Documentary Watch- Gone with the Wind: the Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd

I’m sometimes uncertain with my opinion on Lynryd Skynyrd who get classified as a southern rock band, but I think I often fall into the thinking that I love them. Their image is such that the early media's classification as America’s Rolling Stones no longer seems apt, but they do have an influence on a certain Southern population of indie rock- bands like Nashville Pussy, Kings of Leon and Drive By Truckers. I watched the documentary Gone with the Wind: the Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd. It looks a bit low budget but it is actually really good. The biggest absence is Gary Rossington’s involvement - the cofounder and guitarist- but otherwise it’s an interesting group- friends and early management, producer Al Kooper, Ed King, Bob Burns and Artemis Pyle. This doc tells me one thing that I have noticed in a lot of recent viewing, to be successful you need to practice and Skynyrd practiced hard. An interesting fact was that singer Ronnie Van Zandt wanted to emulate Paul Rogers in Free. The doc does a good job telling the band’s story. Like so many bands, it seems that just being friends in high school isn’t enough to be able to navigate the hard waters of rock n roll. Also, being a successful 70s band was not easy with the strenuous schedule of constant touring, recording and then repeating. I liked how it told the story of the band, their music and the crash. It’s not overly sentimental or critical. It doesn’t spend too much time in any one area. It made me appreciate the band all the more and it’s interesting how the band created the Southern Rock image, sometimes downplaying it (when it looked like they might overshadowed by the Allmans) but ultimately deciding to embrace it to reach icon status for their fans. The three guitarists and the three backing vocalists contributing the unique mixture behind Ronnie’s Everyman lyrics and towering presence and baritone was really something special, and that most of that was lost (the doc mentions Skynyrd version 2 thought doesnt spend much time on them) with what feels avoidable (given hindsight) in the air crash.