The Ballad of Curtis Loew

The story told by The Ballad of Curtis Loew takes us to a young boy who collects bottles to earn money and gives it to an older man, Curtis Loew. This man, who played blues on his Dobro guitar, becomes a figure of admiration for the boy, even though his mother punished him and the local people considered him useless. The narrator laments Curtis's death, wishing he were still around so everyone could recognize his worth. The band mentions that the song is inspired by real people from the neighborhood where the Van Zant brothers grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and that the grocery store is based on Claude's Midway Grocery. The surname Loew, curiously, comes from Ed King when writing the album notes, who took it from the name of a theater.

This piece was written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant and was recorded in January 1974 at Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles. It was part of Lynyrd Skynyrd's second album, Second Helping, released on April 15, 1974. The producer of the recording was Al Kooper. Interestingly, Ed King recounts that the original band only played this song once live, in a hotel basement, and did not perform it again until the tribute tour with Johnny Van Zant. The album Second Helping, which includes The Ballad of Curtis Loew, reached number 12 on the Billboard charts and achieved Gold certification in September 1974 and Double Platinum in July 1987.