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I recently got to talking with a coworker about great southern musicians and we started talking about a guy named Steve Gaines. Well I had never heard of him and I wasn't all too familiar with the group he played in, Lynyrd Skynyrd as I've always been a Allman Brothers guy. Well I got a quick education on Skynyrd and about Steve Gaines. Holy shit was this guy good! Listen to the clip below and don't tell me that Stevie Ray Vaughan doesn't sound exactly the same guitar wise. Seeing how Gaines was from my home state Oklahoma it's not surprising some Texas influenced jumped the border. The song is "Ain't No Good Life" and it is the only song by Lynyrd Skynyrd before 1977 that doesn't feature Ronnie Van Zant as lead vocals, that is in fact Gaines singing. However, his body of work was tragically cut short much like the group itself as Gaines was killed in the Plane crash.

Still though, his music lives on.