Lynyrd Skynyrd Farewell Tour To Hit Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA — Lynyrd Skynyrd, the once-mighty rock outfit whose sold-out Atlanta shows in the '70s helped put their brand of Southern boogie on an international stage, will be diggging those Georgia peaches one more time.

The group, now featuring just one original member, has announced its will kick off its farewell tour in May. And, on Sept. 1, its final performance of the tour's first leg is scheduled for Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood in Atlanta.

The tour will cap a run of nearly five decades that saw the band's name live on through great onstage and in-studio performances mixed with perhaps even greater personal tragedy. Guests including Hank Williams, Jr., Bad Company, the Charlie Daniels Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, .38 Special and Blackfoot are expected to join Skynyrd's current lineup on the five-month tour.

"It's hard to imagine, after all these years, the band that Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins and myself started back in Jacksonville would resonate for this long and to so many generations of fans," said guitarist Gary Rossington.

In 1965, Ronnie Van Zant formed The Noble Five with Collins, Rossington and others. They would soon change the band's name in a backhanded tribute to Leonard Skinner, a gym teacher at their Jacksonville, Fla. high school who was notoriously hard on the school's long-haired students.

After cutting their teeth in Deep South juke-joints, Skynyrd recorded their first full album in 1971 at Muscle Shoals Sound studios in Alabama. It was in Atlanta where producer Al Kooper signed them to his label, a subsidiary of MCA, in 1972.

Kooper produced the group's first three albums — "Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd," "Second Helping" and "Nuthin' Fancy" — capturing the blend of country blues, hard country and rock 'n' roll that Van Zant had come to love in his youth.

Those albums would produce Southern Rock staples like "Sweet Home Alabama," "Gimme Three Steps," "Tuesday's Gone," "Call Me the Breeze," and, of course, "Freebird," which Rolling Stone once estimated is the most-requested live rock song in history.

The coming years brought success, although constant touring and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle took their toll, with several members leaving the group. Then, on Oct. 20, 1977 — three days after the "Street Survivors" album was released — the band's airplane ran out of gas due to an engine malfunction and crashed in rural Mississippi.

Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines, were killed in the crash, as was the band's road manager and two pilots. Twenty others on the plane were injured.

For the next decade, Lynyrd Skynyrd was put to rest. But, in 1987, many of the surviving members reunited for what they then called a tribute tour, featuring Van Zant's brother, Johnny Van Zant, on vocals. The tour did so well that they continued to play under the Skynyrd name, even as original and early members began dropping out one-by-one.

As what supporters began calling the second-generation Lynyrd Skynyrd, the group recorded prolifically throughout the '90s and beyond, though nothing they put to wax ever captured the magic of the original group's early work.

In 2006, original and early Lynyrd Skynyrd members Bob Burns, Allen Collins, Steve Gaines, Ed King, Billy Powell, Artimus Pyle, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Van Zant and Leon Wilkeson were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Tickets for the farewell tour go on sale to the general public starting Friday, Feb. 2 at 10 a.m. local time at LiveNation.com. For complete presale details visit www.citiprivatepass.com.

Photo via LynyrdSkynyrd.com