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".
Maggie Sajak
Sajak grew up in the Severna Park, Maryland area. She began playing the guitar at age 12. In 2011, she released her first single "First Kiss", an upbeat country pop song. The music video for "First Kiss" was directed by CMT Music Award winning director Trey Fanjoy in Nashville, Tennessee. Sajak's video was featured on the January 3, 2012 episode of "Wheel of Fortune" as a tribute to her 17th birthday. In 2013, Sajak recorded a song in Nashville called "Live Out Loud" to honor Muriel Walters, a teenage girl in Maryland who was battling cancer. Soon afterwards, one of her songs was featured in the season finale of "Sweet Home Alabama".