Lynyrd Skynyrd's members grew up in a small part of Jacksonville Florida.  The first band Ronnie was in was called Us.  He heard they needed a singer so he went to the auditions and said, "I am your new lead singer."  The music Us played sounded a lot like the band Free.  Ronnie didn't try to imitate Paul Rodgers voice it was the guitar that sounded

 more like Free.  Later, Ronnie met Bob Burns and Gary Rossington when he hit Bob in the head with a baseball.  They decided to start a band with Bob on drums, Gary on guitar, Ronnie singing, and Gary's friend Larry Junstrom on Bass.  They later decided to add a second guitar player.  They heard from other people that Allen Collins was very good at the guitar.  They found Allen riding his bike and they called his name and he started running thinking they wanted to beat him up.  They chased after him and caught him.  When Allen heard what they really wanted he was surprised and excited and decided to join the band.  They changed the name to The One Percents.  Ronnie thought of the name because only one percent of musicians make it big and he was going to be in that one percent.

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