This week Third Day had the national stage on the Craig Ferguson Show and offered up this…

Magnificent!
Magnificent!

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent
Magnificent

This one hurts. Billy was one of my favorite keyboard players. Had a chance to meet him when he was playing with Christian rock band Vision back in the 80′s.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Pianist Billy Powell Has Died

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s keyboard player and our friend Billy Powell has died. According to insider sources, he started experiencing chest pains and difficulty breathing and called 911 at 12:55 a.m. this morning. He was still alive when EMS arrived at his Orange Park, Florida condo, but went into caridiac arrest and slipped away. He was 56 years old.

Born William Norris “Billy” Powell on June 3, 1952, in Corpus Christi, Texas, Powell grew up a Navy brat, spending many years living wiith his family in Italy. When his father died of cancer in 1960, he moved with his family back to the United States and settled in Jacksonville, Florida. While enrolled at the Sanford Naval Academy in Sanford, Florida, he began taking piano lessons from a local teacher named Madeleine Brown who often called young Billy a prodigy, saying he really didn’t need her at all because his music flowed from deep inside him.

Billy returned to Jacksonville where he met Leon Wilkeson, future bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd. After graduation, Leon helped him get a job as a roadie for Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Powell remained a roadie for Skynyrd until 1972, when he sat down at a piano in the corner of the room at a gig and began to play his own version of “Free Bird.” Ronnie Van Zant was impressed, and invited Powell to join Lynyrd Skynyrd officially as their new keyboard player.

Billy enjoyed the fame, the success of the original band, and endured the tragic plane crash of 1977 that took the lives of several band mambers, including Ronnie. He would rejoin the Tribute Tour ten years later, and stay with the band until death.

During the time between the plane crash and the Lynyrd Skynyrd reunion in 1987, Powell briefly joined a Christian rock band named Vision. His keyboard playing was often spotlighted in Vision concerts. Powell also spoke during the concerts about his newly found faith in Jesus Christ.

Billy’s son Brandon Powell is a guitarist in the Jacksonville based rock band Syntenic.

And the Swampland flag returns to half-mast.

-Michael Buffalo Smith

Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboard player Billy Powell dead at 56

Billy Powell, a longtime keyboard player for Lynyrd Skynyrd who survived the band’s 1977 plane crash, died at his Orange Park condo early this morning, according to police.

Orange Park Police Chief James Boivin said Powell called 911 from his condo in Club Continental and was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m. after rescue crews performed CPR on him. Boivin said he was told Powell had an appointment with his heart specialist Monday but never made the appointment.

Current Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant spent 22 years with Powell in the band. He said the took the news of Powell’s death hard. (continue reading…)

10 – …because without our rejects, you wouldn’t even have a team!

9 – …or coaches!

8 – …because Larry Fitzgerald would rather play for us, anyway.

7 – …because, can you say, 5 titles versus 0??

6 – …because isn’t it going to be embarrassing enough losing on your first Super Bowl trip?

5 – …because how many cities do you have to play in before they decide to keep you?

4 – …because what’s a bird compared to our Men of Steel?

3 – …because you’re not really a fan unless you sit through 0 degree weather at a home game.

2 – …because we KNOW there’s a Steelers bar (or a dozen) in Arizona, but we can guarantee, there are no Cardinals bars here.

1 – …because even though all of the above is true, we’ll give you one thing: Your cheerleaders are way hotter than ours.

Lou’s career started in 1958, driving a coupe for his father. He began racing Coupes, Super Modifieds, and Sprints, becoming an instant success. I first observed the teenage driver in a Trevis built sprint car competeing with the super modifieds at the Greater Pittsburgh Speedway in Clinton PA in 1959. The young driver was part of the three car team of Gib Orr, Dale Johnson and Blaney. The cars were referred to as the “Three White Mice”. The team won a great deal of the races running against drivers like Dave Lundy, Bobby Adamson, Mac Clingan, Dean Mast, and Gus Linder.

He moved to the Modifieds in 1978. His first Modified was acquired by long time car owner Bill Thomas from legendary modified stock car driver and builder Dick Tobias of Lebanon. Blaney was a winner right out of the box aboard the car. He continued to drive Modifieds and Super Sprints until 1981, when his son and current NASCAR Nextel Cup star, Dave Blaney, started driving the sprint car.

His success in the modifieds is legendary but his best years were behind the wheel of his famous number 10 sprint car. The track championships are too numerous to mention, but the career highlight came in 1973. Driving for the Crash Brothers, Lou was running a three track circuit. Friday night was Lernerville, Saturday night Jennerstown, and Sunday night was Tri-City Speedway. Winning a point race on the last night of the season is thrilling enough, but Lou and Ted Wise were locked up in a last night battle at all three tracks, which sounds like a fantasy but true. And even more unbelievable, Lou Blaney managed to win all three track championships on that last night at each speedway.

Blaney is well-known for his Super Sprint exploits. He recorded over 200 Super Sprint wins from 1961 to 1980. In 1966 driving for Bill Thomas; Lou won the Williams Grove National Open, which at that time was the premier race for sprint cars in the entire country. He placed third to eventual two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock in the 1963 inaugural event. Three years later, Blaney won the National Open. It is probably the most cherished of his many victories.

In 1981, when he started driving the DIRT Modified full-time, Blaney finished second to Merv Treichler in the Schaefer International 200 for his best career finish in the world’s richest dirt track modified stock car race. Unexpectedly, Blaney’s red and white No. 10 ended up on the front cover of Stock Car Racing Magazine that winter, which earned him more notoriety.

Lou was a good athlete even before he started racing, as he was a standout basketball player at Hartford High School scoring 1200 points over his four year high school career. It was probably just a coincidence that Lou’s basketball uniform was number 10.

Late Model car owner Jook George, one night at Expo Speedway, convinced Lou to drive his late model #10. Jook chose the number because Blaney was his hero. It was the only time Blaney was ever in a late model.

Lou’s sons, Dale and Dave, have also had their share of sports headlines. Dale was a star basketball player at West Virginia University and got a tryout with the pros. Dale has developed into one of the premier sprint car drivers on the East Coast. Dave needs no introduction to racing fans, was a star in his own right in the World of Outlaw sprint circuit as well as his current deal with NASCAR Sprint Cup and the Nationwide Series.

Dave finished second at Syracuse, first in the sprint car segment, and repeated in the big modified show in 1989. It’s not very often a father and son will take two of the first five places in the biggest modified show in the country.

Lou Blaney was one of the few big winners that the fans have continued to cheer over the years. Big winners usually have had their share of boos from the crowd, which goes with long term success. Lou was always a quiet, reserved person who won his races with his head and right foot, and not with his mouth.

There have been many great drivers in the Tri State area, but it’s hard to say that any of them are any better than Lou Blaney. His rim riding style was smooth as it was in 1958. And his personality and sportsmanship have never been questioned.

Lou Blaney was inducted into the DIRT Motorsports Hall of Fame in Weedsport, N.Y. He was the first driver to be elected to the Hall of Fame from this region. Blaney’s victory list in the DIRT Modifieds is virtually untouchable. Lou was inducted into the Pittsburgh Circle Track Club Hall of Fame in 1997 along with Jack Freeman, Jean Lynch, and Mike Klapak.

He has victories at Sharon, Lernerville, Mercer, Raceway 7, Tri-City, Expo, Sportsman, Pittsburgh, and Hagerstown Speedway. Lou along with his sons Dave and Dale have ten titles and Lou is second all-time with 118 wins at Lernerville Speedway.

It’s been a long time, hundreds of feature wins, and numerous track championships since Lou climbed into his first race car, a Cadillac powered 1934 Chevrolet, in 1958. He has numerous track championships, and won Walt Wimer’s #1 Cochran Cavalcade Modified point championship sixteen times and four times in the Sprint Cars. A gentlemen and a champion that created many wonderful memories for the fans over five decades and a great reason to “remember when”.