Happy 45th Anniversary to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s third studio album Nuthin’ Fancy, originally released March 24, 1975.
The best things in life never come easy. At least that’s what Thomas Delmer “Artimus” Pyle was telling himself as he was making his second trip back to his VW bus. As luck would have it, it had broken down two full blocks from the club where he’d arranged to meet bassist Leon Wilkeson and guitarist Ed King, two members of one of the hottest bands in the country, Lynyrd Skynyrd, for an audition.
The last thing he wanted was to be late, but lugging a full set of drums for two blocks on an August day in hot ‘lanta was not the way he planned to spend the afternoon. Still, being a former Marine, it was just like being back at boot camp for a while. No sweat. Well, not much, anyway.
Pyle had been marking time and making friends as a session drummer for the likes of both the Marshall Tucker and Charlie Daniels Bands. In fact, it was on a suggestion from Daniels to Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant that they ought to give the Louisville, Kentucky native a shot. Pyle wasn’t sure if he was trying out to be their second drummer, like an Allman Brothers situation, or if he was replacing Bob Burns, who’d been handling the drum chair for their previous two albums. (Truth be told, neither did the band at that point.) Either way, the pressure was on.
As a three-piece, King, Wilkeson, and Pyle ran through a few Skynyrd tunes—including a fusion-styled version of “I Ain’t The One” that sadly never made it to tape—and then decided to work up a new thing King had been messing around with that included a few licks inspired by The Who’s “Bargain.” Around this time, Skynyrd’s producer and music legend Al Kooper showed up. He had some good news: it seems that Paramount Pictures had a film in the works called The Longest Yard starring Georgia boy Burt Reynolds and they wanted a big rock song to frame the big chase scene between Reynolds’ character and the cops (a few years before the Bandit rolled through the south to the strains of Jerry Reed’s “East Bound and Down”). King’s new idea sounded like the perfect fit.
The three hit the studio the next day and laid down the basic track. The rest of the band drove up from Jacksonville a few days later. Listening as King ran everyone through the changes, Van Zant felt inspiration hit, walked over to him, cupped King’s ear into his hand, and sang the first verse for the first time: “Two feets they come a-creepin’ like a black cat do / And two bodies are layin’ naked, creeper think he got nothin’ to lose / So he creeps into this house, yeah, and unlocks the door / And while a man’s reachin’ for his trousers, shoots him full of thirty-eight holes.”
Recorded a few months before the other seven tracks that join it (and six months before Pyle officially joined the band) at Studio One in Doraville (with Rodney Mills engineering), “Saturday Night Special” became the lead-off track to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s third album (and final one with Kooper producing), Nuthin’ Fancy. By 1975, Skynyrd had spent two years and two albums solidifying their rock & roll credentials by opening for The Who on the massive Quadrophenia tour, and developing a reputation as hard partiers but harder rockers, proven by “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” blasting out of most every car speaker and dorm room from coast to coast. Now, with Nuthin’ Fancy, all they would have to do is keep that momentum going. That they did…mostly.
Nuthin’ Fancy continued Skynyrd’s winning formula of big riff-rock (“Saturday Night Special,” “On The Hunt,” “I’m A Country Boy”), country pickin’ (“Railroad Song,” “Made In The Shade”), moanin’ a soul-drenched blues (“Cheatin’ Woman”), foot-shufflin’ boogie (“Whiskey Rock-a-Roller”), and a ballad with all-too-true-to-life lyrics (“Am I Losin’”). It also introduced us to the nimble-yet-powerful drumming of Artimus Pyle as it bid farewell to both Ed King (his last album with the original lineup) and Al Kooper, who, among other reasons, had grown weary of the number of hangers-on at the studio.
Kooper still had plenty of respect for the guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd, especially Van Zant; going so far as calling him the best bandleader he ever saw in his entire life. (For context, remember Kooper founded Blood, Sweat, & Tears and played organ on Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” among countless other credits.) Whereas the Allman Brothers Band is celebrated (and rightly so) for their deep, soulful, jazz-influenced improvisations night after night, Van Zant wanted Skynyrd to sound exactly the same every night; no improvisation whatsoever. In fact, they wrote out most of their guitar solos in advance, something very few groups at the time were doing. The result was one of the tightest, fiercest rock outfits of the era—or any era.
Ronnie Van Zant was also unique as a lyricist. While his band rocked, pounded, and laid waste behind him, Van Zant sang about simple men and their experiences; more Merle Haggard than Robert Plant. Van Zant’s lyrics and matter-of-fact, laid-back-but-defiant delivery of them made Skynyrd stand out from the rest of the countless hard rock/southern-rock bands of the 1970s. And just like anyone in the south (or anywhere else, for that matter), he was complicated, unable to be pigeonholed into a specific ideology. As with most of us, his beliefs were formed out of circumstances; “Saturday Night Special” isn’t so much a song about gun control as it is about simply not wanting to be shot over something senseless.
While other rock bands—from Grand Funk to Led Zeppelin—were celebrating debauchery or finding inspiration from Tolkien, Van Zant was writing about everyday life, including what happens when you become successful and, either through jealousy or misunderstanding, your friends back home see you in a different light. “Am I Losin’” is one of Van Zant’s most vulnerable moments: no machismo or bravado, it’s awash in melancholy. The music even goes silent in a few places to add to its sorrow of a loss of friendship, while Ed King delivers one of his most beautiful solos: the first half on his Gibson SG (and inspired by Toy Caldwell), the second half on a strat while calling back to his own “Sweet Home Alabama” riff.
Skynyrd and Cooper all shared a love of the powerful blues-rock band Free (half of whom—Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke—would form Bad Company in 1974 with Mick Ralphs and Boz Burrell), so much so that they recorded a Free-inspired song for each of their first three albums: “Simple Man” (you’re picturing Paul Rodgers singing that right now, aren’t you? Me, too. I don’t know about you, but it sounds fantastic in my head) from their first, “I Need You” for the second, and for Nuthin’ Fancy, it was the ferocious “On The Hunt.”
“On The Hunt” is basically Allen Collins slowing down Ed King’s “Workin’ For MCA” riff and taking it on a far more bluesy, decadent journey as Van Zant sings about a woman with loose morals—morals that he himself shares as they both search for carnal pleasures. The rhythm section of Pyle and Wilkeson are locked in tight as a tick as Gary Rossington adds one of his finest solos to what ends up being one of Skynyrd’s most powerful moments on record.
For “Made in the Shade”—the only Lynyrd Skynyrd song credited solely to Van Zant and one he supposedly wrote in the shower the morning they recorded it—only King (on Moog bass) and Rossington (on acoustic guitar) from the band feature on the song, while mandolin and dobro are performed by Barry Harwood (who would later become an integral part of the Rossington-Collins Band and the short-lived Allen Collins Band) while Kooper tickles the ivories and Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall blows harmonica.
Hall’s harp helps out on “Railroad Song” as well, where Van Zant calls out Haggard and Jimmie Rodgers while singing from the POV of a self-made hobo who wants to ride the rails to see if he can channel some of that mojo into his own music. Pyle’s drum work here—especially hi-hat and ride—simply defies physics.
Van Zant delivers one of his bluesiest, most Allman-like vocals on the sinister “Cheatin’ Woman,” with a downright dirty and soulful organ part from Kooper and whiplash drum fills from Pyle before the fade. For “Whiskey Rock-A-Roller,” Billy Powell’s initial idea was transformed into a Skynyrd-style boogie in the hands of King and Van Zant. Ironically, although the tune originated from Powell, the piano was overdubbed in LA by none other than uber-’80s-and-beyond pop producer David Foster.
While there are high points throughout, no other song exemplified the Skynyrd ethos on Nuthin’ Fancy more than “I’m A Country Boy.” Over a riff that, again, sounds like it could have come from the hands of Paul Kossoff, but this time by way of Allen Collins channeling Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” Van Zant delivers his philosophy, yet he does so without judgement or sanctimony. In fact, its final verse could serve in these times as a mantra for us all: “Let me tell you something, let me tell you true / What’s right for me might not be right for you / You live your way, I’ll live mine / And I hope you’re happy all of the time.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s most beloved lineup lasted only two more years, with two studio albums and one live set in that span of time. The legendary Tom Dowd oversaw their next album, Gimme Back My Bullets, and while it had its moments, it suffered from Ed King’s absence and relatively weak material overall. They roared back to life with the addition of Okie guitar-shredder Steve Gaines, who seemed to energize the entire group for 1977’s Street Survivors, which would sadly be their last.
Much has been written about the events surrounding the plane crash that took the lives of Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, backing vocalist (and Steve’s sister) Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, on October 20, 1977. And yes, ten years later the band reunited for a well-received tribute tour. Yes, for better or worse, they started making original music again with the album Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991. Yes, they should have left well enough alone.
In the end, nothing will replace the matter-of-fact songwriting of Ronnie Van Zant, no matter how many layers of guitar you place on a track or how much swamp mist or southern imagery you place on stage or in your branding. In 1975, Lynyrd Skynyrd proved that to get at the soul, the gut, and the ass of the listener, you needed nothin’ fancy at all.
LISTEN: