Guitarist Gary Rossington, the last surviving original member of Southern rock institution Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died. Lynyrd Skynyrd announced Rossington’s passing in a Facebook post last night: “It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today.” No cause of death has been reported, though Rolling Stone points out that Rossington has suffered from heart problems in recent years. Rossington was 71.

Gary Rossington was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. His father died when he was young, and his mother raised him. In the early ’60s, Rossington and his fellow Lynyrd Skynyrd members got to know each other by playing baseball for rival Jacksonville schools. They started out jamming together under the name the Noble Five, and they went on to become the One Percent before adapting the Lynyrd Skynyrd name in 1969. Rossington dropped out of high school to focus on the band, and he later said that frontman Ronnie Van Zant, three years older than him, became like a father figure.

Lynyrd Skynyrd became regionally popular in the early ’70s, and they developed a sound that combined the grandeur of the Rolling Stones’ blues-rock with a sort of down-home country-blues sensibility and politics that sometime skewed reactionary in complicated ways. Blood, Sweat & Tears member Al Kooper discovered the band, singing them to his MCA imprint Sounds Of The South and producing their first three albums, starting with 1973 debut (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd). The album sold a million copies, and Gary Rossington played slide guitar on its signature hit “Free Bird.” The band’s 1974 sophomore album Second Helping sold even better, and it featured the perennial smash “Sweet Home Alabama,” which Rossington co-wrote.

In 1976, Gary Rossington suffered a bad car accident while drunk and high, which helped inspire the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “That Smell.” A year later, the band chartered a plane to a performance at LSU. The plane crashed, killing Ronnie Van Zant, singer/guitarist Steve Gaines, and Steve’s sister, the backup singer Cassie Gaines, as well as the two pilots and many of the band’s crew. Gary Rossington, along with many of his surviving bandmates, was severely injured, though he recovered enough to return to performing, with rods implanted in his arm and leg. Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded, and Rossington and guitarist Allen Collins formed the Rossington Collins Band and released two albums. Rossington married Rossington Collins Band singer Dale Krantz. The two started the Rossington Band, which released two more albums.

Five surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited in 1988, with Ronnie Van Zant’s younger brother Johnny taking over as frontman. This version of Skynyrd became a touring institution over the years, and they also became more outwardly right-wing, playing Republican rallies and going back and forth on whether they wanted to keep their old Confederate-flag iconography in their live shows. Over the years, the various founding members of the band all died.

Gary Rossington went through quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, and he suffered a heart attack in 2015. With the 2019 passing of bassist Larry Junstrom, Gary Rossington became the band’s last surviving original member. He continued to perform with them until his death, though he sometimes had to sit out shows or parts of his shows because of his health. The band stopped touring in 2020, though they still play occasional live shows, including one in San Antonio last month.

Below, check out some of Rossington’s work.