Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 debut (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) made the Top 30 of the Billboard 200, but its immediate follow-up, Second Helping upped the ante – and confirmed the hard-gigging Florida band was ready to takes its place at rock’s prime desk.
(Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) brokered the band’s transition from the membership circuit to a lot greater arenas. This allowed them to work out the songs for Second Serving to throughout a collection of reveals opening for The Who on Pete Townshend and firm’s Quadrophenia tour of North America. Whereas these high-profile dates helped Lynyrd Skynyrd acquire helpful expertise, they have been additionally a baptism of fireside.
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“We were just a band that played clubs, teen dens and pubs,” guitarist Gary Rossington later recalled in an interview with Uncut. “Then, all of a sudden, we were playing in stadiums for 30,000 people. We’d have shots of whiskey every night because we were so scared.”
The group had banished any residual nerves by the point the Second Serving to periods received underway. Produced by the band’s mentor, Al Kooper (Bob Dylan, Blood Sweat & Tears), the album was tight and supremely assured all through. Highlights ranged from the crunching, brass-enhanced rocker “Don’t Ask Me No Questions,” by to the roots-y, Delta-flavored country-blues of “The Ballad Of Curtis Loew,” and a mesmeric cowl of J.J. Cale’s “Call Me The Breeze,” however the album actually hit its peak with “Sweet Home Alabama”: a heartfelt paean to Dixie delight written in response to 2 Neil Younger songs, “Southern Man” and “Alabama,” each of which have been lower than complimentary in regards to the South.
Regardless of calling Younger out within the lyric, the band performed it down, with singer Ronnie Van Zant later telling the Los Angeles Occasions “it was more of a joke than anything else.” Younger in the meantime, has since turn into one among “Sweet Home Alabama”s greatest followers, writing in his 2012 autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, “My own song “Alabama” well-merited the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their nice report.”
Actually rock followers from the Southern states and method past took “Sweet Home Alabama” to their hearts. With its killer riff, infectious groove and irresistible sing-along refrain, it had all of the hallmarks of a basic rock tune and it quickly steamed up the charts as a spin-off 45, finally peaking at No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard Scorching 100.
With momentum constructing across the band, Second Serving to was launched in April 1974, and discerning rock followers wolfed it up because the album rose to No. 12 within the U.S. Certainly, the report’s eventual double platinum success was well-earned, for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s honest-to-goodness blue-collar rock’ n’ roll songs have been turning into more and more troublesome to dislike.
“In those days it was the Alice Coopers and the Kisses and all the makeup,” Gary Rossington stated, discussing his band’s longevity with The Inside Story. “That’s who was making it back then. But we were kinda real. We wore blue jeans and T-shirts and our music was our gimmick.”
Take heed to Second Serving to now.
