Second Helping - LYNYRD SKYNYRD***

Sweet Home Alabama/I Need You/Don't Ask Me No Questions/Workin' For MCA/The Ballad Of Curtis Loew/ Swamp Music/The Needle & The Spoon/Call Me The Breeze

Second Helping was the follow up album from the southern blues-rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Features the US top ten hit Sweet Home Alabama which has become a staple of pub cover bands. (US:12)

“Nearly as good as the debut and doesn't suffer as much from overplay, with the exception of Sweet Home Alabama. It contains some of the band's best and most underrated songs.”

“Good hard southern rock doesn't get much better than this. This long player is loaded with multiple guitar riffage and pounding bass. The tunes themselves are good ole southern white boy blues with a major touch of hard rock.”

“For me Skynyrd really just had one great album, and that was their debut. This is more or less an expansion of that, but with less interesting songs. Sure we have Sweet Home Alabama, which is one of the most popular songs of all time, but sometimes that song works, other times it just grates because it is so overplayed.”

“What Lynyrd Skynyrd lacked in lyrical invention and eloquence, they more than compensated for with their directness, emotional honesty, and fusion of hard rock with southern blues and soul. Sweet Home Alabama usually gets called out as a bad song. I always pretend to hate it in polite company, but secretly I think its offence is political, not musical.”

“Once Sweet Home Alabama hit the Top 40, Second Helping surged up the album charts, becoming one that defines southern rock, and even hard rock. A powerful mixture of hard rock, blues, country and boogie, Skynyrd easily became a sensation in the south, but soon branched out to become a worldwide success. With their three guitar attack and infectious grooves, Skynyrd are considered by many as the best band ever to come out of the south.”

“Lynyrd Skynyrd are the quintessential southern rock band and Second Helping’s opening track, Sweet Home Alabama, is the quintessential southern rock song. It’s a classic rock radio staple, meaning I’ve probably heard it way more times than I’d like to admit. Still, I can enjoy it for what it is. The closing song, Call Me The Breeze, is another song of a similar status.”