for it and said “You’re not putting that song on the album.” Ronnie asked Al to step out- side. He escorted Al to his Bentley and opened the car door. Al stepped in. Ronnie shut the door and stuck his head in thru the open window. “When we’re done recording it, we’ll call you.” Al came back a few hours later, added
the organ part and it was a keeper. I don’t think any band before or since, making its debut album, could get away with doing that to the record producer. There was a healthy respect happening there and that is a really funny story that reflects that.
There’s a somewhat controversial arti- cle-at least among Skynyrd fans on the web- in the April issue of SPIN. In it, the author mentions a time during the early 90’s when Leon got his throat cut in his sleep, and some people blamed it on you. What’s the story? We had just finished playing a gig in Nashville. That night Leon walked on stage totally drunk and really screwed the gig up. We were all pretty annoyed. Seems that he had waited all day at the Nashville airport for his girlfriend Rhonda to fly in. She was five hours late and he had spent the entire day at the airport bar. That night some of the guys flew back
to Jax except me, Randall Hall, Leon and Rhonda. Early in the morning I woke up – I had been sleeping in the lounge in the rear of
the bus - and walked to the front to talk to the driver. On the way back to the rear I noticed Leon’s arm dangling out of his bunk and some blood dripping from it. On further ex- amination Leon’s throat had been cut and he was laying there in a pool of blood with Rhonda. We went straight to a hospital and had him stitched up - what a mess. Never did get to the bottom of it. Leon said he’d stum- bled and must have “cut” himself in the bus hall way. Hmmmmm. His girlfriend had been a source of
problems, like bringing a hand gun on the road and holding Leon hostage in his hotel room, not letting any band members talk to Leon on the phone. And, at one point, told us Leon couldn’t tour with us anymore unless he got more money. That was in ‘93 when we had to hire a sub bass player for two legs of a tour because Leon had “quit.” Later that year he beat Rhonda up and got sentenced to three months in prison. They shaved his head! Man, it was ugly. So, as soon as we reached Jax that day, the word started circulating that I had cut Leon’s throat. By the way, Rhonda [Leon’s ex] some-
how slashed Leon’s wrist a year after this inci- dent, and that left Leon with no feeling in his little finger and some damage to his ring fin- ger on his right hand, the one he uses to fret with. It’s a reporter’s job to write about what he experiences. I spoke several times with the
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