Street Survivors
Studio album by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Released	October 17, 1977
Recorded	Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida, April 1977; Studio One, Doraville, Georgia, July–August 1977; Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Genre	Southern rock, boogie rock
Length	35:26
Label	MCA
Producer	Tom Dowd; Jimmy Johnson & Tim Smith (track 3)
Lynyrd Skynyrd chronology
One More from the Road (1976) Street Survivors (1977) Skynyrd's First and... Last (1978)
Alternate cover
Cover image used following the plane crash
Singles from Street Survivors
"What's Your Name" Released: November 1977 "You Got That Right" Released: October 17, 1977

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Christgau's Record Guide	A[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]
The Daily Vault	A[4]

Street Survivors is the fifth studio album by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on October 17, 1977. The LP is the last Skynyrd album recorded by original members Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, and is the sole Skynyrd studio recording by guitarist Steve Gaines. Three days after the album's release, the band's chartered airplane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing the pilot, co-pilot, the group's assistant road-manager and three band members (Van Zant, Gaines, and Gaines' older sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines), and severely injuring most who survived the crash.

The album was an instant success, achieving gold certification just 10 days after its release. It would later go double platinum.^[5] The album performed well on the charts, peaking at #5 (the band's highest-charting album), as did the singles "What's Your Name" and "That Smell," the former a top-20 hit on the singles chart.

Background

Street Survivors was recorded twice, once with Tom Dowd at the helm at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, and then at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia, five months later with uncredited co-producers Kevin Elson and Rodney Mills. The Doraville recording was used for the initial release of the album. On March 4, 2008, a remastered version of the album, Street Survivors: Deluxe Edition, was released with these alternate versions of most of the songs as well as five live tracks. Differences are minor on some songs, with the major difference being a much slower and extended earlier version of "That Smell." Also included are two songs recorded for, but not included on the original album, "Georgia Peaches" and "Sweet Little Missy," with the latter being included twice, in demo and final form. Also included is a version of "Honky Tonk Night Time Man," with Ronnie's alternate autobiographical vocal take, entitled "Jacksonville Kid," which is believed to be the last vocal take he ever recorded in a studio.

The song "One More Time" was added to the album, presumably after it was decided to drop one of the two tracks above. However, this song is the original recording from their 1971 Muscle Shoals demo; it was not re-recorded for this album. Hence it features Greg Walker, Rickey Medlocke, and Ed King in place of Leon Wilkeson, Artimus Pyle, and Steve Gaines.

Street Survivors was a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier on the recommendation of his sister Cassie. Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day." Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the guitar boogie "I Know A Little," which Gaines had written before he joined Skynyrd. So confident was Skynyrd's leader of Gaines' abilities, that the album (and some concerts) featured Gaines delivering his self-penned blues "Ain't No Good Life" - one of the few songs in the first incarnation Skynyrd catalog to feature a lead vocalist other than Van Zant. The album also included the hit singles "What's Your Name" and the ominous "That Smell" - a cautionary tale about drug abuse that seemed to be aimed at fellow band members (both Collins and Gary Rossington had serious car accidents which slowed the recording of the album).

Critical reception

Robert Christgau, who gave the album a positive review, stated: "Some rock deaths are irrelevant, while others make a kind of sense because the artists involved so obviously long to transcend (or escape) their own mortality. But for Ronnie Van Zant, life and mortality were the same thing--there was no way to embrace one without at least keeping company with the other. So it makes sense that 'That Smell' is the smell of death, or that in 'You Got That Right' Van Zant boasts that he'll never be found in an old folks' home. As with too many LPs by good road bands, each side here begins with two strong cuts and then winds down. The difference is that the two strong cuts are very strong and the weak ones gain presence with each listen. I'm not just being sentimental. I know road bands never make their best album the sixth time out, and I know Van Zant had his limits. But I mourn him not least because I suspect that he had more good music left in him than Bing and Elvis put together."^[9]

Track listing

All tracks were previously unreleased except where noted.

Live tracks recorded at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California on August 24, 1977.

Personnel

Lynyrd Skynyrd

• Ronnie Van Zant – lead vocals
• Steve Gaines – guitar, backing vocals, lead vocal on "Ain't No Good Life", co-lead vocals on "You Got That Right"
• Allen Collins – guitar
• Gary Rossington – guitar
• Leon Wilkeson – bass, backing vocals
• Artimus Pyle – drums
• Billy Powell – keyboards
• Ed King – guitar on "One More Time"
• Greg T. Walker – bass on "One More Time"
• Rickey Medlocke – drums and backing vocals on "One More Time"

Additional personnel

• The Honkettes (JoJo Billingsley, Cassie Gaines, Leslie Hawkins) – backing vocals on "That Smell" and "One More Time"
• Tim Smith – backing vocals on "One More Time"
• Barry Lee Harwood – dobro on "Honky Tonk Night Time Man"

Chart positions

Certifications

References