(Who's) Right or Wrong

The Zoo Crew has got "(Who's) Right or Wrong" rolling out of the speakers, and if you have been hanging around THE ZOO long enough to know a Jacksonville growl from a studio polish, this one lands right in the middle of both. It is the opener on Round Two, the Johnny Van Zant Band's 1981 Polydor album, catalog PD-1-6322, cut at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia, the same North Atlanta room that had already hosted a pile of southern records that still sound like they were played in a hot room with the door cracked. Written by Johnny, bass man Danny Clausman, guitarist Robbie Gay, and producer Kevin Elson, the track runs about three minutes and twenty-two seconds, and it does not waste a bar of it.

Round Two was the follow-up to No More Dirty Deals, and the band was aiming a little higher than the bar circuit. Elson, who had his hands on Journey records in those years, produced and engineered the whole album, and the guest list reads like a sideways family reunion. Jonathan Cain turned up on piano and synthesizer for a couple of cuts, Steve Perry lent a voice in the room, and Jeff Carlisi from .38 Special, which is brother Donnie's outfit, laid down slide and acoustic guitar. Fans who still spin the vinyl, and the ones who grabbed the Rock Candy remaster when it came back around in 2012, tend to say the same thing about the opener. The bass and the drums hit together like somebody kicking the door, Erik Lundgren's lead guitar comes in mean and a little sideways, and a lot of players who have been at it for decades still cannot quite clock what he is doing. Word among the guitar crowd is that a good share of that bite came off a Gibson Melody Maker, which is not the axe most folks picture when they hear a lead that sharp.

Classic rock writers who circled back to the record later called "(Who's) Right or Wrong" the best tune on the disc, the one that actually earns the hard sell. The rest of Round Two leans toward the radio rock of the early eighties, complete with a cover of the Beatles' "Drive My Car" that never quite sat right with the old southern-rock crowd, but the opener keeps its boots on. It is a driving song, not a slow burn. Any faster and it would tip over. Any slower and it would lose the in-your-face attitude. Folks who saw the Johnny Van Zant Band in those years have said it was a natural show starter, the kind of cut you drop before the room has settled. The song later turned up again on the 1990 album Brickyard Road, which tells you Johnny did not file it away with the first pressing. Standing right behind it on Round Two is "Standing in the Falling Rain," a cut a lot of listeners hear as a loose nod to the hole left by his oldest brother. The album was not a chart storm, and Johnny has been plain about those early years being a fight to be heard as more than somebody's kid brother, but the opener still gets pulled out when the deep cuts come around.

John Roy Van Zant was born February 27, 1960, in Jacksonville, Florida, the youngest of the three brothers who ended up carrying southern rock on their backs. Ronnie was already out front with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Donnie was building .38 Special. Johnny grew up hearing songs get written in the house, riding with their father Lacy, and picking up a working-man's view of the road that never really left the writing. He started out wanting to sit behind the drums. Ronnie, who was not loose with compliments, used to say Johnny had the best voice in the family, and that settled the argument. By about fifteen he was fronting the Austin Nickels Band with Robbie Gay on guitar and Robbie Morris on drums, working the local bars while Ronnie looked in on them like a mentor. Erik Lundgren came in on lead guitar, Danny Clausman on bass, and the name shifted to the Johnny Van Zant Band.

The plane crash on October 20, 1977, took Ronnie and several of the Skynyrd family, and it changed the map for the youngest brother whether he asked for it or not. Donnie stepped in to advise the band, but they did not get a record out until 1980. No More Dirty Deals, produced by Al Kooper, closed with "Standing in the Darkness," Johnny's tribute to Ronnie. Round Two followed in 1981, Last of the Wild Ones in 1982, and a self-titled album on Geffen in 1985. The records had muscle, and they had famous friends in the room, but they did not break the way the older brothers' bands had broken. Johnny got disillusioned with the business, parked the microphone, and went to work driving a truck the way his father had. He has talked about that stretch without dressing it up. The industry still saw him as Ronnie's kid brother, and he was still figuring out whether he could stand on his own.

The turn came in 1987, in one of those weeks that still gets told like a bar story. Ahmet Ertegun came down and signed him to Atlantic. Before the week was out, Gary Rossington called and asked him to sing the tribute dates with the surviving Skynyrd members. Johnny has recalled the double hit in plain language, something along the lines of wanting both deals and not knowing how to hold them at once. Ertegun told him to go do the tribute and still wanted the record. That is a big part of why Brickyard Road did not land until 1990. The title track, a straight tribute to Ronnie, went to number one on the mainstream rock chart and stayed there for three weeks. Johnny took the Skynyrd microphone in 1987 and has carried it ever since, alongside his own records and the Van Zant albums he makes with Donnie. He has said the job is about the music and about keeping those guys alive through it, and that people still thank him for carrying it so they can hear it played live.

You can find him out front with Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the brothers' own shop is up at Van Zant, where Johnny and Donnie keep the family name on new records. His verified page is on Facebook, the day-to-day posts sit on Instagram, and the short dispatches run on X. Fans trading set lists, old photos, and the odd deep cut gather in Lynyrd Skynyrd Fans Forever. If Round Two is the record that caught you, "(Who's) Right or Wrong" is the cut that still sounds like the door getting kicked in, Jacksonville voice up front, Doraville room behind it, and a youngest brother who had not yet been handed the biggest microphone in southern rock.