ORANGE PARK, Fla. -- Billy Powell, longtime keyboardist for the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died this morning at his northeast Florida home. He was 56.
Powell called 911 about 12:55 a.m. today saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m., said Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett.
A heart attack is suspected, based on Powell's history of heart trouble.
The Jacksonville-based band was formed in 1966 by a group of high school students -- famously, it took its name from a P.E. teacher they disliked, Leonard Skinner. Powell joined the group around 1972, the year before they released their first album, "Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd."
The band was decimated on Oct. 20, 1977, when their chartered plane crashed in a swamp near McComb, Miss.
Six people were killed -- lead singer Ronnie Van Zant; guitarist Steve Gaines; and his sister, vocalist Cassie Gaines; as well as an assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot.
Powell was one of the survivors.
In an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1986, Powell remembered lying in the Mississippi swamp badly wounded and wondering why he was alive.
His mental and physical recovery were difficult. A fourth drunken-driving arrest landed him in jail for 30 days in 1984, when he began reading the Bible.
His bad habits "were instantly healed. Now I am a new creation with a new heart," he told The Times-Dispatch.
Powell played in a Christian rock band before joining a revived Lynyrd Skynyrd in the late 1980s, playing with the band until his death.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
-- Staff, wire reports
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