RIP, Billy Powell

Billy Powell, keyboard player for southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd, died last night. Powell was one of the survivors that of the plane crash that killed three members of the band in 1977, and he continued to play with the re-formed band.

Most Alabamians have a soft spot for the “Sweet Home Alabama,” the band’s retort to Neil Young; the phrase itself is on our license plates starting this month. The song apparently resonates with non-Alabamians; it was the group’s highest charting hit (so take that, David Spade, who once said that Lynyrd Skynyrd should call every song they do either “Free Bird” or “Not Free Bird”) and was once covered by, among others, the Leningrad Cowboys performing with the Red Army Choir. A minister once told me how much his son enjoyed coming upon a busker performing the song on a street corner in England.

Here is “Sweet Home Alabama” performed by Lynyrd Skynyrd on YouTube. And here is the song as performed by Finland’s Leningrad Cowboys with the Red Army Choir.

The guys had some hooks. For no apparent reason, from time to time I find “Gimme Three Steps” running through my head…

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