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Last founding member of Jacksonville’s own Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd dies

The band announced Gary Rossington died Saturday

FILE - Gary Rossington from the band Lynyrd Skynyrd answers questions as Ed King looks on, backstage after being inducted at the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinner in New York, Monday, March 13, 2006. Rossington, Lynyrd Skynyrds last surviving original member who also helped to found the group, died Sunday, March 5, 2023, at the age of 71. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, File) (Stuart Ramson, Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The last founder of the Jacksonville-based rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has died, according to a statement put out by the band’s official Facebook account.

Gary Rossington, 71, who is known as a songwriter and guitarist, died on Sunday.

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The band wrote the following his death:

“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. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time.”

RELATED: Jacksonville’s historic role in the founding of Southern rock

FILE - Gary Rossington of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd performs on Day 1 of the 2015 Big Barrel Country Music Festival at The Woodlands on Friday, June 26, 2015, in Dover, Del. Rossington, Lynyrd Skynyrds last surviving original member who also helped to found the group, died Sunday, March 5, 2023, at the age of 71. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)

Rossington was one of the surviving members of the 1977 plane crash in Mississippi that killed six people including three of the band’s members.

News4JAX anchor Tom Wills, who traveled to Mississippi to cover the crash, also interviewed Rossington at the Amphitheater in St. Augustine in 2017, where they discussed the horrors of Rossington’s experience in the crash.

The Jacksonville-based band that named itself as a mocking tribute to Robert E. Lee High School, which was recently renamed Riverside High School, physical education teacher Leonard Skinner, who hassled Rossington about his long hair, is widely credited as the first band to bring Southern rock music to an international audience.

Rossington’s cause of death is unclear at this time.

Watch Tom’s extended interview below:


About the Author
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Proud alumnus of Bethune-Cookman University.

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