A brilliant collection of interviews, dating from the 1970s through the 2000s, with all the key players in the Lynyrd Skynyrd story. A treasure trove for true fans and music historians.
Gene Odom grew up with the boys who would later form Lynyrd Skynyrd in Jacksonville, Florida, and later became the band's bodyguard. Odom was aboard the chartered plane that crashed down in a Mississippi swamp in 1977, killing Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members and effectively ending the band's run. This memoir begins with a gripping account of that fateful flight; the sections of the book focused on the band members' youthful hijinks are also fascinating.
This is the definitive group biography of Lynyrd Skynyrd. If you're only going to read one book on the band, this should be it.