“Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

"Sweet Home Alabama" is the sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd answering back. It came off their second album, Second Helping, in 1974, written by Ronnie Van Zant, Ed King and Gary Rossington as a reply to Neil Young's "Southern Man" and "Alabama," songs the band felt pinned the whole South's history of slavery on everybody who lived there. Young gets called out by name.

Then there's that riff: bright, loping and instantly familiar, with three electric guitars from King, Rossington and Allen Collins weaving around each other, Billy Powell's keyboards rolling underneath, Leon Wilkeson's bass strutting and Bob Burns keeping it easy. Van Zant sings like a man leaning on a porch rail, and Merry Clayton and Clydie King add backing vocals with pure gospel heat. Al Kooper produced and engineered it and wisely left the swagger alone.

It went to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974, the band's highest-charting single, and it has never left Southern and classic rock radio. Along with "Free Bird," it has a fair claim to being the band's signature song.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.