Street Survivors

The Freebirds shock the PowerSleds

BLACK CREEK - Street Survivors was the fifth studio album by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on October 17, 1977. The LP is the last Skynyrd album recorded by the original members including Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, and it is the sole Skynyrd studio recording with guitarist Steve Gaines. Three days after the album's release, the band's chartered airplane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, LA killing three band members Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. Everyone who survived the crash was severly injured. Street Survivors was an instant success, achieving gold certification just 10 days after its release. It would later go double platinum. Like many at Gardendale High School in the 10th grade, we had the 8-track with the flames on the cover before the crash. The album performed well on the charts, peaking at #5 (the band's highest-charting album), as did the singles "What's Your Name" and "That Smell," the former a top-20 hit on the singles chart. The original Street Survivors was recorded at Studio One in Doraville, GA with uncredited co-producers Kevin Elson and Rodney Mills. Street Survivors was a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier on the recommendation of his sister Cassie. Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day". Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the guitar boogie "I Know A Little," which Gaines had written before he joined Skynyrd. The album also included the hit single "What's Your Name?" and the ominous "That Smell". On October 20, 1977, only three days after the release of Street Survivors and just five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair CV-300 ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from Greenville, SC to Baton Rouge. Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Following the crash Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album and reached #5 on the U.S. album chart. The single "What's Your Name?" reached #13 on the single airplay charts in January 1978. The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band standing on a city street with all its buildings engulfed in flames, some near the center nearly obscuring Steve Gaines's face. After the plane crash, this cover became highly controversial. Out of respect for the deceased and at the request of the family, MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background, which was on the back cover of the original sleeve. For Ronnie Van Zant, life and mortality were the same thing, there was no way to embrace one without at least keeping company with the other. In Week 9 of the 30th season of the BDFL, the Black Creek Freebirds shocked the Fairfield PowerSleds (33-30) and survived to fight for another day towards the Big Daddy Championship Series and a shot at the 2024 BDFL Championship Title.

That Smell by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)