Ronnie Van Zant
On October 20, 1977, a plane carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ran out of fuel outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. The passengers had been informed about potential problems with the Convair CV-240 and were told to brace for a crash. Van Zant died on impact from head injuries suffered after the aircraft struck a tree. Bandmates Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, along with assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were also killed. The rest of the band was seriously injured. Van Zant was 29 years old.
Teenage Dream (T. Rex song)
After releasing records under the 'T. Rex' name since 1970, "Teenage Dream" was the first release to be credited to 'Marc Bolan and T. Rex' "Teenage Dream" was co-produced by Tony Visconti and Bolan, and featured Lonnie Jordan of War on piano. It was released as a single in February 1974, and spent five weeks in the UK top 40, peaking at number 13. Biographer Mark Paytress called it Bolan's "coming out record", saying that it was "so drenched in melodramatic resignation that it was less a lament than a lordly glimpse through the iron bars of an increasingly detached existence". The song was described by Allmusic as "a virtual mini-opera", with "soaring strings, wailing guitars, towering chorales, and a genuinely foreboding sense of drama". Ken Barnes of "Rolling Stone", however, wrote in a 1974 article that the song "suffers from pointless, jumbled lyrics and self-conscious Dylan-styled intonations and drags on for far too long." Bolan himself regarded "Teenage Dream" as the best lyric he had written. It was also chosen by Bolan's former partner Gloria Jones as her favourite Bolan lyric. He wrote and recorded the song while on tour in the United States in August 1973. It was one of the last tracks written for the "Zinc Alloy" album and these sessions were the last time Bolan recorded with Visconti.