45 Years Ago Today – Revisiting Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tragically Triumphant ‘Street Survivors’

Portentous cover graphics notwithstanding, Lynyrd Skynyrd is not that much of a different band on Street Survivors (released 10/17/77) than the one on their debut album four (tumultuous) years prior. And it’s not the number of seven in the lineup so much as the personnel itself: as recounted in the revelatory bio-pic Gone with the Wind: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd, original guitarist Ed King had departed in 1975 (returning in ’87 through ’96), eventually to be replaced by guitarist and rookie songwriter Steve Gaines. 

Based on four and half-decades hindsight (plus the plentiful contents of a two-CD Deluxe Edition of this fifth Skynyrd studio effort), the repercussions arising from the exit of the aforementioned one-time member of the Strawberry Alarm Clock were as momentous as the severing of relations between the Dixie rockers and former mentor/producer Al Kooper (he of Dylan, Blood Sweat & Tears, and Super Session fame). 

A group thus naturally inclined to go its own way found itself in the midst of circumstances compelling them to do exactly that. Accordingly, the thirty-five minutes or so that comprises the album as issued in 1977 is a distillation of two separate recording efforts. The prolonged process, including early work with famed producer Tom Dowd (Clapton, ABB, among others), and subsequent independent recording and production, eventually bore the end result(s) Ronnie Van Zant and company were hoping for.

In this regard, while King’s studio savvy and arranging expertise were no doubt sorely missed, Skynyrd managed to transcend glib provincial labels as well as the somewhat undue influence of the great British band Free (admiration of whom they shared with Kooper). And it’s more than the two additional numbers on the aforementioned reissue providing evidence of the band’s purposeful focus: the last-minute addition of  “One More Time” comes from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1971 Muscle Shoals demo, further reaffirming this group’s distinction as uncommonly intelligent rock and roll band. 

That carefully-arranged stately semi-ballad is as emotionally complex as Gaines’ “I Know A Little” is glib. The latter’s by-the-numbers boogie suggests more covers like this one of Merle Haggard’s “Honky Tonk Night Time Man” might better have populated the long-player, but only at the risk of sounding too self-consciously ‘Southern’ for their own good (as the periodic use of a giant Confederate flag as a stage backdrop would suggest). 

The recently-enlisted Oklahoman’s tune isn’t so far from the cautionary tale of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant’s that is “That Smell” (a slower and more extended rendition than the one eventually issued appears on that expanded package). The autobiographical honesty in the new recruit’s solo authorship of “Ain’t No Good Life” is worthy of his other co-writes with the vocalist on “You Got That Right” and “I Never Dreamed.” 

Meanwhile, Gaines’ fretboard work isn’t to be overlooked either. As captured on the former track (and the live cuts on the double set), his is a distinctly fluid instrumental style that both complements and contrasts those of his new guitar partners Allen Collins and Gary Rossington. And along those lines, “I Never Dreamed” represents a genuine departure for the group especially after the riff-dominated Gimme Back My Bullets (notably produced by Dowd). Van Zant has clearly grown more nuanced as a singer, while the integration of acoustic guitar and organ precludes stylistic stasis even with the multiple electric guitar breaks; more expansive inclusion of such interludes would conceivably render the track comparable to the Skynyrd signature song “Freebird.”

Three days after the release of Street Survivors, the band’s chartered airplane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing the pilot, co-pilot, the group’s assistant road-manager and three band members–Van Zant, Gaines, and Gaines’ older sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines (who had recommended him to the group upon King’s departure). Most who survived the crash were severely injured, including Rossington and Collins (who later went on to form a band under their dual names). 

At the request of the family, the original artwork depicting the band in flames was quickly replaced with a group portrait of the septet pictured against a black background for an altogether funereal effect. Intentional or not, the image might well symbolize the long-term activity of ensembles recording and performing under the name Lynyrd Skynyrd a decade after the tragedy. 

The posthumous success of Street Survivors was an inkling of the support that fostered the reconfigured unit’s existence right through farewell roadwork: dubbed ‘ ‘Big Wheels Keep On Turnin’’ a tour that began in 2018 and now extends into 2023.  

The Southern men who once excoriated (then befriended) Neil Young continued to flourish as Street Survivors ultimately suggests it would. Lynyrd Skynyrd was on the threshold of reinvigoration at that point, thanks not only to the presence of Gaines but also to their own innate perseverance in resolving internal issues that had plagued the group just prior to his enlistment.  

The cruelty of that tragedy afflicting the band nearly a half-century ago, though, failed to forestall the surviving members’ loyalty to the legacy or that of its ever-so-fervent following.