In the early years, it was always veering wildly, almost off the tracks.

They were like guys that I had gone to school with that I was almost too scared to hang out with. I don’t know that the band was that important to MCA early on that they would spend that kind of effort to think about an image they would pursue. Ronnie wanted to learn the business from him. I think Ronnie was very enamored of Rudge, he had ties to the Who and the Stones, and he was just a guy who was part of the royalty even though he was a manager, and he had a relationship with Ronnie where they talked a lot. Ronnie’s mind was blows that they were playing with the Who: “Can you believe it, we’re playing with the Who?” They were a great band and they went over with the audience really well. It was like, “What is this garbage? What are these songs? What is Keith Moon singing ‘Bell Boy’ for? Let’s heart ‘Baba O’Reilly’!” But Skynyrd was opening on that leg and they were amazing. The audience just didn’t want to hear it. They stopped playing Quadrophenia at a certain point, because they could never get the tapes right, and I think Daltrey was all pissed off because Entwistle had mixed the album and he wasn’t happy with the mix, nobody was happy with the mix. Over the next three years, we stayed pretty tight, and I did write about them and went on the road with them and all kinds of stuff. No agenda, he didn’t ask me to write about him, just took the opportunity to tell me the story had reached him. He was a guy who treated me like I was an equal, and it gave me a lot of confidence, doing that. He was the first musician that crossed the line and talked to me like I was an artist or a writer. That was the beginning of my relationship with Ronnie. I can really relate to you because you’re a young guy starting out and I’m a young guy starting out and, man, aren’t the Allman Brothers an amazing story? They’re part of my crowd, but I don’t really know those guys. In that environment, Ronnie sought me out, introduced himself, and said, “Man, I read your Allman Brothers story and you are quite a writer. The Who did this amazing show and then immediately went into their dressing room and started trashing their dressing room, throwing themselves around, and you could stand outside and hear the Who going nuts inside this dressing room. The Who had just played their show, it was an amazing show, but there were problems with the tapes that were being played to synch up with their performance of Quadrophenia. Ronnie Van Zant sought me out because he knew I was around. I was a young guy and I just disappeared inside that story and it meant a lot to me. There was a lot of stuff in the article that was truthful, spooky, personal – it was the result of a lot of reporting. I had just had a cover story come out in Rolling Stone on the Allman Brothers – it was Gregg Allman on the cover – and I wasn’t sure how the Allman Brothers felt. The tour opened in Atlanta at the Omni and Lynyrd Skynyrd was opening the show. I was sixteen and it was a big assignment. I was a journalist, it was 1973, and I was on the road with the Who on their Quadrophenia tour for Playboy. Mostly it was Free, Stones, Clapton, even the Beatles that we talked about or that I heard them playing. I don’t really remember him listening to country music or anything like that, or much blues. Nevertheless, they may reconcile their conflicts.Īt a charity performance in Miami in 1977, Young sang an impassioned medley of 'Alabama' and 'Sweet Home Alabama' in honor of the band.These Cameron Crowe anecdotes were all compiled in 1998 for the book

A southern man do not need him around anyhow.' The lyrics go like this: Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her. Neil Young's name is mentioned in this song. He viewed his statements as a grave insult and responded with 'Sweet Home Alabama' to 'Southern Man.' The late Ronnie Van Zant (singer of the band) was reportedly a major fan of the Canadian and would often wear a Neil Young T-shirt when singing on stage. As a result, Lynyrd Skynyrd felt outraged by this reference. In a nutshell, it did not positively portray Lynyrd Skynyrd's hometown. The song is about racism in the American South, and it makes several references to the region's historical ties to slavery and the Ku Klux Klan. Neil Young's landmark album 'After The Gold Rush' includes the song 'Southern Man.' Members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were outraged by this track.

Lynyrd skynyrd neil young