LYNYRD SKYNYRD PIANIST BILLY POWELL DEAD AT 56

Billy Powell, piano player for Lynyrd Skynyrd, has passed away at 56, and his bandmates tell some funny stories about the man.

Piano player for Lynyrd Skynyrd Billy Powell died earlier today, January 28, at his house of an apparent heart attack. It came just a half day before he was scheduled to undergo a check up and tests on his heart. He called 911 at about 1:00am this morning complaining of problems breathing. When help arrived he had already passed on. Skynyrd is postponing dates and arrangements are being made for one of rock and roll’s greatest piano players.

In an earlier interview, vocalist Johnny Van Zant and guitarist Rickey Medlocke talked about one of the most surreal moments playing an early morning show on Fox News, at the expense of Powell.

[Medlocke] “We’re playing acoustically, and the camera is on Johnny and Gary doing an interview, and here’s Billy Powell wandering outside looking for us and finally seeing that we were doing an interview and he’s outside the window across the street….” [Van Zant] “We kept his ass out, we don’t want him there!” [Medlocke] “…and everybody thought we didn’t allow Billy to come in. Bulls–t. Come on. I mean and he just kind of wandered into the scene. It was just a surreal thing. ‘That’s Billy!.’ So, folks we did not exclude him from the deal. People are already on our website thinking we counted him out or something, man.”

Van Zant added:

“What happened there, just to set the record straight too, is that they only had so many channels, so they didn’t have enough channels for keyboards and drums and all that stuff. When you do these morning shows they’re kind of put together haphazardly, so it was just a few of us that could go out and do it. It’s the music buisness folks, don’t take it too seriously.”

Billy Powell was only 56 years old. Gary Rossington, who luckily had heart problems diagnosed and treated with operations, remains the only remaining member of the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd line-up left in the band.