Skynyrd broadly fit into the hard-driving improvisational blues format pioneered by the Allman Brothers, although the band's welcome bent for brevity keeps most of the tracks tight and to the point. On the other hand, their nine-minute "Freebird" jumps out of the group's debut LP: It offers a tour of blues guitar expertise, conducted by Allen Collins and to riveting effect. In fact, Skynyrd work with three lead guitarists, a density of stringy instrumentation at times recalling Byrds as much as Allmans.
Eclectic (a shared predilection for much Southern rock), Skynyrd leans on everyone from Rolling Stones ("Tuesday's Gone") and Ry Cooder ("Things Goin' On") to Lovin' Spoonful ("Gimme
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Three Steps"). Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant mostly sounds like Keith Relf imitating Mick Jagger. Al Kooper's unobtrusively dapper production emphasizes the English connection with ever an eye to poppy parts, a mellotron here, electric 12-string there. But the blunter blues tracks form the album's meat with cuts like "Simple Man" revealing a no-nonsense powerhouse rock unit of modest proportions but considerable promise.
When Lynyrd Skynyrd harks back to Allmans and Wet Willies, Mose Jones suggest John Fred or the Box Tops, appealing to the Top 40 heritage of white Southern rock. Jones (previously called Stonehenge) forfeit Skynyrd's energy, relying instead on Uncle Al's dandy studio sweetenings—if one can ignore for the moment an atrocious Kooper gospel goof, "Get Right (With God)," which unfortunately opens, closes and gives Jones' album a title.
The band's style ranges between spruced-up acid rock ("Here We Go Again"—a Moody Blues rerun), loping New York Rascals soul ("Kiwi Stumble Boogie") and Motown - modified Allmans ("What Kind of Woman Would Do That"—one of the record's better cuts, conceptually and musically). While vocalist Randy Lewis strongly recalls the Guess Who's Burton Cummings, the band, with Kooper at the controls, proves adroit in all fashion of disguises.
Kooper handles Jones as well as Skynyrd, but ultimately it is the latter's intensity that impresses most. Both bands could profit from a more concentrated and single-minded approach, even where proficiency partially forgives virtual parody. But for Skynyrd at least, magnolia muscle carries the day: a significant victory for Kooper's Southern Strategy. (RS 147)
JIM MILLER
Since everything from psychedelia to disco has eventually come back to haunt us, it should come as no surprise that one of the more popular genres of the Seventies, Southern rock, seems to be rearing its boogieing little head faster than you can say twin – make that triple – guitar solos. After all, it was partially by having three (count 'em!) lead guitarists all buzz-sawing at the same time that Lynyrd Skynyrd changed the arena rebel yell of choice from "Whipping Post" to "Free Bird" – at least until the 1977 plane crash that took the life of singer-leader Ronnie Van Zant and with him the band's very spirit.
Several splinter groups (come on – you don't remember the Rossington-Collins Band or the Artimus Pyle Band?) and tribute tours later, Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 finds most of the old band members reunited, with brother Johnny Van Zant (not to be confused with the other brother, .38 Special's Donnie) looking to fill Ronnie's hat – and damned if they don't just about pull it off.
Fourteen years between studio albums tops even the Grateful Dead's record, but on many songs – notably, "Keeping the Faith," "Backstreet Crawler" and the anthem-ready "End of the Road" – Gary Rossington, Ed King and newcomer Randall Hall cook up enough noisy raunch to please most of the noncoms in the invisible guitar army that's always on red alert out there in the hinterlands. Marshall Tucker – call your office. (RS 610)
BILLY ALTMAN
