Lynyrd Skynyrd's fan base continued to grow rapidly in 1973, thanks to their opening on the Who's Quadrophenia tour in the United States. Their 1974 follow-up album, Second Helping, featuring King, Collins and Rossington all collaborating with Van Zant on the songwriting, cemented the band's breakthrough. Its single "Sweet Home Alabama", a response to Neil Young's "Southern Man", reached #8 on the charts that August. Young and Van Zant were not rivals, but fans of each other's music and good friends; Young wrote the song "Powderfinger" for the band, but they never recorded it.Simmons, p. 135. During their peak years, most of their records sold over one million copies, but "Sweet Home Alabama" was the only single to crack the top ten.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's fan base continued to grow rapidly in 1973, thanks to their opening on the Who's Quadrophenia tour in the United States. Their 1974 follow-up album, Second Helping, featuring King, Collins and Rossington all collaborating with Van Zant on the songwriting, cemented the band's breakthrough. Its single "Sweet Home Alabama", a response to Neil Young's "Southern Man", reached #8 on the charts that August. Young and Van Zant were not rivals, but fans of each other's music and good friends; Young wrote the song "Powderfinger" for the band, but they never recorded it.Simmons, p. 135 During their peak years, most of their records sold over one million copies, but "Sweet Home Alabama" was th.e only single to crack the top ten.