To my mind, Lynyrd Skynyrd was and is one of the great southern bands of all time, not to mention one of the great American bands of all time.

"All Time Greatest Hits" is proof of this band's lasting legacy, tragically ended in a 1977 plane crash that killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, whose awesome voice was matched only by his songwriting genius; third guitarist Steve Gaines, whose addition to the band added zest and maturity; his sister Cassie, who sang background; and original tour manager Dean Kilpatrick. What an infinite loss for the music world, and how lucky we are to be able to listen to the music they left behind.

Because this collection is the band's greatest hits, all are familiar and well-loved, from "Sweet Home Alabama" to "What's Your Name" to "Free Bird," a magnificent live version that simply tears your heart out. But I love "The Ballad of Curtis Lowe," which Van Zant wrote with Allen Collins, an ode to the unsung heroes of the blues; and "Comin' Home," haunting in retrospect.

Really, I cannot say enough about this band and their music, and I recommend this collection to fans of the band as well as those whose only connection to their hits is "Sweet Home Alabama."

Whenever any band produces a 'greatest hits' album they run the risk of eliminating sales of many of their earlier releases. With this 'greatest hits' I think many of the tracks chosen are really not the best of those particular songs. If you're looking for a great live "Free Bird," it's not here! The positive aspects of this release are the great cross-section of songs chosen, and not the particular rendition. One of the things that sets a band like Lynyrd Skynyrd apart from the rest of the Southern Rock crowd is their musical and lyrical integrity. Tracks that really shine are, "Simple Man," "That Smell" and "Saturday Night Special". This band went way out on a limb with their anti hand-gun track "Saturday Night Special." This song was released at a time when the NRA and the gun lobby enjoyed almost unparalleled influence within the halls of Congress. I think that your money might be better spent by shelling out a couple of bucks more for the 'The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd' a two-CD set. This set has all the same releases as the 'greatest hits' yet there are almost twice as many tracks for a few dollars more. Many would say the reason why this band was so popular in the seventies; was that they played live and sounded decent, although sometimes fairly raw, when live too. In that vein, you might also want to consider a live release as the best way to really hear what the band could do with their studio material. My pick for the live album would be; "One More from the Road". What makes a choice like this extremely hard is the fact that this band is probably the most over-produced and over-released band in the Southern Rock genre. Amazon alone has over (80) releases listed for sale. Which amounts to a whole lot of redundancy for a band with about (45) songs! Unfortunately, none of the original 1970's releases are still offered here on Amazon as un-remastered original vinyl recordings on CD. If by some chance you have an opportunity to hear this band from a still-good vinyl release, by all means get it to a good sound system and crank it up. But alas, all that may be left is a good bunch of Rice Krispies from vinyl these days? At least with the way we used to treat our records in the 1970's!

Obviously, since this does indeed have many of Skynyrd's best songs on it, it is going to be a good album. However, it is not the best Skynyrd "best of" album that you can find. It could've been a lot better. For instance, Tuesday's Gone, my all-time favorite LS track isn't on this disc at all! Neither is the studio version of Freebird! To have a Skynyrd disc that is missing those two songs and to call it "All Time Greatest Hits" is blasphemy! Get The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd instead.

We all have a few albums that we can listen to from start to finish without skipping a single song. For me, those are few and far between. But for me, Lynyrd Skynyrd's All Time Greatest Hits is one of those. It starts out perfectly with my favorite song of all from them: "Sweet Home Alabama". For some reason, of my immediate family members, I'm the only one that likes this song. I think they're SUPER crazy for NOT liking it! The guitars and the singing create a flawless melody that's stayed with me longer than I can remember, and it still creates the same magic every time I hear it. Oh yeah, and the fact that I'm from Alabama doesn't hurt either.

This collection of 14 songs ends on just as high of a note, with the band's other most popular song: "Free Bird". I generally don't like live songs nearly as much as I do the studio versions, but that song's just a winner no matter how they perform it. I've heard the original version along with at least two live versions and like many, I never tire of it. I already had a compilation by Lynyrd Skynyrd, whom I think is the greatest southern rock band of all time and one of the best bands that will ever be heard, period. It was called Skynyrd's Innyrds: Greatest Hits, which was apparently an import album. But the more I listened to classic rock stations, the more I kept hearing other Skynyrd songs that I liked and wanted that weren't on that respective compilation. "Simple Man" and "Gimme Back My Bullets" were the main two.

When I ran up on this CD, I saw that it was the perfect fit for me. It has all the Lynyrd Skynyrd songs that I can't live without, for now. "Sweet Home Alabama"! "Free Bird (live)"! "Simple Man"! "Gimme Back My Bullets"! "That Smell"! "Gimme Three Steps"! "Swamp Music"! Those are my favorites, but I like them all, even the ones that I didn't recall hearing before, such as "Comin' Home".

One thing that not many have mentioned is how versatile of a band Lynyrd Skynyrd was. Take a listen and you'll see that they were mainly a group that liked to have fun both with their lyrics and with the way they perform. The live version of "Free Bird" provided paints a vivid picture of Ronnie Van Zant on the stage with all his bandmates having fun entertaining the crowd. "What's Your Name", "Gimme Three Steps", and "Swamp Music" are songs that are simply fun, along with being unique. They have a personality all their own. And they knew how to put some heartfelt emotions into their music too. "All I Can Do Is Think About It" and "Simple Man" are both inspirational songs that are good to listen to no matter what mood you're in, where you're at, or what you're doing.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if I hear more Lynyrd Skynyrd songs I like on the radio so much that I decide to buy a double-disc collection or even a box set by them one day. But until then, All Time Greatest Hits will be the one that'll be living in my CD player.

The booklet adds to this album's value. Read every word of the top notch biography of Lynyrd Skynyrd that was written by Ron O'Brien and I guarantee you'll have a much greater respect for this band. It's best not to think about "what might've been", but how can you help not doing so in the case of Ronnie Van Zant and a few others being killed in that plane crash? If he were still living now, just imagine, with all the success that Lynyrd Skynyrd's songs have had already, how much more great, classic, unforgettable, timeless music could've been made. All the ones on this CD were first shown to the world in a stretch of four years (1973 - 1977).

At least we'll always be able to enjoy every minute of what we have here. And it couldn't have been any better.

This is a great CD for a casual Lynyrd Skynyrd fan wanting to get the basics. if you want to get deeper into Skynyrd, i would suggest "The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd". If you don't think that the 14+ minute live version of "Free Bird" isn't truely amazing, you must be crazy. Every other one of these songs is a classic and are all great.