Legendary Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd rang in the New Year on Sunday night (Dec. 31) with a live appearance on the CBS broadcast "New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash." Lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant didn't sing "Sweet Home Alabama" alone, as the band recruited Lainey Wilson and broadcast co-host Elle King for a star-studded, country-meets-rock collaboration.
The trio of vocalists started off by trading verses, with Wilson taking the Neil Young diss and Elle King singing the tongue-in-cheek lines about Watergate. The performance culminated with Van Zant, Wilson and King joining voices along with the crowd at Nashville's Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.
They weren't the only ones in the spotlight, with cameras spotlighting multiple solos by guitarist Mark "Sparky" Matejka, a 17-year member of Skynyrd whose country-rock resume also includes stints with the Charlie Daniels Band, Sons of the Desert and the Kinleys.
Fashion-wise, Wilson made western wear choices appropriate for a chilly night, and King ended the year of Barbiecore appropriately.
Wilson and King made sense as Skynyrd's special guests. After all, both get regularly praised for incorporating Southern rock elements into their own sounds.
Skynyrd also played "Freebird" —sans Wilson and King— right before midnight. Additional classics performed by the band included "Saturday Night Special" and "Gimme Three Steps."
"That trademark triple-guitar sound is amazing and never fails to elicit an amazing response," Skynyrd guitarist Ricky Medlocke told the Tennessean ahead of Sunday's broadcast. "Lynyrd Skynyrd has a lyrical and musical catalog that allows you to party all night long."
"Sweet Home Alabama" first appeared on Skynyrd's sophomore album, 1974's Second Helping. It reached No. 8 on Billboard's all-genre Hot 100 chart and remains the band's highest-charting pop single.
