Guest Book

Hey Dave! Happy birthday. See you...next month!! Hopefully for longer than five minutes this time. The Allmans did "Sweet Home Alabama?" Wierd, wild, wacky stuff. I had no idea. Not sure if this helps or not, but here are a couple of interesting tidbits from the liner notes of the Skynyrd boxed set: "Jacksonville soon became a hot-bed for the emerging Southern blues-rock scene. Duane Allman came down from Macon, Georgia to jam with Second Coming, featuring Dickie Betts and Berry Oakley, and the effect wasn't lost on the new Skynyrd group. When the Allman Brothers' first album was released, the blues-rock revival was in full force in Dixie." And... "By October , 1970, Lynyrd Skynyrd were together five years and had played nearly a thousand gigs. They had a manager, Alan Walden, brother of Capricorn Records' president Phil. Alan managed mostly soul groups, and he arranged for Skynyrd to record demos at Quinvy Studios just outside of the upcoming "other" Soul Music captial, Muscle Shoals, Alabama." " 'Free Bird' was one of the songs recorded at Quinvy, and the rock epic had already begun to come together. Allen actually had the music for six months prior to playing it for the band, but Ronnie initially resisted adding words to so many chords. Finally, when Ronnie came up with the 'Free Bird' lyrics, he asked Allen to play his melody. However, the initial version of 'Free Bird' fell flat with audiences. It wasn't until Allen added the soaring uptempo changes accentuating "Can't chan-a-ang-ange..." that the the song took off. The first time they played this new arrangement was at Jacksonville's Art Museum, and the response was overwhelming." Groovy. Hmmm...was it really an art museum, do you suppose, or just a club with the same name? 🙂