Artimus Pyle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Artimus Pyle is a Rock & Roll drummer most famous for playing with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Born Thomas Delmer Pyle on July 15, 1948 in Louisville, Kentucky. He began playing drums at age twelve. He joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1974. He survived the 1977 plane crash of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band that killed Ronnie Van Zant, Cassie Gaines and Steve Gaines. Pyle crawled out of the plane wreckage with several broken ribs, yet ran nearly a mile to a farmhouse to try to get help. Farmer, Johnny Mote, on first seeing the wild-haired blood- and mud-encrusted drummer babbling incoherently, greeted him with a (non-fatal) shotgun blast to his shoulder. Only when Mote realized that this person was connected with the plane crash he had just heard did he call for help.

In 1981 he put together the A.P.B. with members like Darryl Otis Smith, John Boerstler, and Steve Lockhart. A.P.B. is sometimes called the Artimus Pyle Band, sometimes All Points Bulletin. A year later, the group released a debut album, A.P.B., under the MCA Records label. Some of the tracks fans will find on this offering are "It Ain't the Whiskey," "Rock and Roll Each Other," and "She's My Baby." In 1983, the band released a second album, Nightcaller. Four years later, Pyle joined the Skynyrd Tribute Tour, and even recorded another Skynyrd album in 1991 before leaving the group.