Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars: The Fast Life and Sudden Death of Lynyrd Skynyrd

by Mark Ribowsky

Overview

This intimate story of Lynyrd Skynyrd tells of how a band of lost souls and self-destructive misfits with uncertain artistic objectives clawed their way to the top of the rock 'n’ roll world. Based on interviews with surviving band members, Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars shares how lead singer and front man Ronnie Van Zant guided the band’s hugely successful five-year run and, in the process, created not only a new country rock idiom, but a new Confederacy in constant conflict with old Southern totems and prejudices. Placing the music and personae of Skynyrd into a broad cultural context, this book gives a new perspective to a history of stage fights, motel-room destructions, cunning business deals, and brilliant studio productions. It also offers a greater appreciation for a band whose legacy, in the aftermath of their last plane ride, has since descended into self-caricature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613738771
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/01/2018
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Mark Ribowsky has written 12 books, including widely praised biographies of James Taylor, Tom Landry, Howard Cosell, Phil Spector, and Satchel Paige. He has also contributed extensively to magazines including Playboy, Penthouse, and High Times. He lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

1 Lords and Masters 1

2 A Different Light 17

3 Need All My Friends 29

4 "They Sound Too Much Like the Allman Brothers" 43

5 Down South Jukin' 61

6 Enter Roosevelt Gook 79

7 "Chicken-Skin Music in the Raw" 93

8 We All Did What We Could Do 107

9 You Don't Get Nothin' 125

10 Torture Tour 125

11 "We Done Things Only Fools's Do" 147

12 100 Proof Blues 157

13 Soundman God 165

14 Better Get Outta My Way 175

15 T-R-O-U-B-L-E 185

16 Look What's Going On Inside You 195

17 Striking Fire and Drawing Blood 207

18 "Plane Crash!"219

Epilogue: A Sort of Hereditary Obligation 229

Postscript 253

Bibliography 255

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

"An excellent look at a band whose creative evolution was tragically cut short.” —Booklist


“Mark Ribowsky has written one king hell of a book about one king hell of a band. Buy that man a drink!”—Mick Wall, author of When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin


"Ribowsky presents a comprehensive, immensely readable tale of a band whose history had not been chronicled in this manner before." —Under the Radar

From the Publisher

2015-01-19
Straightforward biography of the Southern rock band.Though staples such as "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird" have kept Lynyrd Skynyrd's brand alive through recordings and reunion tours for almost three decades, Ribowsky (The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry, 2013, etc.) makes a convincing case that the band died with the plane crash that took frontman Ronnie Van Zant and other passengers. However, the author overstates most of what he claims for Van Zant and the hard-drinking, rabble-rousing band, who "unwittingly but inexorably…found a place among the artistic giants of the American South, their thematic content deceptively simple but as soul deep as any Faulkner novel or Tennessee Williams play." Of Southern rock in general, Ribowsky asserts that the "songwriters had become the modern southern literati, and in their pens lay the definitions of a new reconstruction of the South and southern manhood." Perhaps such writing is an attempt to compensate for lack of access and primary sources, as most of the quotes are from other books and articles, while those few who agreed to talk to the author—former manager Alan Walden, booking agent Alex Hodges and guitarist Ed King—come across much better than the many who didn't (Van Zant's widow, the remaining, surviving band members, original producer Al Kooper). Ultimately, it's surprising that the band lasted as long as it did, even before the tragic crash, for the musicians seemed bent on destruction, fighting and drinking and drugging beyond any bounds of self-restraint. Praised for the sensitivity of his songwriting, Van Zant would throw punches without provocation (beating at least one woman in these pages) and once tried to toss a roadie from a plane—at 30,000 feet. Serviceable but often floridly overwritten. Though Ribowsky accuses the band's current incarnation and those who market the legacy of "mercenary profit motive," the same charge could be leveled at the book.

Kirkus Review