Gary Rossington, the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd who also helped found the band, died on Sunday at the age of 71. There was no mention of a cause of death.
“It is with great sadness that we must inform you that we have lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter, and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today,” the band wrote on Facebook. “Gary is now playing it pretty in heaven with his Skynyrd brothers and family, as he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie, and the entire Rossington family in your prayers during this difficult time, and respect the family’s privacy.”
According to Rolling Stone, Rossington cheated death more than once. In 1976, he survived a car accident in which he crashed his Ford Torino into a tree, which inspired the band’s cautionary song “That Smell.” A year later, he emerged with two broken arms, a broken leg, and a punctured stomach and liver from the 1977 plane crash that killed singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines.
“It was heartbreaking,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006. “You can’t just casually discuss it and not have feelings about it.”
Rossington later had quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, a heart attack in 2015, and numerous subsequent heart surgeries, most recently leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd in July 2021 to recover from another procedure. Rossington has recently performed portions of concerts and sat out entire shows.
Rossington was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on December 4, 1951, and was raised by his mother after his father died. Rossington and his new friends formed a band after meeting drummer Bob Burns and bassist Larry Junstrom, which they tried to balance with their love of baseball.
According to Rolling Stone, Ronnie Van Zant met his future bandmates when he hit a line drive into the shoulder blades of opposing player Bob Burns during a fateful Little League game. That afternoon, Rossington, Burns, Van Zant, and guitarist Allen Collins gathered at Burns’ Jacksonville home to jam to the Rolling Stones’ “Time Is on My Side.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd took their name from a similarly named sports coach at Rossington’s high school as well as a character in the 1963 novelty hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” and released their debut album (Pronounced ‘Lh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) in 1973.
The album included now-classics like “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Simple Man,” and “Gimme Three Steps,” but it was the closing track, the nearly 10-minute “Free Bird,” that became the group’s calling card, thanks in no small part to Rossington’s evocative slide playing on his Gibson SG.
Despite the band’s drama and death, Rossington told Rolling Stone that he never considered Skynyrd to be a tragic band. “I don’t think of it as a tragedy — I think of it as life,” he said after the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. “I believe that the good outweighs the bad.”
