"Shame on me if I rave about this 1974 LP for just one song, as the southern rockers´ second release is as good as anything they ever produced. In fact, it´s just about as good a swamp rock/hard boogie masterwork as you can find. But, aided by 45rpm status, it delivers what is the punchiest, most visceral, kick-ass incarnation yet of a song known intimately to every air-guitarist worth his imaginary strings: ´Sweet Home Alabama.´ When a new edition adds something indescribable to a track you might have heard a hundred times via a dozen formats, then that is reason enough to buy. Try not playing this as loud as your system allows" — Sound Quality: 90% — Ken Kessler, Hi Fi News, September 2018
"MoFi may have the rest of their catalogue, but Chad Kassem´s coup is grabbing this album, the band´s second, from 1974. Why? Because it kicks off with their anthem, the inimitable, riff-driven, majestic ´Sweet Home Alabama´ — one of the greatest air-guitar/road trip songs ever. By this time, the band was a mite slicker but just as unapologetically Confederate-with-a-capital ´C´ as on their debut. The opener does overshadow the rest, but the album serves up what the LP title promises in ´The Needle And The Spoon,´ which sounds like ´Sweet Home Alabama II.´ Musically, this nestles alongside Little Feat and The Allman Brothers Band — deservedly high praise." — Ken Kessler, Hi-Fi News, April 2014
Get ready for some Southern hospitality, courtesy of Analogue Productions, Quality Record Pressings and one of the hardest-rocking bands to ever grace a stage! With a catalog of over 60 albums and sales beyond 30 million, Lynyrd Skynyrd remains a cultural icon that appeals to all generations.
This Lynyrd Skynyrd 1974 album now is pressed at 45 RPM on four glorious sides of 180-gram vinyl from the best presser in the business, Quality Record Pressings. The dead-quiet double-LP, with the music spread over four sides of vinyl, reduces distortion and high frequency loss as the wider-spaced grooves let your stereo cartridge track more accurately.
Second Helping follows the success of "Free Bird" and "Gimme Three Steps" from their 1973 debut and features their biggest hit single, "Sweet Home Alabama," an answer to Neil Young´s "Southern Man" and "Alabama." The song reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in August 1974. Second Helping also featured "Don´t Ask Me No Questions," "Workin´ for MCA" and "Call Me The Breeze," the latter of which includes an acclaimed piano solo. Backed by a tight rhythm section and the mighty three-guitar attack of Allen Collins, Ed King and Gary Rossington, singer Ronnie Van Zant turns in a legendary performance on the urgent blues ballad "I Need You," the cautionary "The Needle And The Spoon" and "The Ballad Of Curtis Loew." 200-gram vinyl, mastering by Kevin Gray, lacquer plating by QRP´s Gary Salstrom, heavy, tip-on gatefold jacket. None better.