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Ed King was the guitarist for Strawberry Alarm Clock who co-wrote the music, and single-handedly wrote the solo he played on this song.
He originally conceived it as an instrumental, but the label made the band paste words onto it. He always resented that.
Fast forward about 7 years, to 1974, when Ed King was one of the three guitarists for Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band he had joined 2 years prior. In fact, he jumped ship from SAC to Skynyrd, when the latter was actually opening for the former at a bar. Skynyrd was still one year away from their first album contract, but he saw them as the future, and SAC as the past.
He co-wrote the music for "Sweet Home Alabama", and like on "Incense and Peppermints", wrote and played the solo. He said he did it to get his money back :-)
One year later, unable to keep pace with Skynyrd's relentless 300-days-per-year touring schedule, he quit in the middle of the night.
One year after that, he was finally replaced by a guitarist named Steve Gaines. He was recruited with the help of his sister Cassie Gaines, a back-up vocalist with the band, who had pressured the others to give him an audition.
On October 20, 1977, Steve Gaines was one of the three band members who perished in a plane crash, the other two being Cassie, and Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant.
Steve Gaines was born September 13, 1949.
Ed King was born September 13, 1949.
To this day, Ed is convinced had he stayed in the band, he would have been the one to die in the crash instead of Gaines.
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