The guitarist’s brawny Les Paul tones helped create the Lynyrd Skynyrd legacy on hits like “Free Bird” and “That Smell,” and made him a 6-string hero in his own right.
Gary Rossington—the guitarist who inspired Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song “That Smell” and then played the hell out of it, with sailing, melodramatic feedback and a corpulent, grizzly-bear tone decorated by squealing pinch harmonics—died on Sunday, March 5, after at least a decade of coronary issues, including bypass surgeries and a reported heart attack in 2015. Rossington, who held the reins of Skynyrd ’til the end, was the band’s last surviving original member.
The 71-year-old was also the primary slide guitarist in the foundational version of the Jacksonville, Florida-birthed group, playing the distinctive chirping introduction to their iconic “Free Bird,” as well as the muscular solos on “ Simple Man,” “Comin’ Home,” “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Call Me the Breeze,” “Gimme Three Steps,” “ Cry for the Bad Man,” “Workin’ for MCA,” “On the Hunt,” and their version of the Jimmie Rodgers classic “T for Texas,” among many other memorable, influential performances.
Rossington’s tone was always like a boxer’s fist—strong, calculated, consistent—regardless of the gear he played, but the core of his sonic formula was a Gibson Les Paul Standard plugged into 160 watts of Peavey Mace or 100 watts of Marshall. In fact, Rossington boasted in a 2017 PG interview with journalist Joe Charupakorn that he played his 1959 Les Paul on every Skynyrd recording and show from the band’s inception until 1977. (Although live videos of the band in the mid ’70s also show him with a two-humbucker SG slung around his shoulders.)
In Skynyrd’s nascent years, that Les Paul was his sole instrument. “Early on, we didn’t have the time to change tunings onstage, plus I only had one guitar back then, so I learned to play slide in standard,” he told me in 2015. To raise the action for his glass slide, Rossington would insert a pencil above the first fret on his guitar’s neck. He was proud that “my ’59 Les Paul, Bernice, is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame sitting right next to Duane’s and Clapton’s guitars. They were my two biggest idols coming up, so having my guitar right between theirs is great!”
Rossington onstage at New York City’s Beacon Theatre in 1976, the year of his infamous auto wreck and the success of the live One More from the Road and “Free Bird.”
Photo by Frank White
Over the decades and the trials—brawls with Skynyrd’s mercurial leader Ronnie Van Zant that once left him with glass-shredded hands in the middle of a European tour; the terrible October 1977 plane crash in Mississippi that killed Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, singer Cassie Gaines, and three others, and left Rossington badly injured; the booze-and-drugs-fueled car crash that inspired “That Smell”; the challenges of addiction and recovery; and the rising and falling tides of the music business—Rossington survived with his everyman charisma and chops intact.
He was born in Jacksonville in 1951, and his father died in the Army soon after. Initially, Rossington, who was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of Skynyrd, wanted to be a baseball player, but that changed with the arrival of the Rolling Stones and when he fell in with Van Zant, who became a father figure. They formed their first band together in 1964 and evolved into Skynyrd in 1969. The debut, Pronounced ’Lĕh-’nérd ’Skin-’nérd, was released in 1973 and contained “Gimme Three Steps,” “Simple Man,” “Tuesday’s Gone,” and “Free Bird,” although the latter did not become a hit until the 11-minutes-plus version on 1976’s One More from the Road was released to FM radio—forever launching “Play ‘Free Bird’” as a call for Skynyrd fans and wiseasses alike.
Rossington’s tone was always like a boxer’s fist—strong, calculated, consistent—regardless of the gear he played.”
I grew up listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and had tickets for their Street Survivors tour at the New Haven Coliseum. It would have been my first time hearing the band live, and I was thrilled. I was also crushed when the news of the plane crash spread four days after the album’s October 17 release. I did catch the Rossington-Collins Band, which Rossington formed with fellow Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins in 1979, along with Skynyrd’s bassist Leon Wilkeson and pianist Billy Powell, in 1980 at the Springfield (Massachusetts) Civic Center, but Rossington had broken his leg the day before and the vibe was, understandably, off. Seven years later, after Skynyrd reformed with Johnny Van Zant as vocalist, I caught their fiery, inspiring performance at the Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts. Hearing the tones and visceral playing that Rossington evoked from his guitar, I immediately decided to buy my first Les Paul.
Almost 20 years later, when I was able to interview Rossington for the first time, I was inspired again—this time by his candor, humor, and humility.
When we spoke about recording “That Smell,” still one of my favorite rock songs, Rossington seemed delighted recalling that day in the studio. “It was perfect,” he said. “My guitar sound was hot, with the feedback. It was everything I wanted.”
Rossington takes part in a Lynyrd Skynyrd tradition, trading licks, with one of the current lineup’s other guitarists, Ricky Medlocke, who is the former frontman of Blackfoot and was the drummer for Skynyrd in their earlier days.
Photo by Steve Kalinsky
He also talked about the experience that inspired Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins to write the song. “I was out of control,” he said of hitting an oak tree and a house with his brand new Ford Torino while on a bender in 1976. “I did get in a car wreck, but we got a good song out of it.” Rossington was so wild that there were times when his bandmates, no slouches in indulgence themselves, were sure he’d kill himself.
“Eventually, I learned that drugs are just horrible for you,” Rossington observed, “but that’s the way it was in rock ’n’ roll in our time. I can’t do any of that stuff now. I’m not in such great health. I’ve had some heart problems, and I’m on the straight and narrow. It’s a lot better than being fucked up all the time, and I thank God I made it through those days.”
“We loved Cream and Clapton’s style, and all the guitar players with the British bands—Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and also Hendrix.”–Gary Rossington
Decades later, the plane crash still hung over Rossington’s conversations about Lynyrd Skynyrd like a specter. He rarely mentioned it directly, preferring to complete relevant sentences with terms like, “until, well, you know…” or simply pausing to skip a beat.
But the guitar hero was delighted to talk about his own guitar heroes, who profoundly influenced him and generations of players, just as Rossington would influence generations in his own lifetime. “We loved Cream and Clapton’s style, and all the guitar players with the British bands—Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and also Hendrix,” he recalled. “But mostly it was Clapton, because he was so good, and he played more of the kind of blues we were raised on. I grew up listening to him and hoping to be that good one day. Of course, I never made it, and I never got near Hendrix, either. I don’t know if anybody will ever be as good as Hendrix again.
“And Duane and Gregg were big deals to us. They inspired us before they were the Allman Brothers. We would go see all the bands they were in while we were growing up. The Allman Joys played a lot in town, at clubs and teenage dances. Duane and Gregg were already great even then, and you could see Duane get better on guitar every week or two. Plus, they were older than us doing exactly what we wanted to do— they were driving and smoking and had long hair and were out of school. They were as cool as sliced bread!”
His current Lynyrd Skynyrd bandmates offered this announcement of Rossington’s death, on social media. “It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter, and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today. Gary is now with his Skynyrd brothers and family in heaven and playing it pretty, like he always does.”
- How “Freebird” Taught Me Everything I Need to Know About Rock Guitar Soloing ›
- Rig Rundown: Lynyrd Skynyrd [2018] ›
- Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington: Simple Man, Big Tone ›
Keep the giveaways rolling! Enter Stompboxtober Day 22 for your chance to win a pedal from Walrus Audio!
Walrus Audio Lore Reverse Soundscape Generator
Create the soundtrack to your storybook adventure with the Lore Reverse Soundscape Generator. Made up of five different programs, the Lore is an ambient creation machine built around reverse delay and reverbs. Featuring two DSP chips running in series, each with their own analog feedback path, the Lore takes you on an adventurous journey rich with themes of reversing, time-stretching, pitch-shifting, and vast ambiance.
PRS announces two new limited-edition models in the CE Family: the PRS CE 24-08 Black Limba Limited Edition and the PRS CE 24-08 Swamp Ash Limited Edition.
An eye-catching feature of these limited-edition guitars is their body wood. The black limba body offers rich, natural color and powerful but warm voice, while the swamp ash model has more pronounced grain and is known for its balanced tonal spectrum, with bright, articulate highs and a warm, defined low end.
“Every once in a while, we choose woods from our stock to create special instruments, and these guitars are great examples of just that,” said Paul Reed Smith, Founder and Managing General Partner, PRS Guitars. “The CE has been with us since the very early days of PRS. I love celebrating this model with new woods and by adding the ‘08’ switching system to it for the first time. These are real players’ guitars.”
Both the PRS CE 24-08 Black Limba and Swamp Ash Limited Edition guitars come with a 24 fret, 25” scale length maple neck and rosewood fretboard. Both models also feature PRS 85/15 pickups – made by PRS in Stevensville, Maryland. These pickups deliver exceptional clarity with extended high and low end.
Paired with PRS's intuitive 24-08 switching system, these CE 24-08 models offer a wide array of tonal possibilities with eight different pickup configurations that effortlessly transition between humbucking tones to crisp single-coil sounds. This is the first instance of this switching system on PRS’s CE model platform. The PRS patented tremolo bridge adds even more versatility to the sound.
These PRS CE 24-08 Limited Edition instruments were designed with players in mind. For complete specifications, video, and more, please visit https://prsguitars.com/ and follow PRS Guitars @prsguitars on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok to stay in the conversation.
Joe Satriani’s G3 returns with Reunion Live, an album that sets out to capture the energy and essence of their sold-out 2024 US tour.
This reunion features guitar icons Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai—who first joined forces in 1996. The live album showcases the boundary-pushing performances that define G3. Fans will enjoy full sets from each guitarist, including hits like Satriani’s “Sahara,” Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover,” and Vai’s “For the Love of God,” along with a thrilling encore jam of Hendrix and Clapton covers.
In addition to the live experience, Reunion Live offers new live albums from each artist, plus a collaborative supergroup LP. Available in multiple formats, the deluxe edition features a different colored vinyl for each artist, a special splatter LP for the jam sessions, and a 64-page photo book, divided into separate artists and jam chapters, documenting this monumental event. It is also available in a 2CD set with a 16-page photo booklet. The album perfectly mirrors the live tour format, with individual sets followed by an epic jam session featuring all three guitarists.
Pre-order here.
Satriani says, “This live album recorded at The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles captures all the energy of the live performances while shining a spotlight on the ever-evolving art of playing the electric guitar.”
Tracklisting (all formats):
- Gravitas (Vai)
- Avalancha (Vai)
- Little Pretty Intro (Vai)
- Little Pretty (Vai)
- Tender Surrender (Vai)
- Zeus in Chains (Vai)
- Teeth of the Hydra (Vai)
- For the Love of God (Vai)
- Land of 1000 Dances (Johnson)
- Righteous (Johnson)
- Trail of Tears (Johnson)
- On-Ramp Improv (Johnson)
- Freeway Jam (Johnson)
- Desert Rose (Johnson)
- Venus Reprise (Johnson)
- Raspberry Jam Delta-V (Satriani)
- Surfing with the Alien (Satriani)
- Satch Boogie (Satriani)
- Sahara (Satriani)
- Nineteen Eighty (Satriani)
- Big Bad Moon (Satriani)
- Always with Me, Always with You (Satriani)
- Sumer Song (Satriani)
- Introductions
- Crossroads (Encore Jam)
- Spanish Castle Magic (Encore Jam)
- Born to Be Wild (Encore Jam)
Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, and Emmett Kelly formed a casual supergroup around their shared love of beat-up, lo-fi guitar sounds. They tell us how the band and their debut self-titled record came together in a dying Brooklyn studio.
Stephen Malkmus and Matt Sweeney go way back.
The two musicians and songwriters have been part of the same cohort since Malkmus’ band Pavement took off in the early 1990s. Pavement went the way of indie-rock royalty, defining an entire new generation of slightly left-of-center guitar music. Sweeney slugged it out for years inbands like Chavez and Zwan, that never reached those levels of influence. Still, he was an indispensable sideman and in-demand collaborator. But it wasn’t until just before the pandemic that the two friends recorded together, on Malkmus’ solo acoustic record, Traditional Techniques. It went well—really well.
So when Sweeney suggested they get together again, Malkmus was game. But this time, Sweeney invited some friends. He knew the guitarist Emmett Kelly from their time playing with Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and the two developed a bond over a mutual aesthetic sensibility on the guitar. And Kelly played in a duo called the Double with drummer Jim White, another serial collaborator best known for his instrumental Australian group Dirty Three. So, White and Kelly got invites. (It turned out that Malkmus was a fan of Kelly’s lo-fi weirdo-folk project Cairo Gang.)
The Hard Quartet - "Earth Hater" Official Music Video
They all met up at Strange Weather, a Brooklyn studio where Sweeney was working. The studio was on its deathbed: The buildings on either side of it had been demolished, and it was slated for the same fate to prep the way for a new condo build. The owner and house engineer, Daniel Schlett, was depressed. Sweeney figured some fun, no-stakes sessions—committed to the studio’s original vision of total artistic freakness—were called for. “The idea was like, ‘Let’s go and try recording, everybody bring songs and we’ll see what happens, and if it sucks, we don’t care because it’ll just be a nice thing to do in this beautiful studio that’s going away,’” he explains.
When the foursome initially met at Strange Weather in early summer 2023, there were no plans and no expectations. Over a year later, we have the Hard Quartet and their self-titled debut record, an epic, 15-song double LP that captures the spirit of adventure, imagination, and unedited, base instinct that unites the four musicians. When time came to pick a name for the project, Malkmus suggested they use the word “band” or “quartet.” “Matt was just immediately like, ‘Hard Quartet, because we’re hard as fuck,’” laughs Kelly.
“Finding phrases that make it sound not boring is the basic idea: simple things with twists.” —Stephen Malkmus
Sweeney’s boldness, in both the band name and in pulling all the players together, is perhaps the key to all of this. “Matt’s always confident, or at least he likes to pretend he is, in a good way,” says Malkmus. “He knows that’s how music should be sometimes. Most people that make music actually are confident or they wouldn’t do it. They like their own music and they’re confident it’s good, and then they have to kind of act. They’re also needful and worried that people won’t like it, and want people to like it but also think that it’s good.”
The Hard Quartet is heavily indebted to ’90s indie and alternative rock, but the 15-track double LP dips into Americana, country, and weirder territories, too.
Maybe Sweeney was being tongue-in-cheek, but more likely, it’s just the honesty of a group of musicians who can’t be bothered to affect an air of deep reasoning or artsy symbolism. Though, Hard Quartet isn’t terribly hard music. It moseys through different guitar-based genres, most of it fairly lo-fi and garage-ish. There’s plenty of Pavement-leaning indie-rock, charged with clever wordplay, edge-of-breakup chording, and general slacker charisma. There’s a certain Guided by Voices sensibility to it all, too; the feeling that guitar rock doesn’t need to be perfect or cohesive or together to be good.
Songs on Hard Quartet shamble along loosely between movements and moods, and often, they sort of dogleg and fall apart after wanky outros, just like the end of an in-person jam. Opener “Chrome Mess” is a thrashing, dark, noisy piece of indie-grunge, followed by the quirky, fuzzy alternative of lead single “Earth Hater” and its nursery-rhyme chorus. “Rio’s Song” is like a gentler, college-rock rendition of T. Rex, featuring Sweeney pulling off a Marc Bolan vocal character. Another Sweeney-led joint, “Killed by Death,” is driven by White’s snare-roll shuffle and plucky Americana guitars. The back-to-back of “Six Deaf Rats” into “Action for Military Boys,” both with Malkmus on lead vocals, pull the record into more borderless, atypical grounds. Hard Quartet feels deeply, profoundly artistic not in production or complexity, but via a feeling of total artistic freedom and intuition.
“It’s not magic, it’s actually just work and saying, ‘Do it again.’” —Stephen Malkmus
“When you’re doing a first thing, it’s not so bad to go simple,” says Malkmus. “Like, you know, to have these adherents of the Velvet Underground and the Stones. These songs are like, I wouldn’t say simple, they’re complexly simple to give us some credit.”
Malkmus has been watching a YouTuber who switches between two chords on piano while playing nearly limitless inversions of each chord. “He takes the mystery away from things that I do that I think are really clever or something,” he continues. “At any rate, that’s what we’re doing too. But pianos somehow have less magic because you can’t bend the notes too much. It’s all math, almost. Of course there’s feel and there’s going off the grid, but with the guitar sometimes it feels more magical. Those real simple little moves you make with the bending of the strings. It’s chops and it’s also ideas, creativity. Finding phrases that make it sound not boring is the basic idea: Simple things with twists.”
Stephen Malkmus's Gear
Stephen Malkmus, performing here with his band the Jicks in 2018, has known Matt Sweeney since the beginning of Pavement. After he invited Sweeney to play on his 2020 acoustic record, Sweeney had the idea to take things a step further.
Photo by Mike White
Guitars
- 1959 Fender Jazzmaster
- 1965 Höfner Verithin
- 1958 Martin 000-18 strung with flatwounds
- Vintage Gibson Firebird
- Vintage Guild S-100
Effects
- Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz
- Love Pedal High Power Tweed Twin
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
- Foxx Tone Machine
Malkmus likes to dig around for different voicings, but he prefers to do his digging by feel. “What you don’t know is a good thing,” he says. “Too much knowledge, I think it can hurt you at that early time instead of just being sort of primitive.”
The four members of Hard Quartet share a “musical language,” according to Malkmus, which made it easy to create without much structure to their initial sessions at Strange Weather. “I don’t think any of us wanted to spend the whole time saying, ‘It goes like this,’” says Malkmus. “We just kind of wanted to start messing around, having fun.”
“There’s a throughline in everything I like, that is this aspect of harshness, or bloodiness. Things need to be bloody for me to like them.” —Emmett Kelly
Part of the three guitarists’ shared language on the instrument is a passion for wonky sounds. Kelly explains the aesthetic in-depth: “We really connect on things sounding like shit, kind of. I love the sound of the guitar when it sounds like it’s about to die or it’s broken. We love this music that’s like fucked up and damaged, like the rawest, most screwed-up thing. There’s a throughline in everything I like, that is this aspect of harshness, or bloodiness. Things need to be bloody for me to like them. We just want to sound fucked up and terrible, but it’s gotta sound really good, you know what I mean? You pass through this pain threshold, and that’s when you start to hear all these beautiful, weird harmonic things, especially with a damaged amp or a really insane overdrive or fuzz. You just start to hear aspects of harmonic series come shooting out in really interesting ways. Sometimes you’ll hear phantom notes, things that ring-modulate the sound a little bit.” One time in a studio, Kelly’s friend pointed out a pedal that he said was the least useful pedal of all time. “I immediately went home and bought one,” says Kelly. “I mean, none of this shit’s useful. Should we be plumbers?”
Matt Sweeney's Gear
Matt Sweeney and Emmett Kelly became close friends while on tour with Will Oldham. Here, they flank Oldham on a tour supporting 2022’s Superwolves.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
Guitars
- 1958 Martin 000-18, strung with flatwounds
- Vintage Fender Esquire
- Vintage Gibson ES-335TD
- 1970 Martin dreadnought acoustic
Amps
- Austen Hooks Bell and Howell Filmosound amp
Effects
- Blackstrap Electrik Co. fuzz pedal
Hard Quartet’s debut record is also shaped by the fact that none of the players brought their own gear to the studio; Malkmus, Kelly, and Sweeney all opted to use whatever guitars, amps, and pedals were kicking around at Strange Weather, and later at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu, where Sweeney secured the group a few days of extra sessions. A late-’50s Fender Jazzmaster, ’60s Gibson Explorer, vintage Höfner Verithin, 1958 Martin 000-18, Squier Bass VI, and purple Guild S-100 were among the tools used to create Hard Quartet. Malkmus says he didn’t even want to bring his own guitars. “I like to use new shit all the time,” he says. “It’s just fun to hear the little tonal differences. I don’t really have a sound. I just want to try new things and I’m not afraid to do that. And we all know it’s in your hands.”
“I don’t even feel like it’s a guitar record, but obviously that’s all we fucking know how to play.” —Matt Sweeney
“I’ve gone through the whole gamut of identity crises with guitar and I’ve gotten to a point where I really just want something that won’t break if I check it on an airplane,” Kelly says. His main guitar is a 1988 Japan-made Fender Stratocaster, with the middle pickup removed and a TBX circuit instead of the traditional tone control. Kelly is skeptical of too much attention put on gear. “There’s a lot of artifice in music and gear and it all seems to be related to this whole kind of like, rehashing, redoing; sort of like the AI conversation,” he says. “It’s like, just play fucking music. It doesn’t matter.”
The three guitarists often played through one of Sweeney’s amps, built by amp tech Austen Hooks and housed inside an old Bell and Howell Filmosound projector. But it was mostly a matter of convenience—the amp was simply ready at hand. “I think me and Steve are similar in that when you’re making the thing, you’re not thinking about the gear,” says Sweeney. “You’re grateful that there’s stuff there that you can pick up and play.”
Emmett Kelly's Gear
Hard Quartet (from left: Kelly, Sweeney, Malkmus, and White) bonded over an affinity for deliciously crappy guitar tones. Their debut record is a treasure trove of lo-fi 6-string sounds.
Photo by Atiba Jefferson
Guitars and Basses
- 1988 Japan-made Fender Stratocaster with middle pickup removed and TBX tone circuit
- 1994 Fender Jerry Donahue Signature Telecaster
- 2005 Martin 00-28
- 1959 Les Paul Jr. Double Cut
- 1957 Fender Esquire
- Squire Bass VI with Lollar overwound pickups
Amps
- Fender ’68 Custom Deluxe Reverb with added master volume
- Peavey Roadmaster with 2x12 cabinet
- 1950s Supro
- Ampeg B12XT
Effects
- Crowther Double Hotcake
- Crowther Prunes & Custard
- Death By Audio Octave Clang
- Fredric Effects Verzerrer
Strings & Picks
- La Bella Pure Vintage (.011–0.50)
- La Bella Silk & Steel
- La Bella Bass VI Stainless Flats
Given the players’ combined ethos, it’s not really a surprise to learn that they rarely, if ever, discussed who would play what instrument on any given song. Leads were improvised and swapped at random, and the bass guitar was passed around from song to song. Some songs and parts would come together quickly; others required massaging. Having to plug away at something doesn’t make it any less valuable than an instant hit, says Malkmus. “It’s not magic,” he says. “It’s actually just work and saying, ‘Do it again.’”
The equal-footing, collaborative nature of the Hard Quartet has been a bright spot for Kelly, who was getting burnt out on the emotional anxiety and tension of being a bandleader. With Malkmus, Sweeney, and White, there are combined decades of camaraderie that equate to an open, trusting ease. “It’s probably safe to say that the Hard Quartet is about the continual relationship between each two people,” says Kelly. “Everyone had a strong connection with each other in some way so that new relationships could then develop.”
In the end, Sweeney’s little jam experiment has paid off. “I’m happy with what we did on it guitar-wise, and that’s because we played together,” says Sweeney. “I don’t even feel like it’s a guitar record, but obviously that’s all we fucking know how to play.”
YouTube It
The Hard Quartet have a ’90s-style, apartment-stoop jam in this video for the Sweeney-fronted, alt-rock-meets-alt-country tune, “Rio’s Song.”