Eric Church’s 2017 Holdin’ My Own Tour will always go down as one of the best runs from any country artist in the past decade. The 61-day tour featured no openers, a two-set, three-hour show and a plethora of stellar covers across genres that were later released into a five-volume live album, 61 Days in Church.
The aforementioned covers ranged everywhere from The Band’s “Ophelia” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi” to Willie Nelson’s “Me And Paul” and John Anderson’s “Seminole Wind.” However, the best cover featured on 61 Days in Church very well may be his performance of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1974 classic, “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” off of their sophomore album, Second Helping.
In typical Eric Church fashion, the cover is absolutely electric. It should come as no surprise given that he hasn’t been afraid to lean into his rock influences on tracks like “Do Side,” “Desperate Man” and the severely underrated “Hangin’ Around.”
The performance back in 2017 isn’t where the story of Church and “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” ends, however. In Soul, the third entry of his 2021 triple album project, Heart & Soul, the “Springsteen” singer released a follow-up story to Skynyrd’s classic song on the album’s closer, “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones.”
The expertly penned track by long-time Church collaborator, Casey Beathard, depicts the story of a child named Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones who was (obviously) named after the iconic Florida band. In the final verse of the track, it’s revealed that Jones is actually the son of none other than Curtis Loew. While sure, some will call it a bit cheesy to decide to callback to Loew, I’ve always found it to be a great plot twist in a song crafted around the band.
Watch here: