The guitarist, who co-wrote the hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” survived a 1977 plane crash that killed three fellow band members.
Gary Rossington, a co-founder and last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd who helped write the classic answer song “Sweet Home Alabama” and played unforgettable slide guitar on the rock anthem “Free Bird,” died Sunday at age 71. No cause of death was given.
In later years, Rossington underwent quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, suffered a heart attack in 2015, and had numerous subsequent heart surgeries, most recently leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd in July 2021 to recover from another procedure. At recent shows, Rossington would perform portions of the concert and sometimes sat out full gigs.
According to their bio in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it was during a fateful Little League game, Ronnie Van Zant hit a line drive into the shoulder blades of spectator Bob Burns and met his future bandmates. Rossington, Burns, Van Zant, and guitarist Allen Collins later gathered at Burns’ Jacksonville home to jam the Rolling Stone’s “Time Is on My Side.”
Written by Rossington, Van Zant and Ed King, none of whom were from Alabama, the complicated legacy of “Sweet Home Alabama” followed the band for decades. It was originally written as a response to Neil Young’s “Alabama” and “Southern Man,” a critical rebuke of slavery in the South. “Sweet Home Alabama” references both Young and Alabama Gov.
Still the band regularly used the Confederate flag in their live shows for decades. Rossington in 2012 told CNN that the band would stop using the flag in shows because of its association with hate groups, but then walked back the comment to say they would continue to use the Confederate flag, alongside the state flag of Alabama and the American flag.
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