Second Helping

Second Helping is the second album by Lynyrd Skynyrd and was released in spring 1974. It contains the well-known hit Sweet Home Alabama, the number 8 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart reached. Second Helping rose to # 12 on the Billboard album charts and was awarded by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1974 and gold in July 1987 with double - platinum. Before the recording of this album bassist Leon Wilkeson rejoined the band, so Ed King could change the guitar. Therefore here showed the typical for Lynyrd Skynyrd use of three guitars for the first time. Sweet Home Alabama comes as a single song from a previous recording session and was deliberately kept out of the band for the second album as a single. Since Al Kooper and MCA Do not Ask Me No Questions favored as a single, Ronnie Van Zant reached an agreement that if not the expected success would set the following single Sweet Home Alabama is on. Al Kooper produced Second Helping Lynyrd Skynyrd's debut album as well as for his label, Sounds of the South, that he sold in 1974 to MCA.

  • 2.1 Additional musicians

Title list

1997 CD Bonus Tracks

Occupation

Both on the LP cover as well as in the later CD releases Leon Wilkesons instrument was called Firebird bass. The instrument manufacturer Gibson called but only this guitar body shape Firebird, the bass always were called Thunderbird.

Additional musicians

  • Mike Porter - drums on "I Need You"
  • Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews - background vocals on Sweet Home Alabama
  • Merry Clayton and Friends - background vocals on Sweet Home Alabama
  • Bobby Keys, trewor Lawrence and Steve Madiao - Wind Group on Do not Ask Me No Questions and Call Me the Breeze

Reception

  • Gordon Fletcher wrote in Rolling Stone that the band is often compared to the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd but would not reach the sophistication and professionalism. ( This group is frequently Compared to the Allman Brothers but it lacks sophistication and professionalism did tape it. ) The album would be only to the extent different from the debut, as that Lynyrd Skynyrd could possibly have understood implement its various possibilities. ( Second Helping is distinguished From Their debut LP only by A Certain mellowing out did indicates They june Eventually acquire a level of savoirfaire to realize Their many capabilities. )
  • Music journalist Robert Christgau wrote that in the rocking moments the band would combine elementary riffs and feedback to a dense mixture while vocabulary of the best Southern folk music would be shown at the quieter pieces. (When it rocks, three guitarists and a keyboard player pile elementary riffs and feedback noises into dense Combinations broken by preplanned solos, while at quieter moments the spare vocabulary of the best Southern folk music is evoked or just plain duplicated. ) The album got the review A-.
  • Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote on Allmusic.com that Lynyrd Skynyrd was not only a great band, but are indelibly due to their great songwriting. Nowhere is this more evident than on Second Helping was. ( They were a great band, but theywere indelible Because did what married to great writing. And nowhere more evident than on what did Second Helping. ) The album got a rating of five out of five stars.
Record label Genre Georgia (U.S. state) Singing Gibson Guitar Corporation
720660
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