Gary Rossington performs in New York in 2010. “They hear it and say, ‘That’s grandma and grandpa.’” “They love to hear ‘Alabama,’” Rossington said. In their younger years, Rossington’s grandkids recognized Skynyrd songs when they heard them on the radio. I feel sorry for the kids not having real music.” “It was a long song then and still is today. “People at the record company and people in radio said, ‘This will never get any airplay it’s too long.’ But we wouldn’t change it. “Some of the songs of our time are very long compared to today, but even ‘Free Bird’ in the early ’70s was too long for the industry,” Rossington said. Heck, “Free Bird” was a long song in its own day. Radio stations tolerate a song clocking in at more than 9 minutes like a 4-year-old enjoys a Sunday sermon. A 90-second guitar solo is a relic of the free-spirited ’60s and ’70s. Pop music today needs to sell sneakers and acne cream. It’s a different time and a different scene.
the popular music people are listening to now has changed so much,” Rossington said. Will they grow up ballplayers or musicians? Rossington didn’t worry about that so much as the music they are exposed to today. Rossington’s grandkids, Morgan and Jackson, went to school in Jackson and, following in grandpa’s footsteps, played Little League baseball. The mountains are still the same.” Where Are The Guitars? There was no McDonald’s or any other there is now. “Once you find a place like this, it is instant love. They even learned to embrace the harsh Wyoming winters. The Rossingtons soon began to split time between Atlanta and Jackson. We bought land, built a house, and had two daughters here and raised them here.” It was then we fell in love with Jackson. “Well, God must have put us there because the weather stopped and we had a great weekend. It was 1982, and it was the weekend of Old West Days. There was a freak snowstorm that hit so we came to Jackson. “When Dale and I quit the Rossington-Collins Band, we went to Yellowstone on a trip. “I was from Florida, you know? We toured everywhere in the country but never came to Jackson. We maybe heard of Yellowstone,” Rossington admitted.
Like a lot of modern-day settlers, it was snow that brought the Rossingtons to Jackson, but they weren’t chasing it. They had never been here not on tour, not as tourists, not ever. Jackson became home sweet home for Rossington beginning in the early 1980s when he and his wife, Dale Krantz-Rossington, moved to the valley. Gary Rossington performs with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow Scotland on Feb. It’s still a thrill to be able to make people feel like that after all these years.” They sing the words, they cry, they jump up and down. “I watch the faces now of the people in the first few rows. “It blows our mind every time we play and people know the songs no matter where you go,” Rossington said just before a reunion tour brought him to Jackson years ago. In an exclusive interview from his home in Jackson before his passing, Rossington recalled the glory years and a settling down time where he came to love Wyoming, his adopted home. And the riff in “Gimme Three Steps?” Yup, Rossington. That’s Rossington’s Les Paul barking out the “Tuesday’s Gone” solo. That’s him on the unforgettable slide guitar part in “Free Bird” (he says he used a Zippo lighter). The legendary guitarist who died earlier this year traded Jacksonville for Jackson, Wyoming, more than three decades ago, but will forever be linked to the seminal Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.īefore his death March 5, 2023, he was the last surviving member of the group and author of some of the most influential guitar licks to ever scratch their way underneath a stylus at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. Can any song possibly be bigger than “Sweet Home Alabama?” From the opening strains of the instantly recognizable riff (it’s a simple D-C-G progression with chicken-pickin’ hammer-ons and pull-offs) to the sing-along chorus, the legendary song is the unofficial anthem of the Deep South and a must-have arrow in any cover band’s quiver.Īnd Gary Rossington never tired of playing it.
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