Former Lynyrd Skynyrd producer lending hand to young Jacksonville band Fortune Child

Kevin Elson has seen it all in his 40-plus career as a music producer and engineer. He produced and engineered some of the biggest hits of the '80s and '90s, mixed live sound for huge acts and survived the infamous Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash.

As 2021 wound down, he sat at a picnic table in St. Augustine watching a young Jacksonville band that is his next project.

The band walked on to the Colonial Oak stage just off St. George Street as Danger Bird and walked off two hours later as Fortune Child. Elson, who is producing the band's debut album, said the first thing he did when he started working with them was research their name. It turns out there's another band called Danger Bird, so a change had to happen.

Fortune Child is a four-piece band formed in Jacksonville last year when guitarist Buddy Crump and drummer Melanie Jo went looking for a singer and bass player. They found singer Christian Powers, who recommended his bandmate in Kapowski, bass player Jon Ward. And thus the future Fortune Child was born.

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Friends of friends of friends connected them with Elson, who produced megaselling records for Journey and others in the '80s and '90s. He's a Forrest High grad who grew up on Jacksonville's Westside and is now living in St. Augustine.

"The stars aligned," said Crump, who was mentored as a teen by former Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King. "We pitched it to him and he liked what he heard."

The band hasn't played a ton of shows — they've never even played outside of Florida. But they have a handful of songs strong enough to take into the studio. The band recorded its eight-song debut, "Close to the Sun," at Retrophonics Studio in St. Augustine.

Having a veteran like Elson at the controls helped a lot. "We knew what we were gonna do," said Powers. "But we didn't know how to studiofy it."

The whole album was recorded in just five days. "It all sort of happened scary fast," Crump said. "But here we are now."

"Close to the Sun" is scheduled to be released March 1. The band's first single, "Far," will be released Friday.

One of the songs was recorded in the new Dolby Atmos format, which gives listeners a true surround-sound experience, even with earbuds equipped to handle it. "It's like sitting in the middle of the band listening," Elson said.

Elson isn't the band's only big-name connection. Drummer Melanie Jo has nearly 3,000 followers on her YouTube page, where she posts videos of herself playing complex cover songs on the drums. She also spent time playing drums for ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons when he toured with his solo band, the BFGs. Onstage, she's a blur, banging away while casually chewing gum.

Elson said he wasn't necessarily looking for a young band to work with, but "they found me." He grew up in the Cedar Hills area of Jacksonville and played keyboards and guitar with local bands before realizing that his buddies were better at it than he was.

"I was never that good," Elson said. "I knew enough to get around."

A bunch of those buddies went on to form .38 Special.

"Nobody ever took lessons," he said. "They kind of just developed their talent."

Another close friend was Billy Powell. Elson said he was the one who convinced the guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd to give him a tryout and, after hearing him play a classical rendition of "Free Bird," he was in.

Elson became Skynyrd's soundman, mixing sound at hundreds of live shows in the band's early years and earning the nickname "Mr. Feedback." He also worked as a producer on "Street Survivors," the band's 1977 album.

Elson went on tour with Skynyrd to promote "Street Survivors" and was aboard the leased Convair 240 that was carrying the band from South Carolina to Louisiana when it crashed in the Mississippi woods on Oct. 20, 1977. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines from the band were killed in the crash, along with assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick and the plane's two pilots. Elson had a dislocated hip and a badly crushed right ankle that kept him hospitalized for a month.

"I don't really remember much about it," Elson said.

He worked with the reconfigured Skynyrd again on its "Lynyrd Skynyrd '91" album and calls them "The hardest working band I ever heard of."

He served as producer and engineer for most of Journey's big hits (he, too, was taken by surprise by the use of "Don't Stop Believin'" in "The Sopranos" finale), and also worked with Europe, Mr. Big, Shooting Star, Night Ranger and Y&T.

He lives in St. Augustine now and can afford to pick and choose the jobs he likes. "I work when I want to," he said. He mixed sound a few years back for an REO Speedwagon show at Daily's Place and is planning a trip to Europe this year to work with Tears for Fears.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Producer who worked with Journey, Skynyrd helping Jacksonville band