![]() ![]() The day before the crash, Hawkins and back-up singer Cassie Gaines wanted to take a commercial flight to Baton Rogue, but Van Zant nixed the idea.Īfter a show in South Carolina, the band decided to fly to Baton Rogue and spend the day off there. Hawkins recalls a time she brought one of her children on the plane with her, but thought better and sent him home by car before the plane left. The plane got to its destination, but worries about using it for future trips remained. The pilot refused to turn the plane around, despite Odom’s protestations. A fire broke on the plane’s right side several days before the crash. While the band made progress with their sobriety, unresolved problems with their Conair CV-240 aircraft caused ongoing problems. The band was thrilled when they played a show sober in front of 93,000 people in Anaheim. (Professional drug and alcohol rehab for rock stars hadn’t gained traction yet.) Keeping the band away from alcohol turned out to be easy, but getting rid of the drugs was a challenge. Van Zant hired his childhood friend Odom as a bodyguard and a hands-on drug/alcohol counselor. She was a mother of two trying to live a sane life on the road away from her family. Reed notes, “You’d get attempted murder these days for that stuff.” Hawkins had quite a different story. Band members would do things like throw a plugged in TV into the hotel swimming pool. Luxury hotels all over the world threw the band out for bad behavior. Reed, who was plucked up from a civilian life to go on the road with the band, lived a crazy rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and women. There’s some grainy archival footage and the usual re-enactments with look-alikes. The information is based on interview with Odom, the band’s guitar tech Craig Reed, and back-up singer Leslie Hawkins. The documentary is based on the 1983 book written by Ronnie Van Zant’s fishing buddy/bodyguard, Gene Odom. However, there’s a bit of background given on the band’s shenanigans, their management’s screw-ups, and the decisions that lead to the crash. I’ll Never Forget You deals with the last three days of the original band’s existence. It was narrated by Gary Rossington, the last surviving member of the original lineup, and had lots of archival footage of the band. ![]() The 2018 documentary, If I Leave Here Tomorrow ,covered the entire history of the band in depth. I’ll Never Forget You: The Last 72 Hours Of Lynyrd Skynyrd is the second recent documentary about Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd and the plane crash that claimed the lives of singer Ronnie Vant Zant and five other members of the band and the crew in 1977. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |