Sweet Home Alabama
"Sweet Home Alabama" was written as an answer to two songs, "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Neil Young, which dealt with themes of racism and slavery in the American South. "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," said Ronnie Van Zant at the time. The following excerpt shows the Neil Young mention in the song:
In his 2012 autobiography "Waging Heavy Peace", Young commented on his role in the song's creation, writing "My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue".
Robert Mersey
In the 1950s he worked as an arranger with Leiber and Stoller. He married English lyricist Pam Sawyer in the early 1960s; they later divorced. From the early 1960s he was employed as an arranger and producer at Columbia Records, where he was responsible for records by singers such as Andy Williams, Barbra Streisand, Bobby Vinton, Dion, Johnny Mathis, Julie Andrews, Mel Tormé, Patti Page and Ray Peterson. In 1960, he conducted the orchestra in the song "Good Timin'", sung by Jimmy Jones. The song also later became a hit for Kyu Sakamoto. He was also responsible for many of Aretha Franklin's early recordings at Columbia, including her 1964 tribute album to Dinah Washington, "". According to writer Ursula Rivera, Mersey "was able to provide musical arrangements that highlighted Aretha's unique voice whether she was singing a noisy blues number or a heartbreaking ballad." Mersey also arranged and composed for CBS Television and films, and produced several albums of incidental music, including "Great Jazz from Great TV", credited to "Det Moor".