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 single "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).
Plane crash On October 20, 1977, only three days after the release of
Street Survivors, and five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered
Convair CV-300 ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from
Greenville, South Carolina, where they had just performed at the
Greenville Memorial Auditorium, to
LSU in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest five miles (8 km) northeast of
Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines,
Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were killed on impact. The other band members (Collins, Rossington, Wilkeson, Powell, Pyle, and Hawkins), tour manager Ron Eckerman, and road crew survived, but suffered serious injuries. Following the crash and the ensuing press,
Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album and reached No. 5 on the U.S. album chart. The single "What's Your Name?" reached No. 13 on the single airplay charts in January 1978. The original cover sleeve for
Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band standing on a city street with all its buildings engulfed in flames, some near the center nearly obscuring Steve Gaines's face. After the plane crash, this cover became highly controversial. Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve's widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background, which was on the back cover of the original sleeve. An urban legend has long claimed that only those band members touched by flame in the photograph were killed in the crash, but this is not true (flame appears to touch nearly all band members). The original "flames" cover was restored for the
Deluxe Edition. ==Critical reception==