Bob Burns Jr., founding drummer of Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died. He passed away last Friday in an automobile crash in Cartersville, Georgia. Bob was 64.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, Bob Burns was driving northbound on Tower Ridge Road just before midnight when his vehicle left the westside of the roadway. He hit a mailbox and a tree. The musician was not wearing a seatbelt and killed instantly.
Robert Louis "Bob" Burns Jr was born in 1950 in Jacksonville, Florida. He took up drumming after watching Ringo Starr and the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
As a drummer in high school Bob co-founded Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1964. Overwhelmed by life on the road, he left ten years later. Bob played on the band's 1973 debut album, 'Pronounced ’Leh-’nérd ’Skin-’nérd', and the multiplatinum follow-up, 'Second Helping', in 1974.
Bob Burns reunited with the band in 1996 to promote 'Freebird: The Movie', a documentary about the band's early years, and again in 2006 for its induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
