In the early summer of 1964, bassist Larry Junstrom, drummer Bob Burns, and guitarist Gary Rossington formed a trio called Me, You, and Him.

Pat Armstrong, a Jacksonville native and partner in Macon, Georgia-based Hustlers Inc.; along with Phil Walden's younger brother, Alan, became the band's managers.

[d] In 1972, the band (then comprising Van Zant, Collins, Rossington, Burns, Wilkeson, and Powell) was discovered by musician, songwriter, and producer Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat & Tears, who had attended one of their shows at Funocchio's in Atlanta.

Their 1974 follow-up album, Second Helping, featuring King, Collins and Rossington all collaborating with Van Zant on the songwriting, cemented the band's breakthrough.

In January, drummer Burns left the band after suffering a mental breakdown during a European tour[8] and was replaced by Kentucky native and former US Marine Artimus Pyle.

With his guitar roadie unavailable, King played that night's show with old strings that broke and caused his performance to be substandard, and Van Zant subsequently belittled him in front of his bandmates.

King quit and returned home to Los Angeles, believing Van Zant had been responsible for his guitar roadie being in jail in the first place.

[8] Collins and Rossington both had serious car accidents over Labor Day weekend in 1976, which slowed the recording of the follow-up album and forced the band to cancel some concert dates.

Rossington's accident inspired the ominous Van Zant/Collins composition "That Smell" – a cautionary tale about drug abuse that was aimed towards him and at least one other band member.

With the birth of his daughter Melody in 1976, Van Zant was making a serious attempt to clean up his act and curtail the cycle of boozed-up brawling that was part of Skynyrd's reputation.

[8] The Street Survivors album of 1977 turned out to be a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier and was making his studio debut with them.

Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day".

[27] Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the rousing guitar boogie "I Know a Little", which he had written before he joined Skynyrd.

After running out of fuel, the pilots attempted an emergency landing before crashing in a heavily forested area five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi.

The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band amid flames, with Steve Gaines nearly obscured by fire.

Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve's widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with the album's back photo, a similar image of the band against a simple black background.

[33] Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded after the tragedy, reuniting only on one occasion to perform an instrumental version of "Free Bird" at Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam V in January 1979.

Leon Wilkeson, who was still undergoing physical therapy for his badly broken left arm, was in attendance, along with Judy Van Zant, Teresa Gaines, JoJo Billingsley, and Leslie Hawkins.

Deliberately avoiding comparisons with Ronnie Van Zant as well as suggestions that this band was Lynyrd Skynyrd reborn, Rossington and Collins chose a woman, Dale Krantz, as the lead vocalist.

On January 29, 1986, Collins, then 33, crashed his Ford Thunderbird into a ditch near his home in Jacksonville, killing his girlfriend Debra Jean Watts and leaving himself permanently paralyzed from the chest down.

That the band chose to continue after the 1987 tribute tour caused legal problems for the survivors, as Judy Van Zant Jenness and Teresa Gaines Rapp (widows of Ronnie and Steve, respectively) sued the others for violating an agreement made shortly after the plane crash, stating that they would not "exploit" the Skynyrd name for profit.

The band also released a double album called Thyrty, which had songs from the original lineup to the present, and also a live DVD of their Vicious Cycle Tour.

They toured Europe and the U.S. in 2009 with Keys on keyboards and Robert Kearns of the Bottle Rockets on bass; bassist Ean Evans died of cancer at age 48 on May 6, 2009.

Hannity had been actively promoting the God & Guns album, frequently playing portions of the track "That Ain't My America" on his radio show.

Original drummer Bob Burns died at age 64 on April 3, 2015; his car crashed into a tree while he was driving alone near his home in Cartersville, Georgia.

[59] On March 19, 2019, Johnny Van Zant announced that the band intended to go into the studio to record one last album after completing the tour with several songs ready or "in the can".

[66] In November 2023, Dolly Parton released a cover of "Free Bird" on her rock album Rockstar; this version also featured contributions from members of Lynyrd Skynyrd (including slide guitar from Rossington, recorded before his death), along with former drummer Artimus Pyle and his band, and even part of the late Ronnie van Zant's vocal track from the original recording of "Free Bird" (with the permission of Ronnie van Zant's widow).

[5][6] On November 28, 2005, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that Lynyrd Skynyrd would be inducted alongside Black Sabbath, Blondie, Miles Davis, and the Sex Pistols.

The inductees included Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Ed King, Steve Gaines, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, Bob Burns, and Artimus Pyle.

[78] On March 13, 2018, filmmaker Stephen Kijak premiered his documentary called, "If I Leave Here Tomorrow"[79] at the Stateside Theater during the South by Southwest (SXSW)[80] festival in Austin, Texas.