“People go, ‘How can you write another Free Bird?’ And I go, ‘You can’t.’ Nobody could ever fill Ronnie’s shoes”: The unlikely second coming of Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant performing onstage in 1987.

“I never have, and I never will, because only one man can sing this song on stage, and that’s my older brother Ronnie Van Zant. So you guys sing for us tonight, OK? Can you let him hear you in rock’n’roll Heaven?”

Placing Ronnie’s Hi-Roller hat on a spotlit mic-stand, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Johnny Van Zant leaves the stage. The band that remains strike up the instantly recognisable opening chords, and Free Bird rings out. It’s 1987, and with those chords, and an audience singing Ronnie’s words in full voice, Skynyrd returned…