Grocery store that inspired Lynyrd Skynyrd song demolished

3 years ago 298

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A market store that inspired the celebrated Lynyrd Skynyrd lyrics “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” was demolished past month.

Jacksonville’s Woodcrest Grocery Building wherever Ronnie Van Zant allegedly met “the finest picker to ever play the blues,” was torn down past week. The abandoned store connected Jacksonville’s Westside was a hangout for generations of kids.

The song, written by Van Zant and Allen Collins, tells the communicative of a young lad who collected bottles to rise wealth truthful the aged antheral who hung retired astatine the country store could play his dobro. Curtis Loew was fictional, but the store was real.

It was known arsenic Claude’s successful the precocious ’50s and aboriginal ’60s and was close down the thoroughfare from the location wherever Van Zant was raised, according to the Florida Times-Union.

Scott Hill, who grew up successful the neighborhood, said fans started dropping by the tract past week to drawback cinder blocks souvenirs aft proceeding astir the demolition.

Gene Odom, who wrote a publication astir the set and leads tours of Lynyrd Skynyrd landmarks for fans, said the gathering has been vacant for decades.

The gathering started collapsing during the demolition of adjacent trailers and had to beryllium taken down. A existent property radical said a residential location volition beryllium built there.

The set is inactive touring but pulled retired of the Pro Football Hall of Fame performance past period aft guitarist Rickey Medlocke tested affirmative for COVID-19.

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