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Lynyrd Skynyrd
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Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd
By Der Kommissar
January 6, 2004
Rating: 9.5

This review is for the reissue with bonus tracks.

Three of Lynyrd Skynyrd's biggest and best hits came from this album. They are the lengthy and melodic rock masterpiece "Tuesday's Gone", the southern rock classic "Gimme Three Steps" (my personal favorite hit the band ever had), and of course, the legendary "Free Bird" The record company wanted the band to shorten "Free Bird" to three minutes, the standard record company single running length, but they refused. Because of the length, the record company thought it wouldn't get any airplay. I bet they fill stupid now, since it's become one of the band's biggest hits! But, as with any rock band, with Lynyrd Skynyrd there are many excellent songs that were never very big hits. The opening track, "I Ain't The One", is bluesy hard rock at its very best. They probably could not have started the album off better. "Simple Man" is a slower track, but it rocks just as much as anything else on the album. Don't skip it! "Things Go On" is classic bluesy rock at its best, and in my mind, serves as a premonition to the band's later successes (there's definitely a resemblance to "Call Me The Breeze", one of the band's later hits.) "Mississippi Kid" is by far the most country-sounding thing on the album, but it's still a good track. And, of course, with "Poison Whiskey" the band gives us another classic hard rocker that's tough to beat. It's no wonder so many fans consider this album a classic.

This reissued/remastered/revamped version of the album does more than just clean up the sound and make the album more readily available to fans - It also throws on some rare bonus tracks! One of them is "Mr. Banker", a demo which was the B-Side to the "Gimme Three Steps" single. This track is the perfect fusion of country and southern rock, though the style rather obviously leans toward the latter. The B-Side to the "Free Bird" single, a little demo called "Down South Jukin'", can also be found here as a bonus cut. This is excellent classic southern rock, and it's a shame this track has gone forgotten for so many years! I'm very pleased that these songs finally made it to the compact disc format! But it doesn't stop there! We also get three previously unreleased demos of the Skynyrd classics "Tuesday's Gone", "Gimme Three Steps", and "Free Bird". These demos lack the expertise of the "finished" versions of the songs, but they are still well worth listening to if you're a fan of the band, since some parts of the tracks (particularly the extended outro of the "Free Bird" demo) differ substantially from the final versions.

Overall, Lynyrd Skynyrd's debut album is pure southern rock excellence. And the bonus tracks are the icing on the cake. Many reviewers at Amazon have compared this album to Led Zeppelin, and although the two bands differ a good deal, many of these comparisons are accurate (listen to Zeppelin's debut and then listen to this, and you'll see what I mean - there's definitely somewhat of a resemblance.) If you like classic rock, this album is a masterpiece that your collection should not be without!

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