job offers, so I went back to Jacksonville. I figured I would just hang around for a year or so and see what happened, but within two weeks I was playing in 38 Special. The band was only about a month old when I got back to Jacksonville.


How were those early days of the band and when did you know you had made it? Well, we knew we had something special but the first two records were not very successful by record industry standards. But when we released our third album, Rockin’ into the Night, we got our first radio top 40 single and the record sold about a quarter million records. That helped us stay around for a few more records. Funny thing is, we never looked back and said, “We have made it!” - we just kept on striving for the next plateau. When Wild Eyed Southern Boys came out, we really knew we had created something that was long lasting and that would stand the test of time.


Speaking of standing the test of time- tell me about the song “Four Walls of Raiford” with Ronnie Van Zant. At that time, 38 owned a rehearsal hall in Jacksonville and there was a sandwich shop right next door that went out of business, so Skynyrd bought that space and made it into a recording studio, which was great ‘cause we could all hang out and if we needed to record something, we could just walk next door and lay it down. Ronnie always wanted to have a project outside of Skynyrd because he loved country music so much. One night Ronnie had this song called "When You Have Good Friends" and he called some friends together and it included Don Barnes, Larry Junstrum, Steve Brookins and Allen Collins, so we recorded a demo of that song and when we were all leaving he ask me to stay because he had another song he wanted to work on. It was just he, I and Kevin Elison. Ronnie


started singing this tune and he was trying to remember the words so I said, "Hey, man, just get your piece of paper and look at what it says." He looked at me funny and said, "I never write any words down, man. I just sing them."


I was stunned and to me, that showed


just how much of a great songwriter he was. He knew just what he wanted to say and knew just how it should sound and when the song was done, it had his deeply inspired touch. He remembered the words and he sang them to me. I heard it in a traditional American folk blues and (it) just so happened (that) Gary had a Dobro sitting in the corner so I picked it up and started playing this arrangement. At this point, it was one or two a.m. and Ronnie sat at microphone in the middle of the room and sat two chairs face to face. He had a bot- tle of Jack Daniels. He opened it up and we spent about an hour working the arrangement out and getting in the right frame of mind and recorded it in about three takes. It was as pecial moment and one I will never forget. Quite a bit, really, and at the time it


was done, I was a bit disappointed. But at the same time, I was grateful that it was included in the record and that people would be al- lowed to hear something that was so special. I know that they added Billy playing keyboards,


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