Studio One — Doraville, Georgia (Lynyrd Skynyrd Recordings)

Studio One in Doraville, Georgia — a suburb northeast of Atlanta — was where Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded their first two albums under producer Al Kooper: 'Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd' (1973) and 'Second Helping' (1974). The studio sessions that produced these records turned a Jacksonville bar band with years of roadwork behind them into one of the most significant acts in American rock. 'Second Helping' contained 'Sweet Home Alabama' — written partly as a rejoinder to Neil Young's 'Southern Man' and 'Alabama,' and partly as a genuine expression of Southern regional pride — which became a Top 10 hit and the song most people reach for when they think of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Al Kooper had discovered the band after hearing a demo and signed them to his Sounds of the South label distributed through MCA. He has described recording them at Studio One as one of the great experiences of his producing career — a band so well-rehearsed from years of constant touring that they essentially reproduced their live sound in the studio with minimal direction needed. The three-guitar interplay of Rossington, Collins, and Ed King, the rolling rhythms of Billy Powell's keyboards, and Van Zant's commanding vocal — all of it present and fully formed by the time they set foot in the Doraville studio.

Studio One in Doraville was a significant recording facility for Southern rock and R&B throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The facility has changed ownership and use over the decades since the Lynyrd Skynyrd sessions. Doraville is accessible from Atlanta via MARTA's Gold Line. The recordings made there — 'Free Bird,' 'Simple Man,' 'Gimme Three Steps,' 'Sweet Home Alabama,' 'Tuesday's Gone' — constitute one of the most enduring bodies of work in American rock history, produced in a nondescript studio in a nondescript suburb where nobody could have predicted what was being made.