On Oct. 20, 1977, Craig Reed was on prime of the world. Sitting at the back of a non-public airplane occupied by considered one of rock’s greatest bands, the 26-year-old Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie performed poker because the airplane flew 6,000 toes above the Piney Woods of Mississippi. Holding a joint and nursing a hangover from the evening earlier than, Reed was up round $1,700 in what he later referred to as a “fairly heavy sport” of playing cards.
4 years working with Lynyrd Skynyrd made Ohio’s Reed probably the most senior member of the band’s street crew. The southern rock band was on the peak of its profession, coasting on the success of all-time rock anthems like “Candy House Alabama” and “Free Chicken.” Three days earlier, Lynyrd Skynyrd launched its fifth album Road Survivors. If life may get higher, Reed did not understand it.
The album title would quickly tackle an ominous which means. Reed seemed up from his playing cards when he heard somebody yell that the airplane’s engines had given out. He’d quickly be put in a coma for 12 days earlier than awaking with a concussion, an array of damaged bones and a tube protruding of his chest. His poker winnings had been gone, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the band he’d spent 4 years with, was accomplished.
Reed, together with 19 others, is a survivor of one of the vital notorious tragedies in rock historical past, a airplane crash that claimed the lives of three members of a band of their prime, together with 29-year-old band chief Ronnie Van Zant. It will take years for individuals who lived via the crash to get better, and even longer for the beloved southern rock band to take the stage once more.
“As quickly as I came upon that Ronnie had died, I stated, ‘Man, it is over,'” Reed advised PokerNews in an interview.
Now, practically 50 years later, survivors of the 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd airplane crash replicate on what might have been probably the most harmful poker sport ever performed. PokerNews spoke with three crash survivors — Craig Reed, Gene Odom and Mark Howard — in addition to present Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke.
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Setting the Stage
The band that may later be inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame started as a bunch of youngsters from the tough neighborhoods of Jacksonville, Florida. Rickey Medlocke, who had a quick stint as drummer in 1971 and would later rejoin in 1996 as a guitarist, advised PokerNews that the Van Zant household would attend dances hosted by his grandfather, blues musician Shorty Medlocke. That’s the place Medlocke first met Ronnie Van Zant, the long run chief of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“All of us grew up on the westside collectively,” stated Medlocke, who wasn’t within the band on the time of the crash. “And being in teen golf equipment, taking part in in teen golf equipment with our personal teenage bands and all that stuff. That is type of how we congregated and acquired to know one another.”
Craig Reed met the band not in Northeast Florida however outdoors a Vacation Inn in Kent, Ohio, as they pulled up in a U-Haul whereas touring their massively profitable 1973 debut album that included the hits “Free Chicken,” “Easy Man,” and “Tuesday’s Gone.” He helped them haul gear on a snowy December evening for a present on the Smiling Canine Saloon in Cleveland, which led the band to rent him as a drum roadie.
Lynyrd Skynyrd noticed much more success with its subsequent album that includes “Candy House Alabama” and had been quickly packing arenas and touring with the likes of The Who and REO Speedwagon. By 1977, the identical 12 months poker godfather Doyle Brunson gained his second World Sequence of Poker Principal Occasion title, they had been touring across the nation within the consolation of personal planes.
Poker grew to become a fixture within the air, the right pastime on flights from Springfield to Chicago or Anaheim to Las Vegas, the place the band carried out lower than a month earlier than the crash.
“We performed a number of video games,” stated Reed, one of many extra expert gamers of the group. “We did not simply keep on one sport … We performed 5 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw, Seven Card Stud, Acey-Deucey, No Peek. It was simply Seller’s Alternative.”
Reed stated pots acquired large in the course of the poker video games, which performed with $5 or $10 antes. “It will go from $200 to $400 after which somebody would get hand they usually’d go ‘POT!’ And it could go from $400 to $800. So it acquired fairly hefty.”
One other shark within the sport was Gene Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s safety supervisor and a childhood pal of Van Zant who performed on the airplane with the singer the evening earlier than their remaining flight.
Whereas Reed remembered Van Zant and guitarist Gary Rossington being “good poker participant(s),” Odom stated the band members “actually extra favored it on the airplane simply to kill time.”
“The band members, they did not perceive the points of poker and what fingers had been what fingers, you recognize?” Odom stated in an interview with PokerNews. “They did not know what fingers you was making an attempt to go for and what different fingers the opposite individual might need. However we simply performed poker. It wasn’t skilled, nothin’ like that. However understanding the sport? I doubt very severely they actually understood the points of taking part in poker.”
“Yeah, it was a pastime on the airplane,” agreed lighting technician Mark Howard. “The airplane (had) somewhat space within the again with poker happening, the mid-plane was (the place) you may watch motion pictures … after which the entrance was the lounge. And the band often frolicked within the entrance so they might get collectively and go over the music and what have you ever.”
Howard, a Houston, Texas, native who was 25 on the time of the crash, stated he performed poker “merely out of comfort as a result of I did not wish to watch a film.”
“I imply, there was nothing else to do however play poker,” Howard advised PokerNews.
However poker was greater than a pastime for Odom, who reduce his enamel with cheats and sharps in backroom video games again dwelling in Jacksonville.
“Gene was an actual good poker participant,” attested Reed. “Though Gene by no means smoked pot or by no means drank or nothin’, (and) we had been at all times smoking … in the course of the time we had been taking part in playing cards. And he was at all times b****ing as a result of he would get a contact excessive after which he could not suppose.”
“(Van Zant) and Gene performed rather a lot collectively. They had been greatest pals.”
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The Odor of Dying
Within the fall of 1977, because the band started to tour its new album Road Survivors, issues circulated over the state of the Convair CV-240 that they’d leased. The 30-year-old airplane had amassed greater than 29,000 flight hours, based on a Nationwide Transportation Security Board accident report, and one other band, Aerosmith, had thought-about utilizing the airplane earlier than finally deeming it unsafe.
Simply days earlier than the deadly crash, Howard performed poker at the back of the airplane throughout a flight to Greenville, South Carolina, when he noticed “a six-foot flame shoot out of the precise engine proper as we took off.”
“I imply, it was simply unbelievable,” Howard stated. “It scared everyone to dying.”
They landed safely and performed on the Greenville Memorial Auditorium, however a number of band and crew members protested boarding the subsequent flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. One of the crucial involved concerning the airplane was backing singer Cassie Gaines, who would die within the crash.
It was Van Zant’s name, and he selected to gamble.
Although he wasn’t within the band on the time, Medlocke practically joined the tour after an invite Van Zant prolonged throughout a listening session in Jacksonville for the band’s latest tune, “That Odor,” on which the singer belts, “the scent of dying surrounds you” and “tomorrow may not be right here for you.”
“(Ronnie) checked out me and he stated ‘Rickey, now we have our personal airplane. Why do not you come journey with us for a few days? Perhaps stand up on stage, jam with us or no matter you need.’ And I stated ‘Properly that sounds nice.’ … Properly a few days earlier than, (Medlocke’s band) Blackfoot ended up getting gigs booked for a two-week run. And I needed to bow out and I referred to as Ronnie and advised him. And he stated, ‘Properly bro, I perceive, I will see you additional down the street’ … And that was it.”
The Remaining Poker Recreation
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s remaining flight started at 4:02 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Oct. 20. Band members rested all through the airplane as a lot of the crew frolicked within the center cabin. A number of performed poker of their regular spot: a fold-out desk between a set of seats going through one another on the again proper facet of the airplane.
There are conflicting particulars concerning the remaining poker sport. Reed remembers it being four-handed between himself, Howard, lighting crew member Steve Lawler and street supervisor Ron Eckerman, whereas Howard can solely say for sure he and Lawler had been there. Odom contests he was additionally within the sport: “We had been taking part in poker proper as much as the time after we began having the issues.”
In a 2024 video, Lawler remembered Odom and fellow lighting technician Mark Frank additionally taking part in. Eckerman, who handed away in 2014, recalled being part of the ultimate poker sport in his 2011 autobiography.
They often performed with money however used chips on this event. Proper earlier than the crash, they had been dealing an orbit of Three Card Guts, a sport the place every gamers tries to make the most effective three-card hand.
“And the pots get type of heavy once you’re taking part in that sport,” stated Reed. “I used to be profitable about $1,700 in that sport.”
Depend Howard as one other who remembers being up. “I had a whole lot of chips in entrance of me … I used to be profitable, and I do not care who says they had been profitable, I am telling you I used to be profitable.”
At 6:45 p.m., the pilots alerted air site visitors controllers that they’d run out of gas as a result of engine inefficiencies. Drummer Artimus Pyle ran again and introduced that the left and proper engines had give up. Realizing they needed to finish the poker sport, Reed, not but greedy the magnitude of the scenario, requested how they had been going to divide the chips.
“I stood up and grabbed my chips, not all of them, I simply grabbed an entire handful of them, and I stated ‘f*** these chips!’ and I threw them throughout the airplane in the direction of the tail finish,” Howard remembered. “And the subsequent factor you recognize, I am sitting there able to die. The very last thing I did was the signal of the cross as a result of I am Catholic.”
As Odom began “operating forwards and backwards … strapping everyone in and telling everyone to prepare, we had been going to make a stomach touchdown,” Reed, who initially “was laughing” and “wasn’t scared in any respect,” lastly realized how severe issues had been. He ripped the poker desk from the wall and threw it to the again of the airplane. “I knew we had been going to crash and I did not need that desk proper there.”
The very last thing Reed heard earlier than being despatched right into a coma was the sound of the airplane swishing towards tree tops, adopted by loud bangs because the airplane linked with the tree bases.
“It seems like 1,000,000 baseball bats hitting the airplane,” provided Howard. “It was simply horrifying.”
Road Survivors
Shortly after the pilot’s final communication to air site visitors controllers at 6:45 p.m., the airplane “crashed in closely wooded terrain” close to the city of Gillsburg, Mississippi, based on the accident report. The airplane had hit bushes as tall as 80 toes, inflicting each wings to be torn and launched 100 toes from the primary fuselage. Van Zant, backup singer Cassie Gaines, guitarist Steve Gaines and street supervisor Dean Kilpatrick had been all killed, as had been pilots Walter McCreary and William John Grey.
It will be practically two weeks earlier than Reed knew any of this. He awakened disoriented in a hospital mattress with a physique of damaged bones and a head reeling not from a hangover however a concussion.
“They stated, ‘You had been in a airplane crash.’ And I had no concept,” Reed stated. “As a result of I used to be in shock.”
Howard, who had “fractured the entire proper facet of my cranium,” was aware and remembers crew and band members being carried on stretchers and loaded onto pickup vehicles earlier than being pushed to the Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Middle. The dense woods the airplane crashed in had been unreachable by ambulance.
How did anybody survive this fall from the sky? Investigators decided that “the accident was survivable for passengers within the cabin as a result of there was no fireplace and a few sections of the fuselage retained their integrity throughout impression.” And there was no fireplace as a result of “there was no gas within the wing tanks when wing sections separated from the primary construction.”
Because it seems, the poker sport was one of many most secure spots on the airplane.
“Anyplace … behind the wing was the most secure place,” Reed stated. “Yeah, the entrance of the airplane acquired all mangled. That is the place Ronnie, and Steve and Cassie and Dean (had been).”
However no one acquired out unscathed. Odom, who had been “thrown out of the airplane making an attempt to get again to my seat the place the poker desk was at,” was blinded in his left eye when phosphorus from a de-icing gadget “burnt an enormous gap in my face and my neck, and burnt me on my arms.” He additionally broke his neck and again, requiring main surgical procedures that took three years to heal from.
Odom’s unhealthy run of playing cards continued after the crash, on the time of which he was simply 80 hours wanting incomes retirement advantages. Odom, who wrote two books about his time with Lynyrd Skynyrd, went on to work as a union ironworker till a 1990 accident whereas engaged on a Jacksonville brewery the place he “acquired broke all up once more.”
Fly Excessive, Free Chicken
The surviving Lynyrd Skynyrd members, led by guitarist Gary Rossington, reformed in 1986 with Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie’s youthful brother, taking on singing duties. Medlocke, who practically boarded the airplane that killed his pals, rejoined the band in 1996 and continues to play in Lynyrd Skynyrd right this moment.
“I at all times thought to myself all these years, perhaps if I hadn’t have left the band, and perhaps if I had been there … I may’ve stated one thing or accomplished one thing to alter the course of what would occur,” Medlocke stated.
A dialog with Rossington — whose retirement in 2021 and dying two years later made Medlocke the final present member of the band who was round within the early years — put Medlocke’s thoughts comfortable.
“I stated, ‘You already know Gary, I’ve at all times thought that had I’ve been there I perhaps may’ve stated one thing to alter the course that you simply guys (had been on) and alter Ronnie’s thoughts about getting on that airplane.’ And he goes, ‘Rickey, let me inform you one thing. As soon as Ronnie had his thoughts made up, there was no altering.’ He goes, ‘Actually, it was meant so that you can be right here now, it wasn’t meant so that you can be there then.’ And that is at all times caught with me.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd is at the moment on a North American tour and in August performed in Las Vegas in entrance of a crowd of 1000’s of rock followers of all ages contained in the Pearl Theater at Palms On line casino Resort.
“We have got unimaginable attendances,” Medlocke advised PokerNews throughout a September telephone interview whereas on the street. “Proper now in Canada, we’re simply packing arenas.”
The surviving crew members additionally keep it up. Throughout his interview with PokerNews in October, Howard, who now runs the True Backstage and Highway Tales YouTube channel, was getting ready to go to Mississippi to fulfill up with different survivors for a forty eighth anniversary reunion close to the crash web site that includes stay music, open-mic jamming and a candlelight vigil.
“We sit round, we drink beer, have enjoyable, chortle, speak to folks, introduce ourself to folks, and folks come up and introduce themselves to us and wish to take footage of us and stuff, as a result of we are the survivors,” Howard stated. “And it is only a complete lot of enjoyable.”
Reed’s time in Lynyrd Skynyrd started and ended with a U-Haul. After being launched from the hospital, Reed, who 4 years earlier had met the band in a resort car parking zone, closed this chapter of his life by driving a rental van a whole bunch of miles from Jacksonville again dwelling to Ohio.
“I drove again to Ohio with all my ribs damaged and my arm was damaged,” he stated. “I used to be a large number. My mother thought we had been going to die. I used to be out of it.”
Reed would go on to work as a roadie for American bands together with Journey, Foreigner and The Marshall Tucker Band, the latter of which he performed poker on the street with. He put poker behind him since retiring from the street in 2006 — “I have never actually performed since then” — however nonetheless performs card video games like Blackjack on his laptop. He additionally hosts The Stoned Roadie Present on YouTube, the place he shares tales from a life on the street with American rock bands.
And regardless of being a survivor of considered one of rock’s most tragic airplane crashes, Reed, now in his 70s and with frizzy gray hair reaching his shoulders, enjoys operating a flight simulator and even shared plans to fly 4 hours to Mississippi in a pal’s twin-engine Beechcraft Baron.
“He’ll let me fly somewhat bit down there. However not a bunch. I am not a pilot. Flying on the simulator simply offers you the fundamentals,” Reed stated in a deep drawl. “Once I first began flying on the simulator, it was very onerous to do landings. And now it is a piece of cake.”
*Images courtesy Craig Reed, Mark Howard, Gene Odom & WikiMedia Commons
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.
