"Skynyrd's First And… Last" (MCG 3529)

From the very beginning of my vinyl collecting journey, I had to make a difficult decision about what to buy and what not to buy. In the age of easily accessible streaming of almost every record released after 1960, buying vinyl has become more of a collector’s item and an audiophile experience, so it’s easier (and cheaper) to focus on specific artists or genres. My decision was this: I collect all the albums by The Beatles (I grew up with them) and Mark Knopfler (solo and from his Dire Straits days), as well as individual albums by various artists that have gained special meaning to me over the years. I wrote an article about the latter, The 20 Best Albums According to Jacek Dudzic.

And that’s how I came across a strange 1978 release by the American band Lynyrd Skynyrd, with the telling title „Skynyrd’s First and… Last.” This album was never meant to be released, as it contains demos recorded by the band at the very beginning of their career, but shelved and never released.

The decision to release this album came after a plane crash on October 20, 1977, that killed three band members (including founder, vocalist, and principal songwriter Ronnie Van Zant), which led to Lynyrd Skynyrd going on hiatus (the band reunited 10 years later). It was intended to be the band’s final, farewell album, and thanks to it, the beautiful song „White Dove,” sung by drummer Rickey Medlocke, who left the group shortly after the demo recordings and only returned in the 1990s, saw the light of day.

I heard „Skynyrd’s First And… Last” in early 1979 on the reel-to-reel Grundig of my elementary school friend, who had recorded it from Piotr Kaczkowski’s „Minimax” show. Unfortunately, about halfway through the show, my friend ran out of tape, and I only got to hear the first side of the album, but it made a powerful impression on me at the time. In the mid-1990s, I found this album on CD at a record rental store in Lublin and, after a dozen or so years, I finished listening to it.

It’s probably not a particularly significant release in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s oeuvre, but for me, it evokes memories of the days when my friend and I would rush to his place (or mine) after school to listen to the interesting albums invariably recorded from the Polish Radio 3 show.

The album is relatively readily available in record stores, although it has only had one pressing in the US and two in the UK (the second being a 1988 reissue with a different catalog number), as well as a number of pressings in other countries (including Ireland, France, and Sweden). In 1998, the expanded material, with eight additional tracks, was released as „Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.”

My collection includes the original 1978 UK pressing (catalog number MCG 3529) with a beautiful gatefold cover printed by Garrod & Lofthouse (the same company that printed all Beatles album covers).

Tracklist

Down South Jukin’
Preacher’s Daughter
White Dove
Was I Right Or Wrong
Lend A Helpin’ Hand
Wino
Comin’ Home
The Seasons
Things Goin’ On

Cover

Outer pages (first and last): Inner pages with photos, song list and artists:

Labels

„Skynyrd’s First And… Last” received black labels with a rainbow at the 10-11 p.m. hour mark. According to CVINYL, these labels were used by MCA Records in the UK only from 1974 to 1976, after which they were replaced by a light blue label with a much smaller rainbow (in roughly the same position), but I found elsewhere that they were used from 1972 until 1980.

Matrix / Runout

The entire UK edition of this record appears to have been pressed using a single set of matrices: MCG 3529 A-1 (side 1) and MCG 3529 B-1. The abbreviation HTM is also scratched into the end area of ​​side A.