This is one of those LP's I bought twice: I've had the double vinyl edition since the late 80's, and had played it to death during that time. I later bought all their individual albums on CD and, believing the vinyl to be redundant, sold it off during the great vinyl purge. Recently I succumbed to nostalgia and re-bought a cheap second hand copy online. Now this one is nowhere as clean as my copy was; it's seriously worn out at the seams and has a number of light scratches, while my old copy was played often but treated with care and showed less signs of use. But playing it brings memories of the fun I had listening to these songs when they were relatively new to me. I daresay this specific song selection in this order seems to be the definitive way to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Yes indeed there are many compilations of this material, but none as concise as Gold & Platinum. This double LP was compiled by Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, two of the survivors of the fatal 1977 plane accident that cost some band members their lives and put an end to the original band run. Released in 1979, it went platinum the following year and triple-platinum (signaling 3 million sales in USA alone) in 1987. It's easy to see why: Not only is it consistently great, but with only 16 songs culled from all 7 albums, it doesn't nevertheless seem to be missing anything essential - except possibly for "Working For MCA". Fittingly, the first and last track come from 1978's Skynyrd's First...and Last. Released posthumously in '78, that album contained songs recorded in 1971-72 at Alabama's legendary Muscle Shoals studio and intended for the band's debut but left unreleased at the time. The music is pretty good but superseded by later, superior, versions - so it's safe to assume that it would have remained unreleased if it wasn't for the band's untimely demise. Worth hearing nevertheless in order to better appreciate their evolution, as well as a testament to their early line up including Rick Medlocke who went on to head fellow Southern Rockers Blackfoot and who can be heard here on closer "Comin' Home".
From their 1973 debut proper Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd, we get a couple of fantastic ballads: "Simple Man" and "Tuesday's Gone". Three more songs from that album, "Gimme Three Steps", "I Ain't the One" and the epic 14-minute (in this version) "Free Bird" are included in live takes from their 1976 double live LP One More from the Road. 1974's sophomore Second Helping is, of course, represented by the unofficial national anthem of the American South "Sweet Home Alabama". Written in response to Neil Young's South-bashing "Southern Man" and "Alabama", they proclaimed their Southern pride in a controversial manner, often (but apparently erroneously) thought to be expressing support to racist governor George Wallace. But if "Sweet Home Alabama" left space for misappropriation by the ultra-right, the same can not be said for "Saturday Night Special". One of three rockers taken from 1975's Nuthin' Fancy (along with "On the Hunt" and "Whiskey Rock-a-Roller") this song made a case for gun control, prompting listeners to "dump (their handguns) to the bottom of the sea". By all accounts, the mention to "bullets" on next year's Gimme Back My Bullets is also metaphorical; there's nothing pro-gun about the song at all.
Frustratingly, four of the best songs in this collection come from the original band's swan song Street Survivors (1977). "That Smell", "What's Your Name", "You Got That Right", and the rockabilly-ish "I Know a Little" show a band on top of their game: unfazed by the onslaught of punk, they were firing on all cylinders - who knows how much better they could have possibly gotten if it wasn't for that damn plane crash? As it is, a decade later the band name was resurrected by a new lineup consisting of older members and singer Johnny Van Zandt in place of his late brother Ronnie. Their farewell tour, cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, is called The Last of the Street Survivors, a poignant name given that guitarist Gary Rossington is now the only one of the original 7-piece still living. Let's hope they'll reconsider their retirement plans and add some European dates to the tour so that we can tell them a proper goodbye - if not, they've still left us with an awesome recorded legacy best enjoyed in this particular form, and in vinyl: it just sounds right this way, and looks good too; check the cute drawing on the record's inner gatefold!
***** for Saturday Night Special, Gimme Three Steps (Live), What's Your Name, You Got That Right, Sweet Home Alabama, Free Bird (Live), That Smell, Whiskey Rock-a-Roller, Simple Man, I Know a Little, Tuesday's Gone
**** for Down South Jukin', Gimme Back My Bullets, On the Hunt, I Ain't the One (Live), Comin' Home
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