When a band knows what it wants to do, it has to go with its heart and not listen to people on the outside.” “So Ronnie took Kooper out to the parking lot, opened the door to Kooper’s Bentley, and said, ‘Get in.’ Kooper’s sitting there behind the wheel, and Ronnie shut the door and said, ‘When we’re done cutting it, we’ll call you. “When we were just about done cutting the first album, we played ‘Simple Man’ for Al Kooper, and he said, ‘You guys are not gonna record that song,” says King. “He wrote about things that were going on, things we saw every day and people related to it-and they still do.Īccording to Ed King, the group had to fight to even record the song. “Ronnie was a great storyteller,” says Rossington. The epic power ballad about a heartfelt message from a blue collar mother to her striving son starts slow and builds to a powerful Rossington solo the music hammers home the message, which continues to resonate. “Simple Man,” co-written by Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington, has become one of the group’s trademark songs.
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He’d watch TV with it on and play during commercials. He’d sit around and talk and not play it for an hour, but it would be strapped on. He’d order room service and eat with his guitar on. Every time I ever went to his house or his hotel room, he had his black Les Paul on. He used to piss us off because he could do so many things that me and Allen couldn’t. “Steve was so good, he was a freak of nature. He put us back in the frame of mind we had had at the beginning we started getting together and jamming at night. We needed a spark of inspiration, and Steve provided it. We were still selling a lot of tickets and records, but the music was getting a little boring to us. When he joined, we were kind of in a lull. Steve had a lot to do with the writing and arrangements throughout this album and his playing was so good it really inspired us. I’ve never heard anybody, including any of us, play his picking part quite right. “He was a great songwriter and singer-and an incredible guitarist. “This song sums up what Steve Gaines, who wrote it, meant to the band,” says Gary Rossington. The song then kicks into another gear at 2:32, locking into a “Gimme Three Steps” type feel, featuring rhythm parts similar to the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”Ī demo of this tune is also included as a bonus track on the 1997 reissue of Second Helping, and the track was also subsequently included on the 1998 compilation, The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd. The simple and plaintive feel of the music is reminiscent of one of the band’s biggest influences, the British band Free, which featured legendary guitar great Paul Kossoff.
With guitars and bass tuned down one half, the primary rhythm guitar during the verse sections arpeggiates through the D5/D7-G5-C5 chord progression in steady 16th notes, over which Ronnie Van Zant sings a bluesy/Appalachian folk melody while guitarist Gary Rossington adds subtle slide guitar fills in standard tuning. The songs recorded during these sessions were first issued in September 1978, about a year after the October 1977 tragic plane crash, as Skynyrd’s First and…Last, and later reissued in 1998 as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. “Was I Right or Wrong” is a song recorded during the band’s very first recording sessions in 1971-72 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. The guitar solo section ramps things up a notch higher with a classic, high-energy Allen Collins solo, after which the song settles back into the quieter verse arrangement. The classic harder-edged Skynyrd feel comes in right at the song’s powerful chorus section, accentuated by Rossington’s bluesy and melodic slide guitar licks. “Comin’ Home,” an original track written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant, displays more of a country/rock feeling than many of the harder, bluesier tunes recorded during these sessions, and displays the influence of west coast late Sixties rock bands like the Youngbloods and Quicksilver Messenger Service.Ĭollins’ flat-picked arpeggiated guitar part has a fingerpicked, banjo-esque feel, embellished by country style piano fills. This is another track recorded during the band’s initial Muscle Shoals studio sessions of 1971-72, released posthumously on Skynyrd’s First and…Last (and Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album) as well as 1998’s The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd.
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