OUR WEEKLY SALUTE TO CLASSIC ALBUMS
GIVES YOU THREE STEPS AND THEN SOME
Last month marked the 35th anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd debut, (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd). Outside of AC/DC's Bon Scott, the working man has never had a better rock ally than the original lineup of Skynyrd, who possessed a blue-collar Shakespeare in Ronnie Van Zant. As perfect and fully formed a first salvo as any band has launched on the world, "Pronounced" is eight tracks of heartache, carousing and real man tears. For all the boozin' and brawlin', Skynyrd's debut is actually a very finely honed song cycle, whittled into shape by Blood, Sweat & Tears mastermind Al Kooper and Ronnie's reportedly iron hand (legend has it he'd slap his bandmates if he thought they half-assesed a take or flubbed a key part).
"Pronounced" actually came together after a series of recordings the band had financed by gathering bottles for their deposit money. Embryonic takes on nearly every cut exist – most of which can be heard on Skynyrd's First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album - but they didn't match muster for the sound they had in mind for their first release. Their instincts paid off because few firsts have the fully fleshed, clear-eyed presence of "Pronounced", which rushes into the room with a three count, pleasantly distorted drums and then peels of kick-ya-in-the-teeth guitars. That'd be enough to grab your attention but then Van Zant opens up, snarling the first verse through a smile: "You got bells in your mind, lady/ And they're easy to see/ I think it's time for me to move along/ I do believe," adding quickly, "I never hurt you, sweetheart/ I never pulled my gun."
These were not nice boys, and they made no attempt to disguise their roughness. However, like many Southern lads, they had tender hearts underneath their scars, but unlike a lot of Southern boys, they let us peek inside their pain and insecurity, dropping their bluster on the second cut, "Tuesday's Gone":
Train roll on, many miles from my home
See, I'm riding my blues away
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free
But somehow I've got to carry on
Swept up in judiciously placed strings and Billy Powell's neo-Baroque piano, it's a seven-and-a-half-minute emotional bomb that suggests the train blues as interpreted by '60s Sinatra. Six more perfectly pitched, arranged and executed examples of rock's enfolding potential follow from the wise coward's boogie "Gimme Three Steps," which undercuts the machismo elsewhere, to the Johnny Cash style advice tune of "Simple Man" to the white country blues ("Mississippi Kid") to the juxtaposition of Merle Haggard and street politics ("Things Goin' On") to the searing post-English blues-rock of "Poison Whiskey" and culminating in one of rock's single greatest anthems. There's not an ounce of flab anywhere on "Pronounced", just the sound of hard working guys with broad minds and clear ideas about what they wanted to get across. Alternately tough and tender, it's ultimately become a blueprint bands around the world have tried to emulate in the past three-plus decades but rarely even approached capturing.
We dedicate this edition of Sunday Spin to guitarists Ed King and Steve Gaines, whose birthdays fall on this day. The long retired King turns 59, and the Gaines would have also turned 59 but he lost his life in Skynyrd's fateful 1977 plane crash.
Track listing:
Side A:
I Ain't the One (Gary Rossington / Ronnie Van Zant)
Tuesday's Gone (Gary Rossington / Allen Collins / Ronnie Van Zant)
Gimme Three Steps (Allen Collins / Ronnie Van Zant)
Simple Man (Gary Rossington / Ronnie Van Zant)
Side B:
Things Goin' On (Gary Rossington / Ronnie Van Zant)
Mississippi Kid (Al Kooper / Ronnie Van Zant / Bob Burns)
Poison Whiskey (Ed King / Ronnie Van Zant)
Free Bird (Allen Collins / Ronnie Van Zant)
Now raise your lighters and sway as the band takes flight in 1977. Sure, it's a punchline at concerts everywhere but it's still better than any of the clichés that have become associated with it.
After that flashback to Oakland's legendary "Day On The Green" concert, we jump across the pond to the Knebworth Festival in 1976 for a swell "Gimme Three Steps."
We remain in England and jump back one more year to 1975 for "I Ain't The One" on the Old Grey Whistle Test.
See last week's Sunday Spin on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers here
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