Lynyrd and Me: A U.S. Veterans Retrospective

In 1969, I was discharged from the Navy after spending a year and a half hospitalized from severe wounds I received in Vietnam. I was only 21 years old and medically retired from the U.S. Navy. My wounds were so bad that I was not really expected to accomplish much in my life.

Within a very short period of time I made friends with the club manager, Jimmy Provost, and the house band, ‘Sunshine’ (aka: Kijafa). Before long, I was doing odd and end jobs around the club for a few bucks a week and all the live music and dancing I could ever wish for. I became good friends with the bottle club band; Guitarist, Charles ‘Smitty’ Smith, Bass guitarist, Carl Crawford, and drummer, Donnie Sharbino. I started doing special lighting for the band and running their sound board. I was damn near living at the Comic Book Club, putting in many hours designing and building new effects and lighting for the group, while simultaneously doing jobs around the club for Jimmy Provost.

During this period of time I also made friends with the band that played the teen club. Ronnie VanZant, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, Larry Junstrom, and Bob Burns were the members of a rock band called ‘The 1%’. They were extremely popular with the young crowd in the Jacksonville area.  

Ronnie and I were about the same age, but the other members of The 1% were a few years younger and still in high school. Allen, Gary, and Bob went to Robert E, Lee High School on the west side of Jacksonville. I don’t remember if Larry Junstrom was in school or not. I seem to remember he was a little older. Larry and I didn’t talk much. I was closer to Ronnie, Allen, Gary, and Bob.

Since we all worked at The Comic Book Club, we spent a lot of time in each other’s company and we all became good friends – and we often partied together. On many occasions, when Ronnie wasn’t around, Gary and Allen would come to me and talk me into buying them some booze. Somehow, we managed to keep that secret from Ronnie for months before he found out it was me that was getting them liquor. That led to a brief confrontation between me and Ronnie. I remember Ronnie reading me the riot act and I promised him I would never buy them booze again. Ronnie was not a very large individual, in fact I was a couple of inches taller than he was. But, he was raised on the rough side of Jacksonville with a bad-ass reputation, and I didn’t dare cross him. I wasn’t necessarily scared of him, but Ronnie’s presents had a way of demanding respect, and I saw no reason to test him or his resolve. You had to know Ronnie to know what I’m talking about. Besides, I wasn’t in any physical condition to be fighting any one.  After that encounter, Ronnie and I became even better friends. We had an ‘understanding’.

The Comic Book Club got the reputation of the place to go for great music and impromptu jam sessions. Bands from all over North Florida and South Georgia would show up at the Comic Book on the weekends. And local bands would drop by after the bars they played at closed. Therefore, there was never a shortage of musicians wanting to sit in and jam. During the two years that I worked there I heard some of the greatest music anyone could possibly imagine. Sometimes, after a concert had taken place at the Jacksonville Coliseum, well-known groups and musicians would come in and jam until dawn. This included band members from Three Dog Night, Allman Joy (Allman Brothers), Wayne Cochrane and the CC Riders, Joe Savage, and Led Zeppelin, just to name a few.

Jimmy Provost was the manager of the Comic Book Club, but the club was owned by a guy named Art Isner (spelling might be incorrect). Isner owned several topless bars in the Jax downtown area. Jimmy was a very large man weighing around 400 pounds. He was a French Canadian with a thick French accent. It was no secret that Provost had ties with organized crime both in Canada and Florida. During a brief time in early 1970, Jimmy Provost acted as booking agent for Ronnie and the 1% band. Provost would line up gigs for the band and they would go play other small clubs in the Jacksonville area. On several occasions I was given the task of going to these local clubs (like the Little Brown Jug) and collect the band’s money. Provost would take his cut and give Ronnie the rest. This arrangement only lasted a few months.

There are virtually no photographs of the inside of the original Comic Book Club. There was a very good reason for this. Jimmy Provost prohibited anyone from taking pictures in the club. His reasoning was simple. Among average Joes that went to the Comic Book – there were also drug dealers, pimps, bookies, prostitutes, pool hustlers and ex-cons. The Comic Book was a very rough place at times, and these people did not want their picture taken. This is the reasons that very few pictures (if any) of Ronnie and the band inside the Comic Book Club exist.    

Some times, Jimmy would have some gangster friends drop by from out of town and he would close the club down to everyone but him, his friends, selected girls, and me and the band. Jimmy would put a sign on the door ‘Closed For Inventory’. He would make jokes about counting the ice cubes and cups. The Comic Book became a private party place for Jimmy and his friends. I won’t go into details, but whatever Jimmy’s friends wanted, Jimmy provided, money was no object.  Jimmy had ‘connections’ on the JPD as well. So, no one ever interrupted one of Jimmy’s private parties.  

One local band the frequented the Comic Book was ‘The King James Version’, a three piece rock group. The bass player for the group was a guy named Leon Wilkerson. Leon’s nickname was ‘Thumper’, from Thumper the fictional rabbit character from Disney’s animated movie Bambi. He got that nickname for the way he played bass.   

Around the end of 1970, the teen club band, Ronnie and ‘The 1%’, were starting to get the attention of promoters in the Jacksonville area. One afternoon while ‘Sunshine’ was practicing at the club, Allen and Gary dropped by and asked our collective opinion of a new name they were considering, ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd’. As much as I hate to admit it now, we all thought it was a dumb name. Little did we know how wrong we were.

When I wasn’t at the club, or hanging out with Smitty, Carl, and Donnie, I spent a lot of time at a small recording studio off of Philips Highway. The studio was called ‘Counter-Point’, and was owned and operated by a good friend of mine, Wally Eaton. Wally was the original bass player for ‘Dennis Yost and the Classic Four’. Wally had been in an auto accident which caused him to quit the band, but not before he had acquired four gold records for; ‘Spooky’, ‘Stormy’, ‘Traces’, and ‘Every Day with You Girl’.  Wally was trying to get back into the music business by opening up his own multi-track studio. One very attractive girl that worked as a session backup singer for Wally was Leslie Hawkins. Leslie wasn’t with any one particular band at that time, but she had a very good voice and hung out at Counter Point picking up a few bucks and experience singing backup on whatever project Wally would be working on. Leslie would later join the Skynyrd group as a backup singer. I used the time I spent at Counter Point to learn everything I could from Wally about multi-track recording.

I don’t remember the exact date, but one night at the Comic Book things got really hot. Without notice Leon Wilkerson quit ‘The King James Version’ and joined the newly formed ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd’ band. All of a sudden Larry Junstrom found himself without a job, and lead guitarist for the King James Version (Bill something) found himself without a bass player. Bill was furious! In one brief moment the King James Version went from a working three piece band to a two piece out of work band. After Bill shoved his guitar through the front of his Marshal amp, he stormed out of the club looking for Ronnie. Fortunately for Bill, he never found Ronnie that night. Ronnie was no wussy and would have taken Bill apart in a Westside second. I personally witnessed Ronnie knock a guy out cold in the parking lot of the R&R Bar for talking trash about Ronnie’s girl friend. The R&R was another popular Jax night spot on Main Street. The loud mouth never knew what hit him.  

Some time later, while hanging out at Counter Point, Wally received a call from a sound engineer from another recording studio in Jacksonville. After Wally got off the phone he asked me if I wanted to go with him to hear Lynyrd Skynyrd’s new demo over at ‘Shade Tree’ studio just off Beach Boulevard. When we got there we listened to the very first demo of Free Bird ever recorded and another song I don’t remember the name of…. (might have been "Need all my Friends"). I had heard Ronnie and the band do Free Bird many times at the Comic Book. In fact, I heard Free Bird before it even had words. But this new version was very different. When they played Free Bird at the teen club it was a slow song from start to ending. This demo of the very same song started out just like I remembered it, but half way through the song it went into a driving double-time jam all the way out. What an improvement! Quite frankly, as much as I hate to admit it, I always thought their original version of Free Bird was somewhat boring. But this new version changed the entire feel of the song and my opinion. It was definitely a attention getter. Little did I know at the time I was listening to Rock and Roll history in the making.  

For the next few weeks it was obvious that the boys of Lynyrd Skynyrd had found backing for their blossoming career. On several occasions I was approached by Ronnie, Gary, and Allen to join the group as their roadie. I turned down the offer each time and continued to work for three more years with Sunshine. I heard later that Billy Powel was hired in my place as roadie. Billy would later become the group’s keyboard player. Larry Junstrom found a new home playing bass with Ronnie VanZant’s brother Donnie and his band, ‘38 Special.’

By mid-1972, Sunshine and me had moved to Atlanta and were playing at a popular club in Underground Atlanta, ‘the Palace’. The last time I saw the Skynyrd band together was on December 4, 1972. They were playing at a popular Atlanta music hall called, Funocchio’s. It just happened to be Gary’s birthday and he invited me, Smitty, Donnie, and Carl to party with the band after the gig. They were staying at a mission-style apartment complex in Buckhead. I don’t even remember how we got home that night. But, I do know we had a ball! No one partied harder than the Skynyrd boys! Their partying would become legendary over the years, and for good reason. A Lynyrd Skynyrd party usually ended up with a large bill for damages

In 1973, Smitty was murdered in Atlanta. The band ‘Sunshine’ was no more. I don’t know what happened to Donnie Sharbino or Carl Crawford.

Gary Rossington, Bob Burns, Larry Junstrom are the only three surviving members of the original ‘1% band’. Ronnie was killed in the 1977 plane crash and Allen died in 1990 from complications connected to being paralyzed in a 1986 car crash. I ran into Bob in 2003 in Atlanta. But, I have lost track of him now.

Looking back on it now, I can draw some conclusions and observations. Ronnie VanZant was a very unique individual. Ronnie was a very talented poet and writer who drew on his observations of the street and experiences in everyday life to create one-of-a-kind lyrics. Ronnie never claimed to be a front man or entertainer, and he never pretended to be a great singer. He would be the first to admit this fact. His gift was a pure and profound earthy southern writing style which resonated from the bare soles of his feet as he stood center stage. Ronnie wrote about life and death. He painted vivid portraits of life with his lyrics, and he touched people with his raw sincerity and honesty in every song. Even his humorous songs had a gritty reality to them, like ‘Give Me Three Steps’.

I can’t remember ever seeing Ronnie writing anything down. I’m certain he probably did at some point, but I don’t remember that. I can only remember him with both hands draped over the microphone, his head down, standing as if the microphone and stand were apart of his very being. Trying different phrases and wording until he found something he liked. Once he locked in to something, it became stone and he moved on to the next phrase. I spent many hours at the Comic Book listening to Skynyrd practice and arrange their material. At the time, I had no idea how special that opportunity was. They were just a band, and I was just a guy that worked at the club.

Ronnie ruled as leader of the Skynyrd band. Whatever Ronnie said was law, and no one dared challenge him. Ronnie demanded loyalty and commitment from Allen, Gary, and Bob. And they all fed off Ronnie’s passionate drive for perfection. It was all for one, and one for all. In my opinion, that was the real key to their success.  Sure, they had their fights and arguments. And sometimes a busted lip or bloody nose was incurred. But in some strange way these spats only made them tighter as a group. Ronnie always won, no one was ever seriously injured, and all was forgiven in a very short period of time.

When Skynyrd played a song, it was performed in total unity, as if one person were producing all of the individual parts simultaneously. Each note played to complement the next. Allen and Gary would spend countless hours, day after day honing their guitar skills. Eating and sleeping came second to their quest for musical perfection. They fed off of one another and challenged each other to create sounds and playing techniques that were totally original and unique. Nine times out of ten, if you saw Allen, Gary was with him. They went everywhere together.

Bob Burns was born to play drums. His high-strung personality and hair-trigger attitude added a edgy driving force to the group and their music. Bob had a rough childhood and abusive father. Beating the hell out of the drums was a way for Bob to release his build-up inner anger and pain. I’m not telling you anything Bob wouldn’t tell you himself. Bob was always on the edge, and eventually he would quit the group because of emotional instability. That fact does nothing to dampen or taint his contributions to the band and Rock & Roll history.

After the 1977 plane crash, surviving members struggled with what to do next. Allen, Gary, Leon and Billy started their own group, the Rossington Collins Band. They cut two albums that were moderately successful and received high reviews. However, in 1986 tragedy struck yet again. Allen was involved in a car crash which paralyzed him and killed his girlfriend.

From what I have heard, after months of soul searching, and at the request of family and friends, Gary Rossington, Billy Powell and Leon Wilkerson agreed to revive the Lynyrd Skynyrd band in the form of a tribute group. Ronnie’s younger brother, Johnny VanZant took his brother’s place as front man and lead singer for the Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute band. In 2001, death visited the group yet once more. Leon Wilkerson died from liver failure. The current Tribute band continues to tour today playing to sold out venues and playing all of Skynyrd’s hits. However, the song Free Bird is now performed as a instrumental without vocal in honor of Ronnie VanZant.