
On the album cover for Pronounced, King is pictured far right, a bit detached from the group. King is a highlight of If I Leave Here Tomorrow, offering keen firsthand insight into the Southern band as an outsider from California. I had to play on old strings and I broke two strings during ‘Free Bird.’ After, Ronnie was riding me, and a lightbulb went off and I said, ‘That’s it.’ I went back to my room, packed up my stuff and left.” They didn’t arrive … until 10 minutes before we went on. “Ronnie and my guitar roadie who changed my strings were thrown in jail in Ann Arbor. In 1980 The Rossington-Collins Band was formed, featuring four surviving Skynyrd members. I’m not digging the violence part,” King said, recounting how a broken string at a show in Pittsburgh earned him the wrath of the mercurial Van Zant. “I’m the hippie from Southern California. Original drummer Bob Burns died aged 64 on Aphis car crashed into a tree while he was driving alone near his home in Cartersville, Georgia. As Rock and Roll Paradise reports, Guitarist Ed King found Wilkeson with his throat cut, bleeding. We thank his many friends and fans for their love and support of Ed during his life and career.”Ī California native, King was a founding member of the psychedelic Sixties band Strawberry Alarm Clock, known for their hit “Incense and Peppermints.” He offered to join Skynyrd when, opening for the band at the Jacksonville, Florida, bar the Comic Book Club in 1968, he heard them rehearsing the song “Need All My Friends.” It wasn’t until 1972, however, when King would sign on with Skynyrd, temporarily replacing bassist Leon Wilkeson and then becoming a full-fledged member as third guitarist.Īfter a dust-up with singer Ronnie Van Zant, King, tired of the Skynyrd drama and propensity for fighting, exited the band in 1975, detailing the incident in the superb new documentary If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd. While touring with the revamped Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wilkeson faced another brush with death. At the peak of their success, three members died in an airplane crash in.
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A cause of death was not specified, though King had been battling lung cancer and had recently been hospitalized for the disease.Ī message on King’s Facebook confirmed his death: “It is with great sorrow we announce the passing of Ed King who died at his home in Nashville, Tennessee on August 22nd, 2018. The band gained worldwide recognition for its live performances and signature songs Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird.

Ed King, the Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist who joined the band in 1972 to give the Southern rock group its iconic three-guitar sound, died Wednesday in Nashville.
