Guitarist with Lynyrd Skynyrd and co-writer of Sweet Home Alabama
Born: September 14, 1949;
Died: August 22, 2018,
ED King, who has died aged 68, was a former guitarist with the American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd and the man who helped write several of the group's hits, including their most famous Sweet Home Alabama.
King joined the band in 1972 and was part of its first three albums with its distinct three-guitar sound.
He is credited on several of Lynyrd Skynyrd's songs, including Saturday Night Special and Workin' For MCA, and his voice can be heard providing the opening count on Sweet Home Alabama.
The song, released in 1974 and written with Gary Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant, was a paen to the southern state and a riposte to Neil Young's famous criticism in his own song about the place. The famous chorus of Lynyrd Skynyrd's song goes: "Sweet home Alabama/Where the skies are so blue/Sweet home Alabama/Lord, I'm coming home to you".
King left the band two years before a plane crash killed singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines in 1977.
He rejoined the group 10 years later when it reunited with Johnny Van Zant taking his brother's place and played with the band until he retired in 1996 due to heart problems. He had a heart transplant in 2011.
King was also an original member of the California psychedelic group Strawberry Alarm Clock, which had a hit that King co-wrote called Incense and Peppermints in 1967.
He later joined Lynyrd Skynyrd at a time when Neil Young's songs about the South’s problems, including racism, were popular. Young released Southern Man in 1970 and the damning Alabama two years later. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s response was one of the earliest songs King wrote with his new band - they were always clear that they weren't defending the worst parts of the Southern ideology, they were merely writing about the power of home (although, ironically, none of the band members were actually from Alabama - King himself was born in California).
King said the three men had worked out the song based on a little riff Rossington had stumbled on. "When I came to rehearsal that day," said King, "Gary was playing this riff that you can hear in the verses. It’s not the main riff that I play; it’s a part that he plays. And as soon as I picked up the guitar I immediately bounced off his riff. And so I mean if it hadn’t been for Gary writing his part, I never would have written my part."
Family friend Scott Coopwood said King died of cancer in Nashville, Tennessee.
"Ed was our brother, and a great songwriter and guitar player," said Gary Rossington, a founding member of the band. "I know he will be reunited with the rest of the boys in Rock and Roll Heaven."
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