Lynyrd Skynyrd - Second Helping

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - "Sweet Home Alabama" - Rated 407/500! 200g Vinyl Pressed At Quality Record Pressings! Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio! This 1974 album produced the group's biggest hit single, "Sweet Home Alabama". The single reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974 while the album reached #12 on the Billboard Album charts. Selections also include "Don't Ask Me No Questions" and "The Battle of Curtis Loew". Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote the book on Southern rock with their first album, so it only made sense that they followed it for their second album, aptly titled Second Helping. Sticking with producer Al Kooper, the group turned out a record that replicated all the strengths of the original, but was a little tighter and a little more professional. But it also revealed that the band, under the direction of songwriter Ronnie VanZant, was developing a truly original voice. Of course, the band had already developed their own musical voice, but it was enhanced considerably by VanZant's writing, which was at turns plainly poetic, surprisingly clever, and always revealing. "Though Second Helping isn't as hard a rock record as Pronounced, it's the songs that make the record. "Sweet Home Alabama" became ubiquitous, yet it's rivaled by such terrific songs as the snide, punkish "Workin' for MCA," the Southern groove "Don't Ask Me No Questions," the affecting "The Ballad of Curtis Loew," and "The Needle and the Spoon," a drug tale as affecting as their rival Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done," but much harder rocking. This is the part of Skynyrd that most people forget -- they were a great band, but they were indelible because that was married to great writing. And nowhere was that more evident than on Second Helping." - Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide "Van Zant sang this pissed-off answer to Neil Young's 'Southern Man,' and even Young loved it. 'I'd rather play 'Sweet Home Alabama' than 'Southern Man' anytime,' Young said. The admiration was mutual; Van Zant wore a Young T-shirt on the cover of Skynyrd's final album, Street Survivors, and according to legend, he is buried in the shirt." - Rolling Stone Features: • 200g Vinyl • Pressed at Quality Record Pressings • Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio Selections: 1. Sweet Home Alabama 2. I Need You 3. Don't Ask Me No Questions 4. Workin' For MCA 5. The Ballad of Curtis Loew 6. Swamp Music 7. The Needle and The Spoon 8. Call Me the Breeze