Robert Burns

Robert Lewis Burns Jr. was an American drummer who was in the original line-up of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Burns helped to form Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1964 with Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom and remained until 1974, although by some accounts he left the band for a while during the early 1970s. Burns played on the band's early recordings, but on the album Skynyrd's First and... Last, a collection of early demos made in Muscle Shoals, the drum parts of some songs recorded in 1971 were played by Rickey Medlocke. That album also contains songs recorded in 1972 which feature Burns on drums, suggesting that Burns left the band in 1971 and had returned by 1972. During a brief period in the early 1970s, Medlocke occasionally played alongside Burns on drums for live shows, a two-drummer line-up similar to The Allman Brothers Band.

Burns also played on the band's first two official albums: (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) and Second Helping. Burns suffered a mental breakdown while on a particularly difficult European tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd and left the band in 1974, and was thus not involved in the plane crash that killed three band members in 1977.

Burns died on April 3, 2015, in a single car crash after hitting a mailbox and tree on a sharp curve in Cartersville, Georgia, shortly after leaving his home.