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Three musicians from the long-lasting American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, plus three different individuals, have been killed in a terrifying plane crash on the Louisiana-Mississippi border on this day in historical past, Oct. 20, 1977.
Lead singer and founder Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines, have been all killed on influence.
The crash of the small Convair CV-240 passenger plane additionally claimed the lives of assistant street supervisor Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray.
Twenty individuals survived.
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“The crash took away one of the great American musicians,” Gene Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s safety supervisor, and one of many survivors of the crash, beforehand instructed Fox News Digital.
“It took from me a lifelong dear friend and fishing buddy.”
Odom grew up with Van Zant and different founding members of the band in Jacksonville, Florida.
This Oct. 20, 1977, file picture exhibits the wreckage of a plane in a wooded space close to McComb, Mississippi, the place six individuals have been killed, together with three members of the music group Lynyrd Skynyrd. (AP Photo, File)
The plane ran out of gasoline at about 10,000 ft and crashed violently right into a wooded space.
Odom helped lead a vigil to Van Zant and the opposite victims final night time close to the city of Gillsburg, Mississippi. A memorial was erected close to the location of the crash in 2019.
Odom was thrown from the plane and located by rescuers a while later below one of many wings, with horrible accidents.
He suffered a “massive hole in the head from flying through the fuselage, a broken neck, broken ribs and 45 years of pain,” he stated.
It was solely after Odom acquired out of the hospital that he discovered Van Zant and the others have been useless.
Photo of Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines and founder and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Both have been killed when the band’s plane crashed on Oct. 20, 1977. (Ed Perlstein/Redferns)
“The only reason so many survived is that there was no fuel left on the plane. So there was no fire,” stated Odom.
Guitarist Gaines, he stated, had simply joined the band a 12 months earlier, on the behest of his sister Cassie, the singer who was additionally killed in the crash.
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“He was going to be a star, a rose that never got to bloom,” stated Odom.
Lynyrd Skynyrd stays one of many greatest acts in music historical past and is arguably the highest American rock band of all time.
The band has toured for many years with Johnny Van Zant, the founder’s youthful brother, on lead vocals. They largely play songs written and first carried out by Ronnie Van Zant a half-century in the past — a testomony to his enduring legacy in rock historical past.
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“Sweet Home Alabama,” one of many band’s signature songs, an ode to “the Southland,” boasts practically 1 billion performs on Spotify, practically 50 years after it was recorded in 1974.
The band’s signature tune, “Free Bird,” from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s debut 1973 album, is a rock epic. The tune’s influence has expanded past music and embedded itself in wider popular culture.
Singer-frontman Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd is proven performing on the Omni Coliseum on July 5, 1975, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Tom Hill/WireImage)
It was heard in the film “Forrest Gump” whereas a video of the band performing the tune in Oakland in July 1977 has generated tens of hundreds of thousands of performs on YouTube.
“This definitive Southern-rock guitar epic had a humble birth, with late Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant scribbling lyrics about keeping love alive on tour,” based on an article in Rolling Stone about “Free Bird.” The publication included the tune on its 2021 listing of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The band’s plane was flying to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from Greenville, South Carolina, the place Van Zant closed the present with “Free Bird.”
He by no means carried out once more.
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“Old Lynyrd Skynyrd still sells a couple million albums a year,” stated Odom.
“Elvis, The Beatles and Lynyrd Skynyrd. How ’bout that for my old fishing buddy?”
For extra Lifestyle articles, go to www.foxnews.com/way of life.
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