Caleb Quaye, the guitarist for Elton John, was recently a guest on Rock History Music. During the interview, he mentioned how Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King made a secret reveal about his classic ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’
In the interview, Quaye discussed his newest documentary, Louder Than Rock, and mentioned that he and King would have collaborated on some recordings if King was still alive. When asked if Ed ‘secretly’ took inspiration for ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ from his riffs, Quaye confirmed and said:
“That’s right. What influenced him was my guitar work on ‘Ballad Of A Well-Known Gun‘ on ‘Tumbleweed Connection.'”
When the interviewer realized the resemblance between the two songs, Quaye continued by recalling King’s secret revelation about his ‘credit’ in the hit song:
“Yeah, he sent me the email, the stories in the documentary… I was just flown when that email came. Not email, Facebook, it had just started, and he contacted me just to say thank you.”
The guitarist then shared why King needed to contact him:
“Because, at the time, he had some health issues, and he thought he was gonna die. So he was contacting all kind of people to clean the slate, anybody who’s upset, ‘forgive me,’ blah blah blah… He got hold of my information and wanted to contact me just to say thank you for the inspiration for ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ He’s such a sweet guy.”
Before King’s passing away, the two got the chance to meet and jam together in 2017. King passed away a year later due to cancer. He had been battling cancer months before his death and had struggled with congestive heart failure during his career, leading him to quit the band.
See the interview below.
