spoon

8. Am I Losin'

9. Railroad Song

10. Whiskey Rock-A-Roller

11. (I Got The) Same Old Blues

12. Every Mother's Son

13. All I Can Do Is Write About It

14. Travelin' Man (live)

15. Ain't No Good Life

16. I Never Dreamed

17. Honkey Tonk Night Time Man

18. One More Time

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Lynyrd Skynyrd (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) (1973)

Tracks 4, 5, 6 and 7 from Second Helping (1974)
Tracks 8, 9 and 10 from Nuthin' Fancy (1975)
Tracks 11, 12 and 13 from Gimme Back My Bullets (1976)
Track 14 from One More From The Road (1976)
Tracks 15, 16, 17 and 18 from Street Survivors (1977)

Lynyrd Skynyrd are one of those bands that, for anyone who grew up in the vicinity of a blaring classic rock station, might seem so ubiquitous they don't really warrant much thought beyond the 10 or so songs you've heard a thousand times. They might not earn as much scorn as The Doors or The Eagles do from some circles, but "Free Bird" is as much a meme as a song at this point, the reunited version of the band that recorded and toured since the '80s didn't do their legacy any favors. Like Tom Petty and others, they did discontinue their use of Confederate flag imagery for a time in 2012, but then went right back to using it. The Watergate/George Wallace verse of "Sweet Home Alabama" hasn't aged well either. 

That said, there's some really good Skynyrd songs that never got overplayed. I've always been partial to stuff like "Simple Man" and "Tuesday's Gone" over their rockers, so I really like "Am I Losin'." But "Workin' For MCA" kicks ass and is the rare celebratory ode to the artist's record label that predates hip hop. I've been really into "Every Mother's Son" ever since I heard J. Mascis's cover on Martin + Me. "All I Can Do Is Write About It" is, I think, a more moving and convincing celebration of the south than "Sweet Home Alabama." "(I Got The) Same Old Blues" is another J.J. Cale cover following the more famous Skynyrd hit "Call Me The Breeze," and features a mean clavinet riff from Billy Powell. "Honky Tonk Night Time Man" is an excellent Merle Haggard cover. 

"The Ballad of Curtis Loew" is the band's most famous deep cut, the one that's in their top streaming songs alongside the hits. A couple years after the band's first best-of compilation Gold & Platinum was released, 1982's Best of the Rest collected deep cuts including "Workin' For MCA" and "I Never Dreamed." And "Swamp Music" and "I Ain't The One" appeared on the highest selling release by the band, 1989's quintuple platinum compilation Skynyrd's Innyrds. 

One thing that really makes me sad about the Lynyrd Skynyrd tragedy is that Steve Gaines had only joined the band less than 2 years earlier and only played on One More From The Road and Street Survivors. He contributed significantly to the band's last studio album, writing or co-writing 4 songs and singing lead on "Ain't No Good Life" and the single "You Got That Right." One imagines that if not for the crash, Gaines would have been a big part of the band's future. One More From The Road's only new original, "Travelin' Man," is also a really excellent tune, the only one co-written by bassist Leon Wilkeson from the band's original run, and features one of my favorite performances by drummer Artimus Pyle. 

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