Lynyrd Skynyrd

Gimme Back My Bullets is Lynyrd Skynyrd's fourth studio album. It was released on February 2, 1976. It reached # 20 on the U.S. albums chart. The album was certified Gold on 1/20/1981. The album was originally titled Ain't No Dowd About It, in tribute to the producer Tom Dowd, whom the band idolized. It remains the only studio album by the precrash lineup to have not yet reached platinum or higher in the United States. However, it did include the hits "Gimme Back My Bullets", "Searching", "Double Trouble", and "Cry for the Bad Man".

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 (who, after all, discovered them), the group turned out a record that replicated all the strengths of the original, but was a little tighter and a little more professional. It also revealed that the band, under the direction of songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, was developing a truly original voice. Of course, the band had already developed their own musical voice, but it was enhanced considerably by Van Zant'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 of "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.

Second Helping brought Lynyrd Skynyrd mass success and for the follow-up they offered Nuthin' Fancy. It was a self-deprecating title for a record that may have offered more of the same, at least on the surface, but was still nearly peerless as a Southern rock record. The biggest difference with this record is that the band, through touring, has become heavier and harder, fitting right in with the heavy album rock bands of the mid-'70s. The second notable difference is that Ronnie Van Zant may have been pressed for material, since there are several songs here that are just good generic rockers. But he and Skynyrd prove that what makes a great band great is how they treat generic material…

Gold & Platinum was compiled by Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, the two surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, after the band’s tragic plane crash of 1977.