Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band best known for popularizing the southern hard-rock genre during the 1970’s. Originally formed in 1966 as the The Pretty Ones in Jacksonville, Florida, they then went through two name changes – The Noble Five and One Percent – before coming up with Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1968. The band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tunes “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird”. At the peak of their success, three members died in an airplane crash in 1977, putting an abrupt end to the band’s most popular incarnation. (More from Wikipedia)
By now, the parade of early deaths of beloved musicians is long indeed. Not a few of these losses have occurred in small airplane crashes: Glenn Miller, John Denver, Jim Reeves, Otis Redding, Jim Croce, Rick Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Aaliyah, and three bandmembers in Lynyrd Skynyrd: Ronnie van Zant, Stevie Gaines, and Cassie Gaines. There is even a parallel to “The Day the Music Died” in country music, when Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins all died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963.
(June 2013/1)
After Rickey Medlocke and Greg T. Walker left the group in 1971 to join Lynyrd Skynyrd for a time, Blackfoot had a hiatus and then a series of personnel changes before settling into the line-up of Rickey Medlocke, Greg T. Walker, Jakson Spires and Charlie Hargrett.
(August 2013)
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Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young have released any number of cultural and counter-cultural touchstones over the years, such as “Southern Man” (on Neil Young’s excellent solo album, After the Gold Rush, with Lynyrd Skynyrd good-naturedly answering the song in their hit “Sweet Home Alabama”).
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The Cactus brand of American-style blues rock has been cited as an influence on many bands that followed; Wikipedia lists Aerosmith, Van Halen, .38 Special, Anvil, the Black Crowes, Montrose, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Black Keys. Cactus has been through a succession of line-ups over the years and is still active as of 2012.
(April 2014)
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But I was surprised when so many “Crawdaddy” entities came up in the initial Google searches for this post. Make it a search for “Crawdaddys band”, and there is a host of results: Besides the UARB the Crawdaddys, there is a rock band from Australia called the Crawdaddys, a Cajun/zydeco band from Baltimore called the Crawdaddies, a Canadian band called the Crawdaddy’s, a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band called Crawdaddy Band, a bluesman from Detroit named Crawdaddy – and that was just on the first page of search results. There are also Crawdaddy’s music clubs all over.
(January 2015/2)
