How Gary Rossington Masterminded The Iconic Free Bird Solo

May 2024 · 1 minute read

Gary Rossington, born on December 4, 1951, met his future bandmate Ronnie Van Zant in the mid-1960s when the two teenagers were both playing baseball for local teams in Jacksonville, Florida. By the time Rossington met Van Zant, he'd scraped together enough money to put a down payment on a Sears' brand Silvertone guitar, but feeling the guitar lacked the proper rock 'n' roll sound, he suggested his friend Allen Collins join them as the second guitarist in the band they were forming. Collins agreed and, along with Bob Burns on drums and Larry Junstrom on bass (he left the band in 1971), Lynyrd Skynyrd — after various name changes — was born.

In 1970, after Van Zant suggested adding a guitar solo at the end of "Free Bird," Rossington, who'd just learned to play slide guitar, began working something up, but his slide kept clinking against the frets since the strings were too close to the fretboard. He needed to improvise.

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