Steve Gaines, born September 14, 1949, in Miami, Oklahoma in Ottawa County , emerged as a gifted guitarist whose tenure with Lynyrd Skynyrd left an indelible mark on the sounds of Southern rock in the 1970's.
. His parents, Earl Gaines and Cassie LaRue Hatfield Gaines, laid the foundation for his musical journey. Earl and Cassie married around June 10, 1947, according to local records, though details about their lives remain scarce.
They nurtured Steve’s passion for music, with Earl purchasing his son’s first guitar at age 15 after a transformative Beatles concert in Kansas City. Steve’s older sister,
Cassie Gaines, born January 9, 1948, also played a pivotal role in his life, later joining him in Lynyrd Skynyrd as a backup singer. The siblings grew up in a tight-knit community at 460 Circle Drive, Miami, surrounded by family friends who recalled their early years fondly.
Steve Gaines’ musical career took flight in the 1960s and 70s, beginning with local bands like Manalive, where he recorded at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, and Crawdad, which he founded around 1974. His big break came in 1975 when Cassie, already a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s vocal trio The Honkettes, recommended him to replace guitarist Ed King.
By May 1976, Steve Gaines had joined the band, debuting on the live album One More from the Road. His contributions peaked with the 1977 album Street Survivors, where he composed four songs and showcased his exceptional guitar skills, solidifying his place in the band’s legacy.
Despite his rising fame, Steve remained grounded, married to Theresa Gaines, with whom he had a daughter, Corrina, born before his untimely death.
The promising career of Gaines, along with that of his sister Cassie, was tragically cut short on October 20, 1977, when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered Convair CV-240 crashed near Gillsburg, Mississippi.
The plane, en route from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for a scheduled performance, ran out of fuel mid-flight. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that fuel exhaustion caused the engines to fail, leading to a crash in a wooded area during an attempted emergency landing.
The disaster claimed the lives of Steve Gaines, 28, Cassie Gaines, 29, lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William John Gray.
Twenty others survived, including band members who endured severe injuries. Survivor accounts, such as drummer Artimus Pyle’s, highlight the chaos of the scene, with the crash site later becoming a memorial marked by an inscribed oak tree.
The crash abruptly halted Lynyrd Skynyrd’s trajectory, but the band reformed in 1987 under Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie’s brother, keeping Steve Gaines’ spirit alive through their music.
His guitar work, particularly on Street Survivors, continues to inspire musicians and fans alike.
The tragedy compounded for the Gaines family when Steve and Cassie’s mother, Cassie LaRue Hatfield Gaines, died in a car accident in 1979 near the cemetery in Orange Park, Florida where her children were initially buried.
After vandals defaced their graves in 1999, Steve and Cassie’s remains were relocated to an undisclosed site, leaving memorials for fans to honor their memory.
Steve Gaines was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as part of Lynyrd Skynyrd, cementing his legacy.
Steve Gaines’ life was defined by family and music. His wife, Theresa, and daughter, Corrina, faced profound loss, with Corrina too young to remember her father. His parents, Earl and Cassie LaRue, and sister Cassie were integral to his story, their support and shared talents shaping his path.
Though the airplane crash stole Steve Gaines and his sister from the world, their contributions to Lynyrd Skynyrd endure, a testament to a talent gone too soon.
