“After David Lindley passed away on March 3, newspapers and websites around the world published obituaries and appreciations, many clearly expressing why Lindley was one of the most-respected and beloved instrumentalists of the last half-century. Other writers, though, had likely never heard his music before they were tasked with writing about the “noted sideman.”

Along with all the reasons Lindley’s untimely death is to be regretted is that he – a man who relished life’s absurdities – probably would have loved seeing the headline of a syndicated obit that called him the “Godfather of soft rock.”

1970s soft rock was a fully formed gelatinous mass before Lindley ever assayed the medium, and the author of that headline might have been surprised to hear Lindley’s first foray, on Jackson Browne’s 1973 For Everyman album. From the ferocious, careening steel guitar driving “Redneck Friend” off the pavement, to the sky-piercing lament of his solo on “These Days,” there is nothing soft about the emotional jolt Lindley added to the proceedings.

That’s something he did for the next 50 years, pouring his astonishing musical skills and naked emotion into every project, whether with some of the biggest names in popular music or players barely known outside their villages in Madagascar, Kazakhstan, or rural Norway. And whether playing for packed arenas or 50-seat clubs, it was always pure, unadulterated Lindley, in the most outlandish polyester pants ever made.

David Perry Lindley was born March 21, 1944, into the family of homemaker Margaret (Wells) Lindley and lawyer John Lindley. Growing up in San Marino, California, next to the not-so-old money town of Pasadena, young Dave was interested in sports and academics, but mainly in his dad’s large record collection of music from around the world.

His dad also had a baritone ukulele, which Lindley adopted, then moved on to flamenco guitar. When he was in high school – a private college-prep in Pasadena – the ’50s folk boom steered him to bluegrass and the five-string banjo, upon which he’d practice for hours a day. He later said this caused his parents some regret because, with all the music in the world to choose from, their son had elected to play “hillbilly music.”

In 1961, a 17-year-old Lindley entered the First Annual Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest. Contrary to the often-told story (though still testament to his woodshedding), he won third place on banjo. It was the four years following that he won first place and was elevated to judge so that others might have a chance.

That summer he also formed his first bluegrass band, The Mad Mountain Ramblers. In 1963 and ’64, they performed dozens of times at Disneyland, sometimes in multi-act hootenannies in Tomorrowland, but usually dressed in western garb in Frontierland. Steve Martin and John McEuen were also working in the park at the time, and during breaks would take banjo lessons from Lindley.

Lindley, meanwhile, continued with his own education, frequenting L.A.’s Ash Grove alongside other roots music acolytes such as Ry Cooder and Michael “Hollywood Fats” Mann to hear the originators of the blues, country, R&B and other styles they were absorbing. Lindley and Cooder, of course, went on in future decades to do a number of soundtracks, concerts and sundry projects together.

Hearing the call of rock and roll, in ’66, Lindley formed the band Kaleidoscope, though it was scarcely anyone else’s idea of a rock band. With Lindley on harp guitar, a Gibson SG, amplified fiddle, and other instruments, the group plied its polyrhythmic mix of rock, Middle Eastern, and other styles at the Fillmores and other fabled hippie venues. When Jimmy Page was touring with the Yardbirds in ’68, he saw Kaleidoscope perform at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom, and eight years later was still raving about them, in one interview exclaiming, “They’re my favorite band of all time – my ideal band, absolutely brilliant.”

Evidently, few in Kaleidoscope saw things that way. The group endured infighting and numerous member changes, and bandleader Lindley himself quit in early 1970.

Along with leaving behind four albums on the Epic label, Lindley and members of the group also provided the atmospheric backing on Leonard Cohen’s debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen.

In ’69, Lindley played the doleful, keening violin that set the mood on the Youngbloods’ “Darkness, Darkness.”

Not long after leaving Kaleidoscope, he and his wife and young daughter moved to England for two years so Lindley could record and perform with singer Terry Reid. One notable gig they played was Mick and Bianca Jagger’s legendary 1971 St. Tropez wedding.

When Lindley and brood returned to Southern California, he reconnected with Jackson Browne, having once sat in with him at the Troubadour. Browne had an album out that was getting attention, and he invited Lindley to accompany him on tour during which the two clicked so profoundly that Lindley was booked to play on Browne’s second album.

During his time in England, Lindley concentrated on mastering the steel guitar, with his main influence being the Bay Area blues-steel master Freddie Roulette.

On For Everyman, Lindley was clearly hitting his prime. The album did not want for famous names in the credits, which included Elton John, David Crosby, Joni Mitchell, and Bonnie Raitt, but many listeners checked the credits to see who on earth was playing the overdriven steel guitar blasting out of their car radios like nothing ever heard before in popular music.

Lindley remained Browne’s right-hand man through the ’70s, but he had enough spare hands to add his magic to many other artists’ works, including Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby and Graham Nash, James Taylor, Warren Zevon, and Bruce Springsteen.

Lindley made a major career shift in 1980. When recording “That Girl Could Sing” for Browne’s Hold Out album, Lindley became fixated on playing his solo through a combination of pedals that made his steel sound, as he described it, “like a sick seal,” The result was sufficiently bizarre (Browne used only a portion of the solo on the finished song) that Lindley and Browne both later said they realized it was high time for Lindley to start his own band.

In ’81, Lindley released his first album, El Rayo-X, produced by Browne. The antithesis of “soft rock,” it was a propulsive, soaring array of reggae, Middle Eastern modalities, New Orleans R&B, cajun music, and its R&B cousin, zydeco. And live, his band (also called El Rayo-X) was an unstoppable dance machine. Lindley referred to it as “a party band,” but it was a musician’s musicians party band. Along with reimagined oldies, they did several of the mysterious songwriter Bob “Frizz” Fuller’s surreal slices of California life. And, above it all, there were Lindley’s soaring, extended solos, unfettered by the constraints of performing on some other bandleader’s clock.

There are reasons why side musicians are side musicians, one being that many freeze in the spotlight. Lindley instead adopted his full Mr. Dave persona, garbing himself in eye-affronting polyester clothes and speaking between songs in a Jamaican patois or a variety of celebrity voice impersonations, ranging from Jimmy Stewart to Sean Connery.

Along with surrounding himself with intuitive, empathetic band members, he had his armada of instruments to flank him. It’s worth taking a detour here to discuss his pioneering ways with musical gear, since he pursued the tones of his music nearly as assiduously as he did his technique.

When playing in England with Reid, he gravitated to the sound of the then-out-of-favor Vox AC30. Once back in L.A., he found he didn’t like the way AC30s responded to 110 volts, but their Vox-branded Alnico Celestion speakers found another use.

Few people in the early ’70s were championing the tweed Fender Deluxe, either, but a Deluxe (recovered in vinyl snakeskin) with a blue Vox speaker became his studio amp for years.

For gigging, he settled on a pre-CBS Bassman head atop a cab with two Celestions. When he met the then unknown Alexander “Howard” Dumble, they began a long conversation that resulted in Dumble attuning the Bassman to the sounds Lindley described to him. They subsequently went through a similar process when Dumble was developing the Steel String Singer and Overdrive Special amps. It was Lindley who then introduced Stevie Ray Vaughan and other guitarists to the brand.

Lindley used a number of lap and console steel guitars, most famously playing a wide-magnet, Bakelite Rickenbacker on “Running on Empty.” In part because Freddie Roulette played a National, those Valco-made steels were his choice most often, particularly with El Rayo-X.

As for standard electric guitars, Lindley went though his share of vintage Telecasters and others craved by mere mortals. By El Rayo-X, he was into budget or unloved guitars, primarily Danelectro-made Silvertones, “resoglass” Nationals, and Japanese Teiscos.

On the acoustic side, Lindley’s use of Weissenborn lap steels single-handedly elevated the hollow-necked koa wonders from $35 flea market curiosities to coveted, multi-thousand-dollar collectibles.

The expenses and wear and tear of being a bandleader eventually got to Lindley, as did record company accounting processes that never showed his recordings turning a profit, despite his hemi-powered version of K.C. Douglas’ “Mercury Blues” being a Top 40 hit. So he put El Rayo-X up on blocks and became a DIY pioneer, releasing his own albums and selling them at shows or by mail.

In ’93, he told the Los Angeles Times that being tethered to record companies made him feel like a performing chimpanzee, and that “the chimp’s got to get the banana!”

Toward that end, in ’94 he released David Lindley + Hani Naser Live in Tokyo, Playing Real Good, on his own Pleemhead label. The album set the template for his live shows and albums for years to come; Lindley with his Weissenborn Hawaiian-style slide guitars and an international array of other stringed instruments, accompanied by hand drummers Hani Naser or Wally Ingram.

And the chimp got the banana. Lindley told The Times, “I’ve made more off of this CD in the first two weeks than I did in five years on Elektra/Asylum. That tells you something.”

He continued to do studio work, backing artists ranging from Dolly Parton to Iggy pop, and embarked on musical adventures with old friend Ry Cooder and with avant-garde guitarist Henry Kaiser.

For a “Cooder-Lindley Family” European tour Lindley said was one of the most-satisfying musical experiences of his life, he enlisted his vocalist daughter, Roseanne, along with Cooder and his percussionist son, Joaquin.

He was similarly pleased with his sojourn to Madagascar with Kaiser to record with local musicians. They came back with three albums’ worth of material – A World Out of Time, volumes one through three. Like other Lindley projects, he made combining disparate cultures seem as natural as breathing. One example was he and Kaiser performing Merle Haggard’s “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” with locals. He described the result as “a Malagasy-reggae-Lindley kind of thing, with a solo in it that sounds like Paraguayan harp music. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever been on.”

For a decided change of climate, in 1994, Kaiser and Lindley traveled to Norway to record The Sweet Sunny North with an array of musicians and singers.

Though it wasn’t recorded, Lindley also went to a music festival in Kazakhstan, where he spent days playing with musicians from there and neighboring nations, while, he said, drinking entirely too much fermented mare’s milk.

As is the case with many musicians, Lindley began to experience hearing loss, to the point where even working with drummers was too much for his ears (for the same reason, he gave up competitive target shooting and took up archery instead). Noise-cancelling in-ear monitors eventually enabled him to do shows with Browne and others.

The last couple of decades of his life could be called his troubadour years, with him driving himself across the country and performing solo. He often traveled with as many as eight instruments – a Turkish saz, three Weissenborn-styled Hawaiians, two bouzoukis, an oud, and a Guild guitar.

His high-pitched, nasal-toned singing voice was unique, sounding a little like Ira Louvin, if Louvin had been a large Martian insect. But his solo shows revealed what an expressive tool it was, illuminating the sense of loss and disillusion in songs like Greg Copeland’s “Revenge Will Come,” Springsteen’s “Brothers Under the Bridge” and Warren Zevon’s “The Indifference of Heaven.”

His own songs were often comical slices of his life – literal slices in his song “Cat Food Sandwiches,” about the perils of backstage fare. Another song was about his affection for Excedrin, while the John Lee Hooker-styled (but on an oud) “When a Guy Gets Boobs” addressed male ageing.

Lindley caught Covid in the midst of the pandemic (he claimed he got it from the family cat), and it turned into long Covid that oppressed him for more than a year. After having gone without gigs for much of the pandemic lockdown, once the live music scene began to pick up, recurrences of Covid symptoms caused him to cancel most of the shows he’d scheduled.

There was little information, however, on just how ill Lindley was. When his death at the age of 78 was announced March 3, it came as a shock to the music world. With the dedication and inquisitiveness he brought to his art, and to life in general, it was easy to imagine him performing well into his 90s, like Segovia and Pablo Casals.

The week after he passed, his family issued a statement.

“David Lindley passed away on Friday… in Pomona, California, where he was in hospice care for a short time. He is survived by his wife Joanie and daughter Rosanne. He had been hospitalized several times over a period of three months, first with double pneumonia, then with acute vasculitis.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved David. He was a brilliant man – a true genius. He was reclusive and preferred playing his instruments to most social interaction. Nonetheless, he was kind and generous to those who approached him, whether by e-mail, or on the street, or even at a show. He was kind to everybody. We are heartened by the outpouring of love and condolences we have received from people near and far.

“From the flowers left on our porch by people we don’t know, to the e-mails and texts from those he played with all over the world, David touched so many people.”

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Tales of the Master Weaver

Friends pay homage to David Lindley

Jim Weider

David, the Archangel Of Strings. I wish I could recall the first recording I heard him playing on decades ago – probably “Running On Empty,” but whatever it was set off a bomb in my heart and completely changed the landscape of both acoustic and electric slide guitar for me.

He created such brilliant melodies and the “in-betweens” – those little musical phrases and rhythms, and it all defined the songs. I could hear the same song a hundred times, but his playing would still make me stop and listen because I’d wait for his solo, or some soaring-over-the-cliff ending, no matter which instrument he played. I know I’m not the only person who went into fierce search mode for a Weissenborn after hearing his ethereal slide solo on “To Know Him Is To Love Him,” from Trio, with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.

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I got to see him play live in 2008, when I was living in Austin. He’d often come through on a solo tour and I’d miss him every time until I cancelled a gig so I could catch him at the Cactus Cafe, a great little club on the UT campus. It was a dream finally fulfilled, topped off by meeting him afterward and having some laughs and gear-geek talk. He was inspirational and educational, a one of a kind gift to us that will keep on giving. – Cindy Cashdollar

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If you like roller coasters – and I bet you do – then you already know something of what it was like to play music with David Lindley. The attendant slams the restraining bar down, shouting, “Hang on! No standing!” and off you go. “Wooly Bully,” “Mercury Blues,” or whatever; David locked instantly and never even budged. You had to hang on! Was it something to do with his early years playing bluegrass banjo? But let me emphasize – I will remember him not only as a roller-coaster man, but as a very sweet man, and kindly. He once gave me a Teisco gold-foil guitar pickup and said it might solve my problem with electric guitar. And the extra-wide Fender Strat C neck, which might improve my clumsy fingering. It was all very casual – indispensable, as it turned out.

We did some recording. American folk music for movies by Walter Hill and Louis Malle, featuring exotic instruments that pushed cowboys and Indians into undesignated territory; the Okinawan-tinged “Battle Cry Of Freedom,” for Walter’s The Long Riders, my personal favorite.

We traveled, we played some shows. David usually had a character going – a laconic Jimmy Stewart, a hunched-over Japanese rice farmer. Airplane hostesses got happy, I actually had a good time. Looking back now, I see that we might have started a bluegrass band, a bold concept in the ’80s, and prospered in a modest but satisfying way. I wish to Christ we had. – Ry Cooder

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David practiced a minimum of six hours a day every day. He was a film buff, a superior marksman, and one of only a few true mystics I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing well. He spoke in a language from another time both ancient and futuristic, aristocratic and folkloric. In casual conversation he would reference Malagasy music, Doc Boggs, Jimmy Stewart, Bruce Lee, Alnico pickups, the Roland Jazz Chorus, and Howard Dumble in the same sentence, seamlessly.

As a 10-year-old in his living room, a 20-year-old in my family’s music shop, or watching him in concert, every time I saw David play, I sat spellbound in disbelief. What Jimi Hendrix is to electric guitar, David Lindley is to lap-steel guitar. – Ben Harper

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Lindley was an amazing human treasure of creative musical mastery in many dimensions, and on many instruments. Back in the early ’90s, we traveled together to Madagascar and Norway to record a half-dozen albums with the musical-roots giants of those countries. One of my favorite things about our adventures there was sharing Lindley with the master musicians of those countries. One note and a smile from David and they instantly recognized his genius, as well as his big, fun sense of musical wisdom. He was the best musician I have ever played with. – Henry Kaiser

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I first heard David when I saw the Kaleidoscope album in a local store, then on the radio hits with Jackson Browne. I moved to Colorado in the ’70s, and was snowed in one winter; I listened to a lot of albums, and For Everyman and especially Late for the Sky really struck me. I was already a big Ry Cooder fan, and Lindley with his lap steel was just a whole different thing. It opened a pathway for me; I had my techniques and concepts, but I didn’t have a clue about developing my own sound. When I heard “Farther On,” I thought, “Oh, man…” Jackson’s melodic vocal lines drew me in and Lindley, the master weaver going in and out between lyrics, was mesmerizing. His tone and phrasing were just amazing, especially on a lap steel.

In the ’80s, I got the gig with John Hiatt, and we were on our first tour in the U.S. – cross-country in a van. We had a night off in Boston, and I heard that David and El Rayo-X were playing at a bar in town. I told the guys, “I’ve got to get there,” so me, (bassist) Dave Ranson, and (drummer) Kenneth Blevins went to the show, and it just blew me away – Lindley with his Dumble and that stellar rhythm section. I had no idea what a great singer he was, but after that I thought, “I’ve got to figure this out.”

In the summer of ’88, we recorded Slow Turning, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that John originally recorded demo tracks for the album with Lindley, John Doe on bass, and David Mattacks on drums because producer John Chelew had done John’s Bring the Family album with Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, and Nick Lowe, and was trying to make lightning strike twice. But for whatever reason, John wasn’t happy with the demos – he didn’t like his voice on them. So he told the label, “I have a band, and I want to go back to Nashville and record the album with them.” They got Glyn Johns and Bernie Leadon involved; Glyn wanted the antithesis of Bring the Family, and what David and the guys had done was more-rocking. Management sent us cassettes of the songs to learn, so there I was, listening to Lindley’s playing – he was getting a complex distortion where you could hear the notes kind of sink, then bounce. He was using his amp’s power tubes in a way that created phrasing like a horn player. I was thinking, “Well, what the hell am I going to do to top this?” (laughs). But we went in that May and June and got it done, and the sessions helped me focus more on my tone.

Right after that, I was at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and so was Lindley. He called and invited me to breakfast, where we met for the first time. I told him, “I’ve got something to ask you…” He said, “What’s that?” and I said, “I kind of stole your lick on ‘Slow Turning.’” He goes, “Great,” so I asked him for his blessing and he said, “Absolutely, man. Have at it!” I also told him about seeing the El Rayo-X show in Boston and asked, “How did you get that tone?” He said, “Oh, I just turned up to 10.” (laughs) He had a 50-watt Dumble, so I was all about getting one. But he discouraged me. He said, “No, man, they’re too complicated, too expensive.” His other guitar player at the time, Ray Woodbury, had a Demeter, and David said, “You want this amp.” So I called Jim Demeter and we became fast friends; I got one of his amps and I’ve used one or more of three I have on at least 80 percent of everything I’ve done in the studio since.

The beautiful thing about David was how he shared his gift and sense of humor both onstage and in workshops. I did a whole lot of marveling at his skill set, his sound, his interpretation of music, and the songs he wrote. But we also just laughed a lot. You were in for both with him. – Sonny Landreth

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I was truly saddened by the news of the passing of David. He was a true original and I treasure the memory of the times we played together. We met up many times over the years, but working on the Trio album certainly stands out. The last time we saw each other was at a video interview regarding the aforementioned sessions. He’d recorded his portion of the interview and purposely hung around to say hello to me. I shall always remember that. – Albert Lee

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David Lindley – who to his friends was called “Skrang” – was absolutely a musician’s musician. He could play anything with strings on it, and did so repeatedly. He will be sorely missed as a friend and I will always remember his expert playing on so many records with [David] Crosby and me over the years. – Graham Nash

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In 1974, I went to see Linda Ronstadt in New Haven, Connecticut. She was great, but there was this guy playing guitar in her band who I couldn’t stop watching from the first moment he came onstage. David Lindley. Everything he played was perfect. His command of the instrument and the music, while still wholly supporting Linda and her singing, had a deep effect on me. I went home that night and put my guitars away. It was the only time in my life I ever considered giving up playing. It took about 10 days before I could get back to it. Years later, he cracked up when I told him about that. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”

David’s legendary mastery of anything with strings on it is well-known. I once called him and asked what he was up to. He told me he was warming up on the oud… for three hours! After that he would be ready to practice for another four or five. That’s why he was so good. He worked for it.

The Lindley sense of humor was also legendary. The clothes, of course. I think he could have easily been a stand-up comedian. He found nearly everything funny. He would sign his e-mails “Lintfree.”

David Lindley was profoundly influential on modern guitar playing, either directly or in the sense that the players who inspire you were inspired by him. He reinvented lap steel. Like the song says, “Everybody got to go,” but I’m really going to miss Professor Lintfree. – G.E. Smith

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I toured the U.S. with David as his “oud wrangler” – pronounced “roadie” – in 2006, 2011, and 2012. It was always a learning experience, and I particularly enjoyed his insights on road food and polyester care.

Some venues have organic fare and fabulous chefs; some only have days-old, room-temperature chicken wings. By Lindley’s reasoning, unless he knew and trusted the venue, he didn’t show up hungry, lest he ate and, as he warned in “Cat Food Sandwiches,” “I commence to squirt…”

Lindley’s favorite road stop was Cracker Barrel because it was predictable and the coffee was good. But when there were hundreds of miles of road ahead with no guarantee of seeing another, he’d consume truck-stop swill, explaining, “We’re in survival mode. You don’t hope something better shows up; you kill the first thing you see, and eat it.”

Most loudly-colored polyester clothing didn’t outlast the disco era that spawned it. Blame washing machines. Lindley would wash his garish slacks in motel sinks with a bar of soap, and that apparently worked.

On his 2012 tour, a fan showed up at a gig in Indianapolis, showing off an old 8″ x 10″ of Lindley and John Hammond standing in a muddy field at some festival 35 years earlier, where Lindley had been wearing a particularly horrid pair of orange polyester slacks. Everyone in the dressing room did a double take, looking from the photo to Lindley, because he was wearing the exact same pair of pants. – Jim Washburn

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David Lindley was one of a kind. I was so excited the first time I met and had a chance to play with him at a NAMM show in the early ’80s. We always stayed in touch, and I was so honored he played on my Slide Guitar Summit album. He was so eloquent, and also, funny. It took all of two minutes for he and I to run through the song we were going to do that night in front of a packed house at the Iridium in New York City; we played “Her Mind is Gone,” by Professor Longhair, which was Dave’s choice, and he hit the nail on the head. And so giving, he was; every time I took a solo, he’d say into the mic, “Do it again, do it again.” Then, after the song was done, he insisted we do the whole song again! His Weissenborn just filled the room with power and eloquence.

David was the consummate professional, and did it all in a relaxed and incredibly humorous way. He was always a joy to be with and play with – he could master anything that had strings, but did it all in a humble and giving way. We loved to talk about all the pawn-shop instruments we acquired.

His tone, attack, and phrasing was without peer, and he’d elevate anyone he played with. It was such a joy to record and perform with him, and he was truly one of the all-time greats. He will be sorely missed by me and anyone who’s ever been touched by his music. – Arlen Roth

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When I first heard David Lindley’s solo on Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty,” it blew me away. Each note was as big as an elephant! The tone was so huge I had to find out what he was playing through – a Dumble amp – and he was so melodic and took you on a journey. As a musician always in search of the “big note,” David had it in spades! – Jim Weider 

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This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

As a boy, Gary Rossington would grab a broom and mime in front of a mirror whenever an Elvis Presley hit played on TV or the radio, pretending to be the King with his flat-top. Co-founder and last original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rossington died March 5. He was 71, and while no cause of death has been disclosed, Rossington dealt with heart-related health issues since undergoing a multiple bypass in 2003; in ’15, he suffered a serious heart attack after which he received a pacemaker, followed by a valve replacement in ’19 and emergency surgery in ’21.

Twelve when the Beatles first played Ed Sullivan in February of 1964, Rossington and close friends Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant immediately became fans of all things British Invasion.

“We wanted to be like them, and I wanted to play guitar!” Rossington told Vintage Guitar in 2003. The ambitious kid took a paper route so he could buy a Silvertone guitar from the Sears catalog – “…an electric with a case and a speaker in it,” and by the end of that summer, the three had recruited Little League buddies to play bass and drums in a band that performed at teen clubs and school dances in their home town of Jacksonville, Florida. As they aged into the city’s sparse club scene, though, the band’s covers – songs by the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, and other British acts – limited their appeal amongst locals, so they moved to Atlanta and adopted the name Lynyrd Skynyrd, an homage to the high-school gym teacher Leonard Skinner, who kicked Rossington out of school for having long hair.

The British influence – specifically, that of Brian Jones – carried over to Rossington’s desire to play a certain guitar.

“I saw him using an old sunburst Les Paul with the Rolling Stones, and I thought that was the coolest-looking guitar that I ever seen, so I wanted one,” he recalled.

The first time the band played Nashville’s Briar Patch club in 1969/’70, a girl in the audience told Rossington that her family had a Les Paul they wanted to sell for $1,000. After he and a roadie went to their home “way out in the country,” he made a full offer but was refused because the family had since been told it was worth more; after playing a few more weekends, he came back with an additional $1,000 and acquired the ’59 he promptly named after his mother, Berneice.

“My father died when I was 10, so my mother raised me,” he said. “She helped us get the band going, and helped me buy guitars. I had a paper route, but she put money in even though we didn’t have much. I just loved her a lot and missed her a lot when I was on the road.”

As a songwriter, Rossington drew inspiration from happenings in his own life and people close to him, and songs he helped create are among the biggest in Skynyrd’s repertoire – “Simple Man,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Don’t Ask Me No Questions,” “Gimme Back My Bullets,” and “What’s Your Name.” For the 1974 Collins/Van Zant song “Free Bird,” Rossington used a ’61 Gibson SG to compose one of the most-recognizable slide-guitar parts in history.

In a 1998 interview with Lisa Sharken (parts of which appeared in Guitar Player), he explained how the part came together.

“When we wrote the song, I had just started playing slide [and] the bottle kept clinking against the frets because the strings were too low. So, I took a screwdriver… and stuck it under the strings up at the nut, so it would raise the strings up. Then I tuned the B string down to G, so the G and the B strings were both tuned to G, and I hit them both together like they’re one string. With the two Gs, it creates a drawling, doubled sound, kind of like a 12-string. I don’t know what inspired [that tuning], I just remember that I wanted to do something different than the same old slide-guitar sound. I thought it was cool.”

For live shows, he lifted the strings with a piece of wire in place of the screwdriver; the setup can be seen on a Youtube video filmed during a July, 1977, concert in Oakland.

“I don’t need that little wire any more, but I use it out of sentimental reasons,” Rossington told Sharken. “I’ve never played that song live without it. It’s like Jimi Hendrix on ‘All Along the Watchtower.’ He played the slide solo with a Zippo lighter. He couldn’t get it to sound right with a steel slide or a bottle, so he used a Zippo. Each guy has his own little tricks.”

The band often dedicated live performances of “Free Bird” to Duane Allman, whose band also formed in Jacksonville and was a mentor who taught the Skynyrd guys licks and offered guidance on gear and life. Per Allman’s advice, Rossington used a Coricidin bottle for a slide.

“He told me that a bottle sounds different than a steel slide, and I think it does, so I copied him,” he said. “I use the slide on my middle finger; I tried it on my baby finger so I could use my other fingers on the neck, but I never had the touch. I’d play sharp or flat because I couldn’t see the frets as well.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rise to stardom was delayed by a record-label dispute that shelved their initial recordings at Muscle Shoals Studios in 1971-’72. After signing with Al Kooper’s Sounds of the South label in the spring of ’73, the band – by then a seven-piece with Rossington, Collins, and Ed King playing guitar, Van Zant on lead vocals – re-recorded five of the songs at Studio One, in Doraville, Georgia (“Pop ’N Hiss: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s (Pronounced ‘Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd’)”, August ’22). Road-readied, the band breezed through what was essentially a live recording. Released in August of ’73, it peaked at #27 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in February of ’75. Second Helping, released in April of ’74, reached #12, followed by Nuthin’ Fancy, which peaked at #9 in May ’75.

In ’76, Rossington crashed his car into a tree; in response to the incident, Collins and Van Zant wrote “That Smell,” warning of the perils of drinking and driving.

The band’s highest-charting set of new songs was its fifth studio effort, Street Survivors, which hit #5 in December of ’77, two months after a plane crash that killed Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, the band’s assistant road manager, and both pilots. Twenty people survived, most with serious injuries; Rossington suffered two broken arms, a broken leg, and punctures in his stomach and liver, while Collins had two cracked vertebrae and a severely cut right arm that nearly had to be amputated.

Except for the survivors making an appearance at Volunteer Jam V in 1979, the crash brought the end of Lynyrd Skynyrd. After two years of physical and psychological recovery, Rossington and Collins returned to making music in 1980 as the Rossington Collins Band, with Skynyrd bassist Leon Wilkeson and keyboardist Billy Powell. Seeking to distinguish their sound, they hired a female leader singer, Dale Krantz, and released two albums then toured briefly before dissolving; prior to the tour, Rossington had a replica of Berneice made, which he dubbed “Dottie,” his nickname for Krantz (the two married in ’82).

In 1987, Rossington organized The Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Band, a planned one-gig effort that ultimately toured for three years with Van Zant’s brother, Johnny, handling vocals, and Collins – who could not perform due to partial paralysis after a 1986 car crash – serving as musical director (he died in January, 1990, from chronic pneumonia). The group recorded new material for Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 and continued to tour and release albums using the band’s original name; this fall, it is scheduled to tour with ZZ Top. In recent years, Rossington’s participation was limited by his health and he last appeared onstage with the band in February.

Circa 2002, the Gibson Custom Shop created a signature Les Paul based on Berneice and another based on the “Free Bird” SG. Word of Rossington’s passing brought remembrances from fans worldwide, including guitarists who had worked with and were influenced by Skynyrd.

“I was fortunate to have grown up in Jacksonville, playing music with influences like the Allman Brothers and other local bands,” guitarist Jeff Carlisi, co-founder of 38 Special, told VG. “The One Percent was one such band. I remember going to see them at teen clubs and marveling at how special they were, even in their infancy. They played mostly songs from bands like the Illinois Speed Press and Free. We all thought that they wrote these songs only to find out that they were covers (laughs); those were some influences in their musical DNA. As a result, Gary developed a smooth style of playing with impeccable tone, vibrato, and a broad knowledge of the British sound, as well as Americana.

“Gary was a friend and a mentor to me, and an inspiration to all of us,” Carlisi added. “He could play it ‘pretty’ with understated elegance, and could also rip it raw and bluesy. He was as brilliant a songwriter as he was a guitar player. If someone were to ask me what performances defined Gary, number one would have to be the iconic slide guitar theme to ‘Free Bird.’ Second, his solo in ‘Don’t Ask Me No Questions’ is a classic. His playing on ‘Tuesday’s Gone’ is filled with emotion that still makes me cry. Finally, Gary’s playing on ‘Mr. Banker’ is as good a blues as ever came out of the Delta. His legacy will last forever and is defined by an era of music that was original and unique and truly Southern.”

“Skynyrd’s songs had an honesty about them that connected with people on a basic human level,” Warren Haynes told VG. “Gary’s solos were always unpretentious and memorable. A lot of them became part of the song that you could hum along with. I always dug his tone, as well – usually a Les Paul, fat and warm and never too dirty.”

“Gary’s loss is especially profound for us, as we’ve spent countless hours in his company on tour and all points in-between,” said ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on social media. “We facilitated getting Lynyrd Skynyrd on the bill with ZZ Top at a South Carolina date way back during the start of the band’s rise in ’73, which started an enduring friendship. Gary’s extraordinary ability as a guitarist was nothing less than inspirational. It’s an old cliché about somebody who has paid their dues to call them a survivor, and in this case it is literally true. Gary was the last of the breed and will be missed.”

“I’m very proud of being a part of Skynyrd, from the old guys to the new,” Rossington said in his ’03 VG interview, reflecting on the band’s stellar run. “I know we’ve had a lot of tragedy and misfortune, but that’s just life. We have fans come every night, and families who love us. What more do you need? We’re lucky to be able to play music and do something we love.”

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This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.