Lynyrd Skynyrd: The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On

I can vaguely remember walking into first-period Spanish class one October morning when I was in the 10th grade and hearing the news of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. I don’t know how high school kids reacted to the disaster out in, say, Oregon, but where I was (and still am), 70-odd miles south of Skynyrd’s Jacksonville, Florida hometown, it was a black day.

See, Lynyrd Skynyrd wasn’t just another heavy band cranked up on somebody’s car stereo for lunch-period beer and bong hits. They were an affirmation that wild, longhaired North Florida boys were just as good as anybody else—hell, probably better than a lot of folks.