I published my other song (Billy Joel) for Sunday last night for the prompt I joined.
The reason I like this song is all in that intro. The guitar in this is a lot of fun, and it is moving. Unlike most Lynyrd Skynyrd songs, this one was not written or co- written by Ronnie Van Zant. The new guitarist, Steve Gaines, wrote it before he joined the band. He recorded several songs before he joined them.
Gaines replaced Ed King as the band’s guitarist in 1976, but died in the 1977 plane crash that also claimed the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and Gaines’ sister Cassie, who was a backup singer for the group. This song provides a glimpse of songwriting and guitar talent. Steve Gaines was a special talent. I personally believe he would have gone far in music outside of this band. Street Survivors features guitar playing you never heard with this band before. Very sophisticated chord patterns and riffs in songs like “I Never Dreamed.”
This song was the B-side to What’s Your Name. I’ve heard the original version of this with Gaines. It’s supercharged, and he slowed it down for this version. They were a double-threat band…they could hit with singles and make superb rock albums.
Street Survivors peaked at #5 on the Billboard Album Charts and #3 in Canada in 1977. The band has sold 28 million albums in the US since 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales, not including album sales for the band’s first 17 years.
Of course, this band’s music is known as “southern rock.” Why, I don’t know. Is Aerosmith known as “northern rock?” I hate when music or people, for that matter, are generalized and boxed into one category like they are all the same. The Southern rock bands were different from each other. The same was true of the British bands as well. Was it a location thing? So by that rule, REM would be southern rock. Of course they are not, but you get what I’m saying. Anyway, let’s continue the post!
I Know A Little
Yes sir
Well the bigger the city, well the brighter the lights
The bigger the dog, well the harder the bite
I don’t know where you been last night
But I think mama, you ain’t doin’ right
Say I know a little
I know a little about it
I know a little
I know a little ’bout it
I know a little ’bout love
And baby I can guess the rest
Well now I don’t read that daily news
‘Cause it ain’t hard to figure
Where people get the blues
They can’t dig what they can’t use
If they stick to themselves
They’d be much less abused
Say I know a little
Lord I do know a little about it
I know a little
I know a little ’bout it
I know a little ’bout love
Baby I can guess the rest
Play me a little, oh yeah
Yeah
Well if you want me to be your only man
Said listen up mama, teach you all I can
Do right baby, by your man
Don’t worry mama, teach you all I can
Say I know a little
Lord I do know a little about it
I know a little
I know a little ’bout it
I know a little ’bout love
Baby I can guess the rest
Well I know a little ’bout love
Baby I want your best
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This is a cool crisp blues rock song. Not being a Lynyrd Skynyrd album owner it’s one I don’t know. But I am glad I do now.
Great song that catches you from the first notes. I think I like the first version a little better. Sometimes electric piano is just the sound a song needs.
He really mashed the gas in that first version. I like it as well…and yes…that intro caught me as well. It sounds older than 1977.
Cool song. Agree the intro is great. And, man, “I Know a Little” also nicely swings. If this groove doesn’t make you move, you’re either asleep or worse! 🤣
Indeed, a good intro. Gaines was a good guitarist and, I guess songwriter too. Such a loss to the music world when that plane went down.
Interesting point on ‘Southern Rock’. It certainly is based more on sound than geography, but it might be a bit limiting in a way to pigeonhole them together. That said, I can hear some similarities between the main ones in the ‘genre’- them, the Allman’s, Marshall Tucker Band, Little Feat etc. But you get bans like Atlanta Rhythm Section and they were from there, looked the part, could rock on stage but sounded more like Steely Dan than Skynyrd on record. Where do they slot in?
Well rememer though…Little Feat wasn’t southern rock..and they were from LA…the Allmans who started the “southern rock” were mostly blues and jazz…LS was a pure rock band like the Stones….I guess that is what I was getting at. Yea the ARS doesn’t fit anywhere! Probably the most southern of them all was the Marshall Tucker Band…but then again they had that flute coming in and out. Bob Seger fit the music profile…but not the geography…
Good point there- if you were going to put together a ‘Southern Rock Essentials’ disc, you’d start with ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ then ‘Old time rock & roll’…only Seger is from Detroit, obviously. So I guess it’s more a sound or mindset than locale. It’s like what is or isn’t Yacht Rock? Half the artists labeled that don’t like the term…though they love the royalties that have started rolling back in, I expect
Yea…I brought that up because when I started to think about it. Hmmm you shouldn’t put all of them in the same basket.
I guess it would be sound…. more than location…it would have to be. Of course I was having fun with REM…but you get what I’m saying. Oh yes…they love the money whichever way it’s coming in!
if you listen to the first couple of Tragically Hip albums, several of their songs were straight out of the “Southern Rock for Dummies’ playbook, songs like ‘Little Bones’ and “New Orleans is Sinking’… and they’re only “southern’ if talking about Canadian latitudes!
Good choice Max. I wish my brother would pronounce the band’s name properly!
LOL…you know what? It’s a wonder they made it as big with that name! It’s not easy to spell either. But man…could they rock.
Just make him listen to Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)” and he’ll get pretty close.
🙂
A little LS swing music. Always liked this cut, no idea about the history.
It does swing! Just some great chicken picking guitar so to speak.
Twang and Bite at its best.
Yep, I think Dave nailed it, it’s more that sound/mindset that makes it Southern. This one flies out of the traps at the beginning and keeps on a’running hard. Good tune.
Thanks obbverse…it’s that all in one basket again…lol…that seems to be nagging me lately for some reason. But yea…it’s a gooed guitar tune…and it swings!
I don’t know, some days I’m a Skynyrd fan, some days, well, I’m more a Molly Hatchet guy..but yeah a good tune…..I keep thinking, someone’s gotta do a piece on Johnny Horton….I dare someone to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico in a certain tune…
I cannot listen to their big hits anymore but I like these album cuts
I’m no expert on the band, but I will take more notice of Gaines’ playing. He does seem to know his way around the fretboard.
I know this sounds totally crazy, but I would put him up there with the greats. It’s really funny how he joined. They were looking for someone and his sister was a backup singer who was killed in the plane wreck as well. But they arranged for him to play live with them in Kansas and they had his sound turned down, mostly just in case he was really bad. He shocked the hell out of them because he was better than the guitar players they had and they grabbed him right away. He was on two albums… Street Survivors and One More for the Road… a live album
This song takes off right out of the gate and it keeps going, great post, Max.
Thanks Jim!
Sounds great. The crash also inspired a concept album by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Oh by the Drive-By Truckers? I’ve listened to some of that…I like it.