Guitarist Gary Rossington was the last remaining original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sadly, he passed away on March 5th, 2023 at the age of 71. During a new interview on Real Music With Gary Stuckey, Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke opened up about the band's decision to continue following Rossington's death.
Medlocke: "We hear a lot of, 'Oh, it's nothing but a tribute band.' Well, they even said that when Gary was still alive. But here's the way I look at it: you've got the original singer's youngest brother (Johnny Van Zant) that has been in there almost 37 years. You've got me; that's my second go-round with the band, and I was in the original group, the formidable group. And you had Gary, an original founding member. Well, to us, us three guys standing upfront, we were, like, 'No, no, no.' A tribute band is a band of all strangers that love to play cover songs and decide one day they're gonna be a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. There's a ton of 'em on YouTube. When you come to see us, it's full-on tilt original-sounding, as close as you could ever possibly get. So the people sitting there behind their little computer keyboards and talking shit, they can talk that shit all they want to. My word is if you can do better than me, step up."
A week after the March 5th, 2023 passing of guitarist Gary Rossington, the band were back on stage at the Plant City Strawberry Festival in Florida on March 12th.
Lynyrd Skynyrd paid tribute to their late bandmate with a performance of “Tuesday’s Gone”, complete with images of Rossington projected on the screen behind the band. You can watch the performance below:
Lynyrd Skynyrd issued the following statement following Gary Rossington's passing: "It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today. Gary is now with his Skynyrd brothers and family in heaven and playing it pretty, like he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time."
