This musical testimony (that must have been searched by all Skynyrd fans) can now be reached by everyone. What an emotion to be able to listen to Gary Rossington talking about every song and introduce every musician to us. On this recording with Gary are present 1977 plane crash survivors (Allen Collins and Billy Powell). There are some famous Southern musicians too such as Charlie Daniels, Dickey Betts or Taz Di Gregorio. It begins on swing with “Jitterburg”, missing Taz and good guitars solos. Then there’s a “Cocaine” cover with Charlie Daniels on bass guitar and Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall on vocals. Father Charlie sings on the slow song “Reflections”, a song he wrote about the great missing rock stars (Elvis, Janis Joplin, Ronnie Van Zant). Then there’s an incredible jam with Dickey Betts on “Southbound”. Dickey also plays on the Country Gospel song “I don’t want to go down there” and on the Country “Another pretty country song” on acoustic guitar. It’s important to note that there’s another version of this musical reunion with 1979 Volunteer Jam extracts (“Call me the Breeze” and an instrumental version of “Free Bird” with a Ronnie Van Zant interview). Don’t forget that this jam was recorded in August 1978, less than one year after the plane crash. This brings more nostalgia and drama intensity to these tapes. We could write many full pages about that but it’s better to listen to these recordings as a prayer. A historic recording!

Olivier Aubry