Artimus Pyle

Thomas Delmer "Artimus" Pyle (born July 15, 1948) is an American musician who played drums with the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1974 to 1977 and from 1987 to 1991. He and his bandmates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Pyle was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of homemaker Mildred "Midge" Pyle (née Williams; 1925–2008) and Clarence "Del" Pyle (1921–1971), a construction superintendent who was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot in the leg while serving with the United States Marine Corps in the South Pacific during World War II.

Pyle himself enlisted in the Marines in 1968. He was named platoon and series honorman and promoted to private first class following completion of boot camp in San Diego. Eyeing a career in civil aviation, Pyle worked as an avionics mechanic at various military bases, including Millington, Tennessee, and Beaufort, South Carolina, ultimately rising to the rank of sergeant. He was honorably discharged in 1971.

After playing with Thickwood Lick in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Pyle joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1975. He initially played alongside, and then replaced, original drummer Bob Burns. He made his recording debut in August of that year on "Saturday Night Special", which became the first single from the band's third album, Nuthin' Fancy. In addition to Nuthin' Fancy, Pyle also played on the albums Gimme Back My Bullets, One More from the Road, Street Survivors, Legend, Southern by the Grace of God and Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991.

He survived the 1977 plane crash that killed lead vocalist and songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant Road Manager Dean Kilpatrick, and the two pilots. Pyle suffered torn chest cartilage but managed to stumble several hundred yards through a creek and a field to a farmhouse to get help. The appearance of Pyle alarmed the 21-year-old farmer Johnny Mote, who mistook him for an escaped convict and fired a warning shot over Pyle's head. Pyle would later joke he was hit in the shoulder, but his other accounts differ. Mote also refutes the claim of Pyle being shot, when interviewed at the crash scene for VH1's 2002 documentary Lynyrd Skynyrd's Uncivil War. Mote realized the situation when Pyle shouted that there had been a plane crash, helped Pyle inside his house and was part of the initial rescue party. About the same time local rescuers, who had just completed a Civil Defense drill, converged on the scene and Pyle directed them to the crash site where the dead and the injured were located.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.