Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd's manager Alan Walden spent months pitching their demos to nine major labels, all of whom passed. What nobody knew until the actual recording sessions was that the demos had been played on a reversed master tape the entire time. Engineer Rodney Mills flipped it correctly and "the speakers almost came out of the wall." Allen Collins had written the music for "Free Bird" years before Ronnie Van Zant could find the right words. The breakthrough came after Collins' girlfriend asked him: "If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?" During a studio lunch break, a roadie named Billy Powell was found playing concert piano on a master tape. He became a full band member within months.
In our deep dive into Free Bird, we trace the song from the reversed demo tape to Collins' girlfriend's question to the roadie who became a musician, and what it reveals about a band that kept finding its best decisions by accident.
