JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The last founder of the Jacksonville-based rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died Sunday, according to a statement put out by the band’s official Facebook account.
Songwriter and guitarist Gary Rossington was 71.
The band did not say how Rossington died but he suffered from a number of heart problems over the years.
“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,” the band wrote on its Facebook page.
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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.
The tributes to Rossington’s life came pouring in this following his death.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield said, “RIP Brother Gary. Thank you for bringing me so much joy with your guitar playing and songwriting in one of my all time favorite bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
“The last of the Free Birds has flown home. RIP Gary Rossington, God Bless the Lynyrd @Skynyrd band. Prayers to Dale and the rest of his family,” musician Charlie Daniels wrote.
Country musician Travis Tritt wrote, “I’m heartbroken! Gary was not only a friend, but a collaborator that wrote songs with me and played guitar with me in studio recordings and onstage so many times.”
According to Rolling Stone, during a Little League game, Ronnie Van Zant hit a line drive into the shoulder blades of opposing player Bob Burns.
That’s how the crew met and eventually, Rossington, Burns, Van Zant, and guitarist Allen Collins gathered that afternoon at Burns’ Jacksonville home to play music together.
Rossington once told “Rolling Stone” that he never considered Skynyrd to be a tragic band, despite all the band’s drama and death.
“I don’t think of it as tragedy — I think of it as life,” he said upon the group’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2006. “I think the good outweighs the bad.”