Then And Now

Then And Now

Lynyrd Skynyrd

CMC International Records, 2000

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/27/2000

Sometimes, you have to really feel for bands like LynyrdSkynyrd. It's been over 20 years since the plane crash that claimedthe lives of band members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and CassieGaines, but some of their fans seem to want to believe it's still1977, before the horrible crash. Lynyrd Skynyrd has been fronted byVan Zant's brother Johnny since the 1987 reunion shows, and theband has, through nearly as many lineup changes as Spinal Tap,churned out some damned fine Southern rock.

But fans stubbornly cling to the old songs and don't want toeven give any time to the new material. Christ, the band could give each concert-goer their new studio album, and peoplewould be complaining that there wasn't the be-all-end-all versionof "Free Bird" tacked on as a bonus track.

So it's rather sad that Lynyrd Skynyrd should be reduced toreleasing a disc just three albums into the band's tenure with CMCInternational, Then And Now. What they try to do with this release is tofairly combine live versions of the old favorites with songs fromthe two most recent studio albums - and if there was justice inthis world, this would be enough to get people to run out toWal-Mart and to buy Twenty and Edge Of Forever, the last two studio efforts.

The one complaint I have with this disc right off the bat isthat Twenty is criminally ignored, garnering just one track,"Voodoo Lake". (They should have at least considered "We Ain't MuchDifferent," a song that some people might have recognized from theVH-1 special on the band.) Yeah, I realize that the ultimate goalis to spur on some sales for Edge Of Forever - which, if you didn't read the review of itback in September, is one damned fine album - but it wouldn't hurtto get people interested in everything.