Fact #117718
When:
Short story:
Lynyrd Skynyrd enter the Billboard Top 40 Singles Chart in the USA with their second single, Freebird, which will peak at No19.
Full article:
The Story of Freebird
by Johnny Black
Released as the follow-up to their Top Ten debut, Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird stalled disappointingly at No19 in January 1975. On the basis of that cold hard chart statistic, it could be seen as a relative failure, except that the Rock Hall Of Fame in Cleveland chose to honour it as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock. It’s also the song that got Steve Clark his gig as a guitarist for Def Leppard when he played it at his audition. And, rather more poignantly, it has become one of the most frequently played songs at teenage funerals.
“When we wrote it,” admits Gary Rossington, “we had no idea that it was anything more than a sweet little love song. We had no idea what it would become.”
As Rossington recalls it, the bare bones of the song were around as far back as 1969, when the still-unsigned Skynyrd’s guitarist Allen Collins would play the chord sequence over and over at rehearsals, in dressing rooms, or anywhere else the band hung out. “Ronnie thought at first that it had too many chords to write lyrics for it,” says Rossington, “but after a few months, we were sitting around and he asked Allen to play those chords again. After about twenty minutes, Ronnie started singing “If I leave here tomorrow…”, and it fit great. It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on, and he hopes she’ll remember him. It wasn’t written as a tribute to Duane Allman, but when we would play it, we would dedicate it to Duane because he had died, and Ronnie would say, ‘He’s a freebird now.’”
But the Freebird that Skynyrd played in clubs and bars throughout the South was some way removed from the eleven minute epic that entranced a generation. “At first we didn’t have the fast part at the end with the three guitars jamming. It was after playing it in clubs where we needed to extend the material because we didn’t have enough songs that it started to evolve. I think I came up with the three chords at the end, so Allen could play some lead.”
The earliest version of Freebird was recorded in Jacksonville, Florida but, as Rossington points out, “that didn’t have Billy Powell’s piano part on it, because Billy wasn’t in the band. He was our roadie back then. After about a year with us, he showed us how he played Freebird on the piano and it was beautiful, so we got him in the band.”
With the song fast becoming a live favourite, a second version, incorporating Powell’s sonata-like piano, was recorded in Muscle Shoals, but it still didn’t set the world alight. Alan Walden, Skynyrd’s manager at the time, vividly recalled the song being rejected by nine record companies. “Atlantic, Columbia, Warners, A + M, RCA, Epic, Electra, Polydor, and even Capricorn all passed after hearing Free Bird, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, I Ain't The One and about twelve other originals. Their comments were ‘They sound too much like The Allman Brothers!’”
Then, in 1972, Al Kooper saw Skynyrd tear the house down at Funnochio’s bar in Atlanta, signed them up to MCA, and took them into Atlanta’s Studio One. “As far as I was concerned, they were green recording-wise,” remembers Kooper. “I taught them how to use the studio”
Kooper was fired with ideas about how to re-shape the raw material of Freebird, but the band wasn’t immediately receptive.
Ronnie van Zandt told UK rock paper Melody Maker in 1976 that Skynyrd and Kooper fought incessantly, because, “Al was very hard to get along with in the studio. It had to be his way or that was it. No compromise, and that just wasn’t cuttin’ it with us.”
Even so, Rossington acknowledges that Kooper made significant contributions. “Al put the organ on the front, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play, it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top of the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey.”
What had started as a simple love song was now a baroque masterpiece featuring intricate keyboard parts, studio trickery and an extended triple-guitar jam session that added up to a commercially disastrous eleven minutes.
Against the band’s wishes, MCA edited Freebird down to four minutes in hopes of getting some airplay, but Rossington points out that, in those pre-format days, many stations simply played the full version as an album track anyway.
Sweet Home Alabama was their biggest hit but, for many, Freebird remains the quintessential Skynyrd track. It went on to bequeath its name to the Skynyrd live concert movie, it became the most-requested live clip ever shown on the UK’s long running Old Grey Whistle Test tv show, and there’s even a Skynyrd-themed Freebird Café in Jacksonville Beach. It’s also a standing joke beloved of the band, that at almost any major concert, someone, somewhere in the depths of the crowd will invariably yell out a request for Freebird, whether the artist on stage is Metallica, Neil Diamond or Britney Spears. And that’s got to be the greatest compliment of all.
(First published in Blender magazine)
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INTERVIEW WITH GARY ROSSINGTON ABOUT THE MAKING OF FREEBIRD
Phone interview with Johnny Black, 16.09.02
About 1969 or 70, Allen Collins already had the chords for Freebird. He was playing them a lot but when Ronnie first heard it, he thought there was too many chords to write words to it.
But for months Allen kept playing it at rehearsals and dressing rooms and then one day, Ronnie said, ‘Play that again’ so Allen did, and Ronnie started writing words down. After about twenty minutes, Ronnie started singing “If I leave here tomorrow…”, and it fit great. It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on, and he hopes she’ll remember him. It wasn’t written as a tribute to Duane Allman, but when we would play it, we would dedicate it to Duane because he had died, and Ronnie would say, ‘He’s a freebird now.’
We had no idea it would become a classic, no idea of what it would become. It started out as a slow tune, and we didn’t have the fast part at the end with the guitars. It was after playing it in clubs that it started to evolve. I think I came up with the three chords at the end, so Allen could play some lead.
It was one of the first songs we ever wrote, and we recorded it not too long after we wrote it, at a little studio in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. I don’t recall the name. Then we did it again in Muscle Shoals at Muscle Shoals Sound with Jimmy Johnson.
Actually, our management took it around to lots of record companies but nobody liked it. It was turned down. They said it was too long and would never get played on the radio.
So the song had come out on our album Firsts And Lasts, which came out before we met Al Kooper. But that first version didn’t have Billy Powell’s piano part on it, because Billy wasn’t in the band at that point. He was our roadie back then. After about a year of being with us, he showed us how he played Freebird on the piano and it was beautiful, so we got him in the band. We said, “Billy, you’re fired”, and then we said, “Billy, you’re hired.” Fired him from the road crew and hired him for the band. He even got a raise.
The version everybody knows was the third time we’d recorded it in the space of one year, which was at Studio One, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Al Kooper put the organ on the front of it, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play on the track, it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey. Anything he said, we’d do. We did argue with him a lot, but he was around for three albums and we learned a lot from him, he taught us about the business.
When it came out as a single, it was edited down from eleven minutes to four minutes, which was out of our hands. It was done by the record company and the management. We didn’t like that. We argued against it, but they said the radio deejays wouldn’t play it. So we had to go along with that to get it played.
We had a lot of trouble getting it played, so we said, ‘Do what you need to do to get it played.’ Some stations would pick a track off an album, rather than a single, and they picked that track, so it got some play that way. Guitar solos were very popular then, because of bands like Cream and Hendrix, so it got played for that.
When we came to England after The Who tour, our manager Peter Rudge was from the UK, and he brought us over there to tour with Golden Earring. We played all over Europe, Amsterdam, Germany, UK.. I remember playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test because I thought we did it real good that night.
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Tweet this Fact
by Johnny Black
Released as the follow-up to their Top Ten debut, Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird stalled disappointingly at No19 in January 1975. On the basis of that cold hard chart statistic, it could be seen as a relative failure, except that the Rock Hall Of Fame in Cleveland chose to honour it as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock. It’s also the song that got Steve Clark his gig as a guitarist for Def Leppard when he played it at his audition. And, rather more poignantly, it has become one of the most frequently played songs at teenage funerals.
“When we wrote it,” admits Gary Rossington, “we had no idea that it was anything more than a sweet little love song. We had no idea what it would become.”
As Rossington recalls it, the bare bones of the song were around as far back as 1969, when the still-unsigned Skynyrd’s guitarist Allen Collins would play the chord sequence over and over at rehearsals, in dressing rooms, or anywhere else the band hung out. “Ronnie thought at first that it had too many chords to write lyrics for it,” says Rossington, “but after a few months, we were sitting around and he asked Allen to play those chords again. After about twenty minutes, Ronnie started singing “If I leave here tomorrow…”, and it fit great. It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on, and he hopes she’ll remember him. It wasn’t written as a tribute to Duane Allman, but when we would play it, we would dedicate it to Duane because he had died, and Ronnie would say, ‘He’s a freebird now.’”
But the Freebird that Skynyrd played in clubs and bars throughout the South was some way removed from the eleven minute epic that entranced a generation. “At first we didn’t have the fast part at the end with the three guitars jamming. It was after playing it in clubs where we needed to extend the material because we didn’t have enough songs that it started to evolve. I think I came up with the three chords at the end, so Allen could play some lead.”
The earliest version of Freebird was recorded in Jacksonville, Florida but, as Rossington points out, “that didn’t have Billy Powell’s piano part on it, because Billy wasn’t in the band. He was our roadie back then. After about a year with us, he showed us how he played Freebird on the piano and it was beautiful, so we got him in the band.”
With the song fast becoming a live favourite, a second version, incorporating Powell’s sonata-like piano, was recorded in Muscle Shoals, but it still didn’t set the world alight. Alan Walden, Skynyrd’s manager at the time, vividly recalled the song being rejected by nine record companies. “Atlantic, Columbia, Warners, A + M, RCA, Epic, Electra, Polydor, and even Capricorn all passed after hearing Free Bird, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, I Ain't The One and about twelve other originals. Their comments were ‘They sound too much like The Allman Brothers!’”
Then, in 1972, Al Kooper saw Skynyrd tear the house down at Funnochio’s bar in Atlanta, signed them up to MCA, and took them into Atlanta’s Studio One. “As far as I was concerned, they were green recording-wise,” remembers Kooper. “I taught them how to use the studio”
Kooper was fired with ideas about how to re-shape the raw material of Freebird, but the band wasn’t immediately receptive.
Ronnie van Zandt told UK rock paper Melody Maker in 1976 that Skynyrd and Kooper fought incessantly, because, “Al was very hard to get along with in the studio. It had to be his way or that was it. No compromise, and that just wasn’t cuttin’ it with us.”
Even so, Rossington acknowledges that Kooper made significant contributions. “Al put the organ on the front, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play, it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top of the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey.”
What had started as a simple love song was now a baroque masterpiece featuring intricate keyboard parts, studio trickery and an extended triple-guitar jam session that added up to a commercially disastrous eleven minutes.
Against the band’s wishes, MCA edited Freebird down to four minutes in hopes of getting some airplay, but Rossington points out that, in those pre-format days, many stations simply played the full version as an album track anyway.
Sweet Home Alabama was their biggest hit but, for many, Freebird remains the quintessential Skynyrd track. It went on to bequeath its name to the Skynyrd live concert movie, it became the most-requested live clip ever shown on the UK’s long running Old Grey Whistle Test tv show, and there’s even a Skynyrd-themed Freebird Café in Jacksonville Beach. It’s also a standing joke beloved of the band, that at almost any major concert, someone, somewhere in the depths of the crowd will invariably yell out a request for Freebird, whether the artist on stage is Metallica, Neil Diamond or Britney Spears. And that’s got to be the greatest compliment of all.
(First published in Blender magazine)
----------------------------------------------------------------
INTERVIEW WITH GARY ROSSINGTON ABOUT THE MAKING OF FREEBIRD
Phone interview with Johnny Black, 16.09.02
About 1969 or 70, Allen Collins already had the chords for Freebird. He was playing them a lot but when Ronnie first heard it, he thought there was too many chords to write words to it.
But for months Allen kept playing it at rehearsals and dressing rooms and then one day, Ronnie said, ‘Play that again’ so Allen did, and Ronnie started writing words down. After about twenty minutes, Ronnie started singing “If I leave here tomorrow…”, and it fit great. It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on, and he hopes she’ll remember him. It wasn’t written as a tribute to Duane Allman, but when we would play it, we would dedicate it to Duane because he had died, and Ronnie would say, ‘He’s a freebird now.’
We had no idea it would become a classic, no idea of what it would become. It started out as a slow tune, and we didn’t have the fast part at the end with the guitars. It was after playing it in clubs that it started to evolve. I think I came up with the three chords at the end, so Allen could play some lead.
It was one of the first songs we ever wrote, and we recorded it not too long after we wrote it, at a little studio in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. I don’t recall the name. Then we did it again in Muscle Shoals at Muscle Shoals Sound with Jimmy Johnson.
Actually, our management took it around to lots of record companies but nobody liked it. It was turned down. They said it was too long and would never get played on the radio.
So the song had come out on our album Firsts And Lasts, which came out before we met Al Kooper. But that first version didn’t have Billy Powell’s piano part on it, because Billy wasn’t in the band at that point. He was our roadie back then. After about a year of being with us, he showed us how he played Freebird on the piano and it was beautiful, so we got him in the band. We said, “Billy, you’re fired”, and then we said, “Billy, you’re hired.” Fired him from the road crew and hired him for the band. He even got a raise.
The version everybody knows was the third time we’d recorded it in the space of one year, which was at Studio One, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Al Kooper put the organ on the front of it, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play on the track, it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey. Anything he said, we’d do. We did argue with him a lot, but he was around for three albums and we learned a lot from him, he taught us about the business.
When it came out as a single, it was edited down from eleven minutes to four minutes, which was out of our hands. It was done by the record company and the management. We didn’t like that. We argued against it, but they said the radio deejays wouldn’t play it. So we had to go along with that to get it played.
We had a lot of trouble getting it played, so we said, ‘Do what you need to do to get it played.’ Some stations would pick a track off an album, rather than a single, and they picked that track, so it got some play that way. Guitar solos were very popular then, because of bands like Cream and Hendrix, so it got played for that.
When we came to England after The Who tour, our manager Peter Rudge was from the UK, and he brought us over there to tour with Golden Earring. We played all over Europe, Amsterdam, Germany, UK.. I remember playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test because I thought we did it real good that night.
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