Street Survivors [Extra tracks, Original recording remastered]

Lynyrd Skynyrd | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 20, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1977
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B00005RIKJ
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,719 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Lynyrd Skynyrd had already fulfilled a good deal of its promise on definitive Southern-rock albums such as Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd and the live One More From the Road when they stepped up their ambition a few more notches for this October 1977 release. Fueled by new member Steve Gaines, the Florida band produced its best album. Gaines, Gary Rossington, and Allen Collins interlocked on guitars as if they'd learned it all in the womb together, while singer Ronnie Van Zant came up with his most evocative lyrics yet. The shadow of death he detected on "That Smell" was closer than perhaps even he thought, however: three days after the record's appearance in stores, he was killed along with five others in a Mississippi crash of the group's tour plane. Street Survivors remains as a classic of American guitar rock. --Rickey Wright

Product Description

The recording of the original Skynyrd's last LP was quite a saga, with sessions in Miami and Doraville and several songs re-recorded or dropped. This reissue finally unites these tracks with the album they were meant for: the Miami versions of I Never Dreamed and You Got That Right ; the scrapped songs Sweet Little Missy and Georgia Peaches ; the autobiographical Jacksonville Kid , plus the hit What's Your Name and the rest of the original LP!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pristine version of essential album, nice outtakes, bootleg-quality live tracks March 7, 2008

By Mike TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

True Skynyrd fans already own this "deluxe edition." For the casual fan, the one who owns the box set or any of the many "greatest hits" compilations, it's worth noting what is actually here.

First, as with all of the "deluxe editions" issued by Universal, the packaging is excellent. Original artwork, nice slipcase, an excellent 24-page booklet with archive photos and pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about "Street Survivors" and the events that preceded and followed its release.

Disc 1, "The Original Album," is just that...the album as it was released in the best possible digital format.

Disc 2, "Criteria Studios Album," is the "other" version...yes, they recorded the album twice. The draw here is the longer, slower version of "That Smell," with no shortage of guitar solos. You've heard "Jacksonville Kid" before (Ronnie's new lyrics added to "Honky Tonk Night Time Man," and the last track he recorded in his lifetime).

The final 5 live tracks from Fresno CA in August 1977 are of historic interest, and the sound quality is basically "acceptable bootleg." It's the Street Survivors band in the early stages of the tour that would never happen. Less than two months later, Ronnie, Steve, Cassie and Dean were gone, and the survivors...real, actual survivors...were changed forever.

Skynyrd fans will, and should, want to add this to their collection. The more casual fan may not appreciate it in the same way. It's an essential 5-star release nonetheless.

89 of 102 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars STREET SURVIVORS KICKS THE . . . OUT OF EVERYTHING ELSE! December 10, 2001

By Michael G. King

Format:Audio CD

In September 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd had one of the worst reputations in rock 'n' roll. During the previous "five years of alcoholism" Ronnie Van Zant had single-handedly left a trail of trashed hotel rooms, whiskey-soaked gigs and fistfights over mistakes in the shows. On Labor Day weekend, 1976, just before the release of Skynyrd's new double-live LP "One More From The Road", founding guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins were involved in separate alcohol and drug related auto accidents. While DUI, Collins hit a parked car, knocking it across an empty parking lot. Fortunately, he emerged unscathed. Rossington was not so lucky. Passing out at the wheel of his brand new Ford Torino, with his foot on the gas, his car went out of control and knocked down a telephone pole, split an oak tree, and did $7,000 worth of damage to a house. It was Rossington's accident that was Ronnie Van Zant's inspiration to write "Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars; Oak tree you're in my way" for the song "That Smell".

During April, 1977 recording sessions, the band laid down tracks for a pair of new Van Zant-Rossington songs, the catchy "What's Your Name", which was inspired by a bar fight involving roadie Craig Reed, and a churning blues number called "Sweet Little Missy", that featured Billy Powell on keyboards and a searing Steve Gaines guitar solo. The later was dropped from the new album prior to it's release, and appears as a bonus track on the new expanded edition CD. Steve Gaines was one of the souths most promising young guitarists and sadly, the world never got to hear the full potential of what this musician would have had to offer. The band also recorded two new Gaines-Van Zant songs, "You Got That Right", a rocking celebration of the band's exhurberant touring lifestyle and "I Never Dreamed", an introspective ballad that addressed the fundamental shift in Ronnie Van Zant's priorities since the birth of his daughter, Melody, on September 19, 1976.

After all the turmoil Skynyrd had endured, they decided to call their new record "Street Survivors". The original album cover pictured the band standing tall, while flames engulfed them. The flames would be removed from the cover art just weeks later, deemed in poor taste. I myself am happy to see it return, as it holds a message that the band intended to convey. "More went into Street Survivors than any other album we have ever done," said Ronnie Van Zant. "Maybe there's not a big hit single on it like 'Sweet Home Alabama,' but it's the best we've ever done." Ronnie was wrong about the hit single though, because "What's Your Name" cracked the Top 10 singles charts.

"Street Survivors", released October 17, 1977 was the most anticipated Skynyrd album yet, shipping over 500,000 units, automatically making it a gold record. It eventually went to multi-platinum status. Sadly, just three days after the album's release, on the first week of the new tour, the band's tour plane ran out of gas and crashed into a Mississippi forrest, killing Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, sister Cassie Gaines, and road manager Dean Kilpatrick.

"Street Survivors" marks a time of change for Lynyrd Skynyrd, as it is unlike any prior Skynyrd studio album. This is the one that features the triple-guitar assualt of Rossington-Collins-Gaines that was intoduced live on "One More From The Road", and that is most prominently featured on "That Smell". Highlights In addition to "That Smell", the top 10 "What's Your Name" and "You Got That Right", include a Steve Gaines song from his pre-Skynyrd days, "I Know A Little", a six year old Skynyrd song repolished that even pre-dates "Free Bird", "One More Time", and a brothelesque rocking little number that is one of my favorites, "Ain't No Good Life." Another key note is their cover of Merle Haggard's "Honkey Tonk Night Time Man". The world will never know where Skynyrd would have taken us musically, had the tragic events of October, 1977 not occured. "Street Survivors" was only the beginning of a new brand of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

ALAS, IT'S TIME TO BRING "STREET SURVIVORS" OUT OF THE CLOSET & CRANK UP THE SPEAKERS.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars +1/2 -- Skynyrd's swan-song with terrific bonuses March 4, 2008

By hyperbolium

Format:Audio CD

The fifth and final studio album of Lynyrd Skynyrd's original incarnation has always lived in the shadow of the 1977 plane crash that followed just three days after the LP's release. The band's fans couldn't help but refract the album through the prism of vocalist/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant's death, adding layers of meaning that weren't originally written into these songs. Thirty-one years later, the band's demise still hovers over this swan-song, but at the same time, the album's vitality and the band's then-bright future still shines through. Geffen's two-disc deluxe reissue augments the album's original eight tracks with a wealth of bonuses, including previously unreleased original versions of songs that were completely re-recorded for the commercial release, and five live tracks from the band's last-known concert recording, taped just two months before the plane crash.

Having become a top concert draw throughout the mid-70s, the band found a surprising amount of time to record this album. They produced a finished version with Tom Dowd in Florida, ditched the tapes and relocated to the Atlanta studio where they'd waxed "Free Bird." They re-recorded the bulk of the album from scratch, dropped a few songs and added a few others to create the final release. Though most of the titles remained the same between the two sessions, the energy and sound are quite different. The band is more pumped up on their self-produced recordings, and where Dowd stripped things down, the band added layers, such as the horn chart on "What's Your Name." Their intuition was right, and though some fans didn't appreciate Skynyrd evolving away from their rougher roots, Van Zant's songs easily took the extra polish.

Van Zant's lyrics continued to mine the autobiographical clarity and detail he'd shown on earlier albums, and the addition of guitarist Steve Gaines added country flavor to the original "I Know a Little" and a cover of Merle Haggard's "Honky Tonk Night Time Man." Still, the band could always play it gritty, as the Collins/Van Zant "That Smell" so aptly showed. The earlier version of the song, taken a hair slower and with Van Zant's vocal more isolated and dry, is even more harrowing (a second early version, included here, extends the song to 7:30 with a lengthy guitar jam). The overall hallmark of "Street Survivors" is the confident sound of a band at the top of their game.

Fans will relish the opportunity to hear the earlier unreleased version of the album, including a pair of songs ("Georgia Peaches" and "Sweet Little Missy") that were dropped from the final track list. An additional highlight presented here is Van Zant's rewrite of "Honky Tonk Night Time Man," as the autobiographical "Jacksonville Kid." The five live tracks are good performances of historical interest, but only limited (and mono) audio quality. This is a welcome upgrade to the original CD issue. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]