Saturday, October 20, 2018

RIP Cassie Gaines, One of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Honkettes

The Honkettes: JoJo Billingsley, Cassie Gaines and Leslie Hawkins
A new documentary is out on Lynyrd Skynyrd, the rockin' Southern Rock band that lost its singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant along with band members Cassie & Steve Gaines in a tragic plane crash on this date in 1977.

Lynyrd Skynyrd: If I Leave Here Tomorrow interviews surviving members of the band and reveals how Cassie and her fellow Honkettes classed up the group as its back-up singers.

Cassie Gaines joined the band in 1975 and later recommended her younger brother Steve join in as a guitarist. She was mentioned in stories recounted in the film as the band member who always had marijuana, and it was said of Steve that he "was no farmer, but he could grow some bud." When the band opened for the Rolling Stones, Very Important Pothead Jack Nicholson smelled Cassie's weed and asked if he could take a toke.