Garry Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Angelo Merendino/Getty Images)
Photo: Getty Images, Angelo Merendino. All rights reserved.
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Gary Rossington, the last founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, passed away on Sunday (March 5) at the age of 71. No cause of death was released, however the guitarist has been struggling with health issues since suffering a heart attack in 2015.
The group released a statement on Facebook: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the loss of our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist Gary Rossington today. Gary is now in heaven with his Skynyrd brothers and family, taking it easy like he always did. Please keep Dale, Mary and Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this time.”
A tour with his band was actually planned from July. Despite the health problems, Rossingten announced in an interview in 2016 that he wanted to continue touring and die playing the guitar. “It’s just in my blood, you know?” he explained his point of view. “I’m just an old guitarist and we’ve put all our love and tens of thousands of hours of work into understanding how to play properly. (…) When you retire, what comes next? I like fishing, but how often can you do that, right? So I want to keep doing what I’m doing right now.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd was founded in 1964 by Ronnie van Zant (†1977), Allen Collins (†1990), Bob Burns (†2015) and Larry Junstrom (†2019) along with Rossington. He had two children with his wife Dale Krantz.
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