I started college in the mid-70’s by packing a few t-shirts and my vinyl collection and heading off to West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. That was in the fall of 1975. Even though it is farther north than (arguably) the southern ¼ of my home state of NJ, most consider it be a southern school (I’ll return to this point in a moment). If I had the chance to do it all over, I wouldn’t change a thing – I had a great time in Morgantown and at WVU.
For one, and from an academic perspective, I got a darn good preparation for classroom teaching in elementary education and special education, the latter being the one I acted upon during my career. There were clinical aspects of my program’s curriculum in the 1970’s that were adopted by the Pennsylvania Department of Education in the late 2000’s and others that higher education colleagues at my last institution talked about adopting as innovative ideas in educator preparation in the late 2010’s…
Plus, I had a lot of laughs and a lot of great times. I’ll leave it to you to imagine in what ways those “recreational” times unfolded…
But this post is about a specific genre of music from that era. And now that I think about it, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether some thought of WVU as a southern school because back then Southern Rock was pretty ubiquitous, in the south and the north. In the 70’s, groups like Allman Brothers, Outlaws, Molly Hatchet, Marshall Tucker Band, Poco, Pure Prairie League, and Charlie Daniels (among others) got a lot of airtime on the radio, as well as turntable time in my apartment and those of my friends. To this day, when I hear songs from these bands, I am transported back in time to familiar locations and to comfortable and comforting memories.
Lynyrd Skynyrd was another band my friends and I listened to a lot. Their 1977 album Street Survivors had only been out for three days when the band’s plane crashed in South Carolina killing several members of the band including the lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant. That was in the fall of my Jr. year at WVU and I remember hearing the news of the crash while grabbing a bite to eat at the High Street Canteen. That event cemented the band’s cult status in a most unfortunate way. Today, when I am carried back by their music, the crash and what that meant to those of us who loved listening to that music invades those memories with a sense of sadness that is different from other moments of musical nostalgia.
So, although this is not a new release, this 2015 live recording from Lynyrd Skynyrd, One More for the Fans, has really hit the mark for me over the past few weeks. It features a raft of guest artists covering the Lynyrd Skynyrd songbook. It also features the current iteration of Lynyrd Skynyrd doing some of their biggest hits (like Free Bird). Despite the fact that Free Bird is their magnum opus, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song I always liked best was That Smell. On this release it is covered by Warren Haynes. To near perfection.
Oh, and the most surprising thing? Don’t Ask Me No Questions being covered by
O.A.R. I doubt any of those lads were even alive on that fateful day in October 1977 and the O.A.R. songbook is hardly what one would call Southern Rock. I guess they just know good music when they hear it. Good on you, lads.
