Billy Powell Died Today. I Remember.

Billy Powell died today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Powell
Back in October of 1977 I was a freshman on a college campus in Decatur, Mississippi. It could have easily been last night from the vivid recall of this event, as it was the moment I heard that Lynyrd Skynrds plane had crashed just a two hours drive south of where I was standing. From the FM car radio and word of mouth we heard the words "McComb, Mississippi." McComb, as my mind drifted to a memory of the town. I had spent time there as a teenager with my family and friends... I can literally remember where I was standing and the tree canopy overhead with a view to a moonlit Mississippi sky as I heard the words of this plane crash story. As I recall the whole thing was a shock as I had really embraced this band as sort of a charter member of the then non-existent fan club. I had started listening to bootleg cassettes of their music on a car stereo in the middle of the night in the Delta town of Greenwood, Mississippi, somewhere around 1973. I remember the first time I heard this band we had just loaded all the amps from a blues show and it was the wee hours of the morning. We were headed down the very flat highway in a truck with some local musicians listening to a new song I had never heard before, it was "Sweet Home Alabama." It seems like yesterday.

Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Here I come Alabama


Well today I hear that Billy Powell of the band has left us after surviving that fateful plane crash on that Mississippi Autumn night that seems not so long ago.

Sail on Billy, and thanks for the memories. You will be missed.