On a sunny day in 1976 I joined 150,000 other people in Knebworth Park to see The Rolling Stones. The line-up that day included Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, 10CC, Hot Tuna and, immediately before the headliners, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Their epic song Freebird was established as a rock classic and I had spent some of my early teens listening to the country-tinged Southern boogie of their debut album.

But by the summer of ’76 I had had my head (and ears) turned by seeing The Ramones and Patti Smith. Long guitar solos were anathema to the new leather-jacketed me.

So during one of its neverending guitar solos I wandered off in search of food and drink. When I returned about 20 minutes later I resumed my place in the crowd and adjusted my ears to the song coming out of the speakers. It was still Freebird.

The bloke playing those squealy solos that seemed to go on for ever was Gary Rossington, who has just died.

He was the archetypal rock’n’roll survivor. In the next year alone he came through a major car accident after driving into a tree, and the plane crash that claimed the lives of his fellow guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister Cassie, and front man Ronnie Van Zant.

More recently he underwent numerous heart procedures, but soldiered on in the band, still showing his skills – like this 2015 performance.

Rossington would become the only band member to remain in the group continuously from their formation in the early 60s, inspired not just by their southern roots but – unfashionably in their neck of the Alabama woods – by British bands like the Stones and the Yardbirds. Until now.

RIP Gary Rossington.