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Right. As a hired in employee. Not a band member. Jakson Spires said Ronnie Van Zant actually called for him to play drums but Rickey intercepted the call and did not tell Jakson Ronnie called for him. So Rickey, being deceptive and lying is the one who went to Muscle Shoals trying to make his move into someone else's band and music which he did. But he was not a good fit and Ronnie told Rickey this band is not big enough for the both of us and its MY band, meaning Rickey had to go. He was NEVER a band member. MCA Records made this clear in the booklet with box set which shows for all time all 7 Lynyrd Skynyrd bands from start to finish. Rickey Medlocke is NOT in any of them. And because of this not inducted into rock hall of fame.

No he was not. He was simply a part time hired in employee when Bob Burns was not around. Rickey was NEVER an original band member and if you listened to Gary in the video he made it very clear. Rickey was a drummer. But he was not and is NOT an "original" drummer for Skynyrd. How hard is it to understand he was a temporary part time employee and NOTHING more?

@@Cagey-1 I stand corrected on The Smokehouse then. LOL. I'll be in the Orlando/Winter Park area for work. That the only place (thus far) that I go to FL for work, usually a few times a year.

@@Cagey-1 I'm scheduled to be there this week but the schedule may be tight as we fly in, go to dinner, do our work for two days and then fly out.

@@googleusergp I may be in that area this weekend. Let me know if you get some free time.

After release of the movie. Its not up to me.

​@@Cagey-1Will you update us?

Because a home owner wants to build his house in the same spot as the hell house cabin and wants to build his new boat dock in that same space. Past history no longer matters there. We have lost that location.

When they were a band called One Percent recording DEMOS to get a recording contract Rickey sang it. They were NOT Lynyrd Skynyrd. Rickey was never a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Those early old demos were released as Skynyrd AFTER the plane crash to make money off the dead band and that is how Rickey was turned into Skynyrd. Its not real. Its an invention. And the RRHF and MCA Records have gone on record to state the same. Rickey is NOT Skynyrd. A fraud is being perpetrated on the band and fans.

Yes he did. I got to hear it the very first day I met Leon. He included it into his show with the band Vision. It was the Leon testimony time. I remember it well.

@@Cagey-1 any chance you could share some of that story? Either way, I appreciate your time!

@@Cagey-1 I agree, it would be interesting to hear some of these stories. I told the sales manager at the company in Winter Park that I go to a few times a year for work about you and he mentioned that at one time he was on the fire department/rescue squad for Altamonte Springs, FL. Then it clicked. That's where the "Jacksonville 5+" had the record signing a few days before the plane crash in 1977 at the mall.

@@chipcruey7757 Leon stood on stage in the cafeteria of Orange Park High School on the first day I met him and Billy and Rocco and Tim Smith, and he shared some details of surviving the plane crash. They called it the Leon testimonial part of the show which gave everyone else a break while Leon talked to the audience. Leon said that his guts were ripped out in the plane crash and when they loaded him into the ambulance for ride to the hospital that they had 4 blood transfusions giving him blood as his own blood flowed out of him as fast as they could pump it into him. He said on the way to the hospital blood was flowing out the rear door of the ambulance. Leon said as he laid on the table in the emergency room he had an out of body experience. Leon said he technically died 3 times and was brought back each time. He said they would work on him and he would die and they would give up on him and he would twitch or move a foot and they would come back to work on him some more. Leon would not give up. He said as they worked on him and he laid there dying and reviving and dying again, that he floated out of his body and rose slowly above them working on him and he said he could look down on them working on him. At some point Leon said he recalled rising up higher and now in the sky and clouds around him. And he said he was back to back with Duane Allman who said over his shoulder to Leon joining him in this out of body experience, that he and Duane were both looking down on the living and Leon said Duane Allman told him "They do not know where the top really is." I assume meaning only in death and freedom from suffering and pain of life was reaching the top, but that is my own interpretation. After this, Leon was revived for the last time and I assume returned to his body to try and recover from this plane crash. I met Leon in 1985, and you could see it in his eyes. Lights on, but was anyone home? It is as if Leon never came back to this world and did not want to. He suffered for the rest of his life from his plane crash injuries. He developed incontinence which followed him right onto the stages of the world. And he sought out the best orthopedic surgeons to put his left arm back together, but he was never able to rotate it around enough to play bass normally and had to add an extension to some guitars and play them almost vertically because his left arm could no longer rotate enough to play the instruments normally.

@@googleusergp Yep. October 17, 1977. The band was staying in hotels next to i-4 in Lakeland, and took two black limos right up i-4 to Altamonte Springs mall. One thing fans may not be aware of, but that location at the mall was 1 block from old BJ Studios where band members recorded on a regular basis. The reason for this choice of location revolved around Skynyrd's former manager Pat Armstrong who managed numerous bands from his offices in Altamonte Springs, Longwood area of Florda. Artists like Molly Hatchet, Stranger, Pat Travers, Savoy Brown, Foghat and others. Pat Armstrong was the one involved with BJ Studios on Douglas Ave just across i-4 from the Altamonte Springs mall. This studio eventually turned into Full Sail school and studios. It started there on Douglas Ave. Greg Rike also had a studio on the same road. Right after the plane crash some of the Skynyrd survivors first recorded with Leo LaBranche at El Paso, but the second project after the plane crash was the Alias Contraband album with Dorman Cogburn of Jacksonville who recorded his one and only album at the BJ Studios. Years later I would go in that same studio with Artimus Pyle and his band APB Fenwicks who recorded their demos and first album project there. So when Skynyrd arrived at the Altamonte Springs mall October 17, 1977, that area of Florida had a much deeper connection to Skynyrd than many today are even aware of. Another connection was to Rusty Day who moved into the Longwood area just north of Altamonte Springs. In fact, where Rusty Day rented his house off Markham Woods road was on the north end of Douglas ave. where the recordings studios were located. Rusty was trying to put a new Cactus band back together when he was murdered inside his house there. Rusty and Steve Gaines were in bands together before Steve joined Skynyrd. The offices of Pat Armstrong band management was located on state road 434 about one mile east of where Douglas ave and Markham Woods road intersected with 434 just west of i-4. It was a large growing music scene based right there and only those in it knew about it.

On my channel home page is a link to a discussion for um filled with info and more recordings. Called Skynyrd Frynds. Check it out!

Yep. ZERO original band members. We need laws protecting civilization from such obvious frauds as what we have today.

Yep and he was not telling the truth either! And the crash site was heavily plundered and he discounted that as well even though it was true.

@@Cagey-1 I'm sure he didn't want to throw anyone under the bus. It was pretty obvious that there was "better living through chemistry" going on during that flight.

Do they have any recorded music? Gotta have something to listen to! And yes, these items are now on display in Green Cover Springs, Florida at the Clay County Historical Society. And more will be donated soon.

@@Cagey-1 I'm looking on her FB page and I see some old photos of her when she played keyboards. Unfortunately, her and my friend both passed away. The band would have been in the MS area. The band's name was "Tyme" and they were I believe around during the 1980s. The post on my friend's wife's page mentions that they met in 1987. I believe she also played in a band called "Conspiracy" at one time. She mentions living in San Diego, but by the time I knew my friend and his wife, they were in Mississippi in the Columbus area. She used to play in a church band/for services as I remember and she was very active with helping adoptees find their birth families. She was adopted I believe at a young age and that inspired her to do that. She was a great person, very kind. She passed away a few years ago, she was four years older than me.

Aero Lane is in the industrial area of Sanford. I lived about 7 miles South of there for years in Maitland/Longwood area. I know that area well. I was living in Longwood when I drove up to Crescent Beach to find this tape on Artimus' front porch for decorations. The year Allen Woody, Artimus, and Sammy Stafford played together was around 1993. The question I have is, does Larry Goad even still have this tape? And is it playable?

@@Cagey-1 That's a good question. If he can be tracked down, maybe we'll have our answer. Yes, it was an industrial area. The company that I used to go to there is gone, and the owner works for another organization in Winter Park which I go to for work a few times a year to perform inspections.

@@googleusergp Give me a shout next time you are in Florida. Presently I am in Jacksonville but plan on going back down to central Florida in future. I still have a house in Fern Park right next to Winter Park. I take my boat and fish in Winter Park all the time. I put boat into Lake Virginia by Rollins College. I fish the entire chain of lakes there - 6 lakes in all. And others around the area.

@@Cagey-1 Thanks. I'm usually in and out in a few days on business trips down there. I do vehicle inspections, so I'm generally working all day from early morning through late afternoon. I usually come in on a Monday, and we're out by Thursday late morning. Tight schedule. We usually hit High Tide Harry's on Semoran Blvd for dinner one night. I'm not much of a seafood guy so it's a grilled chicken salad for me. LOL. Another night we hit Osprey in Orlando on another night. I don't make the travel arrangements, so sometimes the schedule is tighter than others. The travel varies to different US locations depending on where the inspections need to be done. I was supposed to go down in October, but it's possibly going to be November at this point. I think Mark and Joe need to do a livestream where we can all banter our opinions and ideas/knowledge. I "elected" you, but told Mark and Joe that only if you wanted to do so, you'd be a great live guest. I enjoyed the phone call on the last episode.

@@Cagey-1 Any word on "Broadneck Mark"? Has he been released from the hospital and on the mend? I haven't seen anything from that channel in over a month, so I'm hoping he's doing OK.

I was very supportive of the work Ron O'Brien was accomplishing for the band. His heart was in the right place. Ron dug through archives and warehouses and dug up the last of the recordings in the vaults so to speak. Ron O'Brien deserves credit for finding and releasing some very rare recordings, even unknown recordings like what became the song "Jacksonville Kid" that no one in the band knew about, or even at MCA Records. It was by mere chance that one song was discovered and we have Ron O'Brien to thank for it. I agree with the work Ron was trying to do. I tried to help him and was credited on one Skynyrd album for those efforts, but I should have been on a half dozen of them but was blackballed by Gary and Judy and Skynyrd organization. Ron was also blackballed by the same people plus others like Ed King and Al Kooper. What Gary, Ed, and Al Kooper were angry with was not the albums Ron was putting together and releasing. They were upset with Ron over his words that he put together as historical stories of the band. Ed King, Gary Rossington, and Al Kooper all objected to the way Ron did his research and writings that were released along with his albums. And it is for this reason I believe they all ganged up against Ron and went to MCA Records with threats of lawsuits if it did not stop. And I think for this reason Ron O'Brien was fired from MCA Records and went back to his bee keeping business. So this is how I see it retrospectively now. Ron is a good guy who did good things that others objected to each for their own reasons and it cost Ron his job. But if it were not for Ron O'Brien and his persistent efforts at recovering lost recordings like the 1973 live radio performance, and the original Norman Vincent studios recordings of Markham and Sutton, the world may have never heard those. And that box set may have been what set Al Kooper off because Ron stuck it to Al Kooper on that one. Al Kooper back in November of 1974 when he sold his Sounds of the South Record label to MCA Records for a cool one million dollars, Al Kooper was supposed to hand over ALL of his Skynyrd recordings. He did not Al Kooper kept at least 15 fat track reel to reel tapes including that 1973 live radio performance from Memphis I think it was. Ron O'Brien wanted it for the box set but Al Kooper wanted money for it, and he wanted money from MCA to pay him to mix it for the box set. MCA's position was they had already paid Al Kooper for it and he was holding out on them and trying to get them to pay him twice for something MCA already owned. So Ron O'Brien did some digging and found the radio station still had a 2 track "line" copy of the mixed down version that went out live over the radio sitting in a closet in some hallway of the radio station which Ron O'Brien was able to recover and he used that for release on the box set which completely sidestepped Al Kooper and denied Al Kooper any money for what tape he retained in violation of the 1974 sale. I agree with Ron O'Brien on this one. He did the right thing in denying thief Al Kooper any more money for what he illegally held onto. And I think this was behind why Al Kooper and others ganged up on Ron and made MCA Records fire him eventually forever stopping what he was doing. MCA has not done anything close to what Ron O'Brien had accomplished since. And if Ed King, Gary Rossington, and Al Kooper were objecting to Ron's descriptions of band's history, then each of those jerks should have been HELPING Ron to do the best he could on those albums he put together. Not helping and whining about it after the fact was not the way to go about it. Ed and Gary and Al Kooper all failed the band and fans on that count. The bottom line here is I supported Ron O'Brien and what he was doing back then. Shame it all ended the way it did but I point the finger at Gary, Ed, Al, and Judy for not helping Ron to make it right, and for being behind sabotaging the greatest era of Skynyrd music discovery and release ever all masterminded by Ron O'Brien. And fans need to realize that MCA Records vaults are now basically emptied out because of it. But, back home in Jacksonville numerous recordings of the band have been discovered and should all be added to the body of work the band recorded and yet the powers that be in Skynyrd today have ZERO interest in any of the historically important recordings that have been discovered. With artificial intelligence, they can all be cleaned up and shared with fans so they can earn income from those recordings and the world can learn from them. Some of the recordings include songwriting sessions of Allen Collins privately at home. Songwriting sessions from inside of Hell House. At least 4 full live band performances in Jacksonville, maybe as many as 6 full shows, I am not sure, but recorded I think between 1969 and 1972 predating any and all officially released live recordings of which Ron O'Brien holds the record for having released the 1973 Memphis live radio performance which to date is the oldest known live recording ever released on the band and today we have full live shows that predate that one and the powers that be in Skynyrd could not care less. Tom Wills local so called Skynyrd newsman could not care less to do stories on the recordings. The band and fans are being let down. These recordings need official recognition and release. And added to the band's historical record and examined by musicians and scholars and researchers and authors the world over. But as long as we have people at the top of Skynyrd and at MCA Records who seem to not give a dam, then nothing will change. Maybe Craig and Griff can do shows on the recordings and we can all help push for change and demand and petition them to do something with the recordings. It is insane such incredible recordings are largely ignored especially when the vaults are empty. It makes no sense to me at all that anyone would ignore such incredibly historical recordings. This must change. We all need to voice our opinions and make change happen if we can. Something else that needs to be considered is that it is possible Ron O'Brien may also be holding out. Holding out because he was fired. We need to find out if he knows more or has knowledge of recordings he has not brought forward because of how he was badly treated by 4 people who went after him. The negativity is extremely counterproductive. And it is the band's legacy and musical history and fans that are missing out on it all. There is a growing long list of incredible recordings that need sharing with the world. The people in control of Skynyrd today need to get with the program and make it happen. Hard to believe full shows of Ronnie Van Zant singing and Gary and Allen playing guitar is simply ignored and forgotten and buried today in 2024. This needs to change.

@@Cagey-1 Wow, that's some story...