• Writers: Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant
• Producer: Al Kooper
• Recorded: 1973 at Studio One, Doraville, Georgia
• Released: 1973 (album), November 1974 (edited single)
• Players:
  Ronnie Van Zant — lead vocals
  Allen Collins — lead guitar
  Gary Rossington — rhythm guitar
  Billy Powell — piano
  Roosevelt Cook — organ
  Ed King — bass
  Robert Burns — drums
• Album: Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd (MCA, 1973)
• Also On:
  One More From The Road (MCA, 1976)
  Gold And Platinum (MCA, 1980)
  and other compilations and live albums
• Lynyrd Skynyrd named itself after Leonard Skinner, a high school gym teacher the members disliked.
• “Free Bird,” an immediate fan favorite thanks to its long, guitar-fueled closing, became the group’s regular concert closer.
• It wasn’t released as a single until after the band’s second album had already come out. In response to the song’s popularity, a shortened version of “Free Bird” was issued, and it peaked at Number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1975.
• The long live version on One More From The Road, recorded in Atlanta, is preceded by lead singer Ronnie Van Zant‘s famous introduction, “What song is it you wanna hear?”
• The live version is an more intense jam than the studio recording, not only because it’s live but also because third guitarist Steve Gaines had joined the band and the other two guitarists, Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, were trying to equal his fervor. “He’s scared everybody into playing their best in years,” Van Zant said of Gaines.
• The live version was also issued as a single in December 1976, and it peaked at Number 38.
• One More From The Road was the band’s first million-selling album.
• Free Bird: The Movie is a concert film mostly taken from the band’s August 1976 appearance at England’s Knebworth Fair, a famous show where Lynyrd Skynyrd opened for the Rolling Stones. However, a few tracks are from other concerts, and the title track was recorded in Oakland-Alameda County Stadium on July 3rd, 1977, when the band opened for Peter Frampton.

FAST FORWARD:

• Tragedy struck Lynyrd Skynyrd on the Street Survivors tour when the twin-engine Convair 240 carrying the band to a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashed into a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi on October 20th, 1977. Gaines was killed in the crash, along with his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines; lead singer Ronnie Van Zant; manager Dean Kilpatrick; and the plane’s pilots. Guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins; keyboardist Billy Powell; bassist Leon Wilkeson; and drummer Artimus Pyle all survived, though with serious injuries.
• Rossington, Collins, Powell, and Wilkeson regrouped as the Rossington Collins Band in 1980, with Dale Krantz on vocals. The group played an instrumental version of “Free Bird” as a tribute to the dead musicians.
• In 1986, Collins crashed his car, killing his girlfriend and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
• In 1987, the 10th anniversary of the plane crash, Rossington, Powell, Wilkeson, and guitarist Ed King reunited as Lynyrd Skynyrd, adding Randall Hall on guitar and Johnny Van Zant — the younger brother of Ronnie and 38 Special‘s Donnie — on vocals, for a commemorative tour and double live album. The band began recording again in 1991.
• The reunion stuck, with Skynyrd continuing to record and tour. The group now includes former Blackfoot leader Rickey Medlocke on guitars and occasional vocals. Medlocke was also a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd before the band got their first record deal.
• Collins died on January 23rd, 1990.
• Wilkeson died on July 27th, 2001, from chronic liver and lung disease.