Thursday, August 23, 2018

Ed King, R.I.P.

Bass and guitar player Ed King, best known for co-writing Lynyrd Skynyrd's signature song "Sweet Home Alabama", has passed away at age of 68 of lung cancer.


King's contributions to Skynyrd's trio of albums produced by Al Kooper - Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nerd, Second Helping and Nuthin' Fancy were sufficient to get him inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.


But I was more partial to his work with his previous band, The Strawberry Alarm Clock of which he was founding member. They were, of course, best known for "Incense and Peppermints" which King is widely believed to have helped write, but wasn't credited. King did co-write their follow up hit "Tomorrow". I particularly enjoyed his guitar work on "They Saw The Fat One Coming".




Whatever royalties King lost out on "Incense and Peppermints" was more than made up for with "Sweet Home Alabama". Greg Richter of The Birmingham News (we follow each other on Twitter) wrote this account of his meeting King in 2010 to discuss the genesis of the song.


I asked Greg if they talked about his time in The Strawberry Alarm Clock. Alas they had not, but were planning to discuss it over lunch. Sadly, this lunch would never come to pass. What a meal that would have been. But King gave us plenty of music to satiate our appetites. R.I.P.

No comments:

Post a Comment