Gary Rossington, the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Sunday at age 71.
The guitarist also led the Rossington Collins Band for a few years, starting two years after the 1977 plane crash that killed original Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant and two of the band’s later members.
His wife, Dale Krantz-Rossington, who survives him, was also in that band and a later group, The Rossington Band, which released a couple of albums in the late ’80s. She has been in Skynyrd with Gary since 1987.
Rossington was one of the 20 survivors in the crash that took the lives of Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and Gaines’s sister, Cassie, a backing vocalist for the group. However, he was severely injured, breaking both arms, legs, wrists, and ankles, plus his pelvis. When he and Collins finally began their band, he did so with steel rods in his right arm and right leg.
Rossington was born in Jacksonville, Florida on December 4th, 1951. He met Ronnie Van Zant and drummer Bob Burns through playing baseball in 1964 and they formed a band that was first called The Noble Five and then The One Percent, before becoming Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1969.
After a 1979 reunion at Charlie Daniels‘ Volunteer Jam, Rossington re-formed Skynyrd in 1987 and has been with them ever since. He’s persevered through various illnesses and heart attacks and recently said his doctors have been trying for the past five years to get him to retire. He would occasionally miss dates due to health issues, but remained a member until the end.
.
Comments