LYNYRD SKYNYRD - Cardiff, Wales 1975 (R.I.P. BIlly Powell)

Never been much of a Skynyrd or Southern Rock man, myself, but I am open to persuasion. That's what's great about 1960s and '70s rock; it's a bottomless well of discovery. I'm sure there are many fine folks out there who treasure the Skynyrd the way I treasure, say, The Zombies or Queen. It is, as they say, all good.

The truly amazing thing about bands of this magical period is how incredibly goddamn prolific they were. I mean, the original -- which is to say pre-crash of October '77 -- lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd put out five studio albums, plus the requisite double-live LP set, in four years. Who does that anymore? And back then, this was hardly the exception; it was the rule. (In the first decade of his career, Elton John put out thirteen studio LPs! No wonder his did so much of the llelo.) Just astonishing! These days, except for a couple of industrious indie outfits like Animal Collective or Of Montreal, I can't think of a single act that produces music at such a rate.

So here's a Skynyrd boot that both superfans and never-weres can agree is top-drawer. With pristine 320 kbps audio, it's a King Biscuit Flower Hour concert that not only has never been commercially released -- bar a couple of tracks compiled here and there -- but apparently was never even broadcast at the time.

Now, why the best-ever Lynyrd Skynyrd boot happened to have been recorded in Cardiff, Wales and not in some stanky, swampy Southern juke joint is beyond my reckoning. But hey, what it means is this: you get to hear some guy yell, quite unironically, for "Free Bird"...in a fookin' Welsh accent!

R.I.P. Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell, who died this week, joining Ronnie, Steve, Leon, Allen etc. etc....

LYNYRD SKYNYRD "King Biscuit Flower Hour"
Capitol Theatre - Cardiff, Wales, UK - November 6, 1975 (FMB)
DOWNLOAD 1 / DOWNLOAD 2