RIP Slim Dunlap

 The man who did a great job replacing the irreplaceable—an original Replacement—has left the stage.

"That's all there is." 

RIP Eddie Van Halen

I confess that I have never really been a fan of Van Halen. I love some of their songs, don't get me wrong ("Dance the Night Away" is a perfect song, as an example), but despite growing up exactly during the time when they hit it huge, my VH phase really didn't last that long.

I mean sure, I remember owning the first three albums and getting into it at my musical awakening when I was 12-13. But my tastes later veered in other directions and I kinda left Van Halen in the rearview mirror. Not that this had any impact on the band, of course.

But while the music didn't thrill me, Eddie Van Halen usually did. How could he not? Just the way he made guitar fans out of so many Gen Xers was impressive enough. Wickety-wickety guitar playing is touch and go with me (no pun intended...no, you know what? Screw it, that was pretty good. Pun intended!). Which is why Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen just never got me excited. But when it was melodic and not just going for land speed records? Yeah, I could dig that. And that's what Eddie Van Halen always seemed to bring. Sure it could be lightning fast, but it was tuneful and even, often times, soulful.

"Eruption" was a sonic revelation. His work on "And the Cradle Will Rock" sounded like the guitar version of impending doom. "Atomic Punk." The aforementioned "Dance the Night Away." His epic turn on "Beat It." Eddie could play, and part of being a music fan is respecting those artists who could, even if maybe you don't love their stuff. That was Eddie Van Halen to me.

The other thing? I loved how he always seemed to have so much fun when he played. I ever saw the band live in concert (again, not a big enough fan for that), but I've seen plenty of clips and he has always seemed to belie the classic "lay back and let the frontman preen" guitar God persona. Think about the detached cool of Jimmy Page or (once long long ago) Keith Richards or Jeff Beck. That wasn't Eddie. Even though he had a life-sized, manshaped peacock in David Lee Roth dominating the stage, and later a hardly gunshy Sammy Hagar doing same, Eddie was still out there and seemingly having a blast. Never upstaging the showy glitter Gods at the microphone, but just smiling and hustling and laughing and looking like this was what he always wanted to do, this and only this. Bravo for that. Seriously.

RIP Eddie Van Halen, gone too young at 65.

RIP Adam Schlesinger

A sage once said, “There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” Well, there's always a shortage of perfect pop songs, and the writer of one of the most perfect of all time has died. It wouldn't be accurate to say I was exactly a fan of his, but looking over his catalog, I surely was a massive fan of at least a few of his songs, and am finding myself crushed that we'll never again get a chance to hear him write another perfect new song from the 60s or 80s or 70s or 90s.

RIP Neil Peart

One of the giants of drumming died today. Apparently Rush drummer Neil Peart had been fighting brain cancer for years and told next to no one. Which is about as Neil Peart a thing as I can imagine.

There have been few big-name drummers who cared more or thought more deeply about drums and drumming than Peart. He may not have had the ability to make odd time signatures swing as effortlessly as Phil Collins, nor Bill Bruford's restless desire to never, ever repeat himself—to name two of the three other major prog rock drummers of the 70s—but no one ever strove for perfection like Peart. He'd spend months writing and rewriting and tweaking and honing and finally recording his parts, wondering if a flam here would be more effective or perhaps a ruff would work better or maybe it should simply be played as clean straight notes. And, of course, once the final part was settled, he'd meticulously recreate it night after night in concert, live, with tens of thousands of adoring eyes on him, and tens of thousands of adoring ears listening to every ghost note, every hi-hat bark, every perfect 32nd note paradiddlediddle.

And Peart, notorious perfectionist owner of staggering technical abilities, every one of which he worked relentlessly at, was open about how often he made mistakes. And, sure, he was almost certainly the only one who ever noticed them, but that's not entirely the point: the point is, he did notice them. And whereas a Collins would think, well, that sucks, but the show must go on, and push it out of his mind, and a Bruford would think, well, that didn't work but was really quite interesting, I wonder if there's anything to be learned from that, Peart would obsess over it, determined to do better next time. And the time after. And the time after.

And few professional musicians have ever dedicated themselves to reinventing their technique as late in their career as he did in the 90s, studying with master instructor Freddie Gruber, and changing up his approach to the drums—an idea which would have have been, was, beyond absurd to the generations of drummers would have given their left splash cymbal to have had half Peart's original technique.

But when I think of Neil Peart's drumming, I don't think of the title track to 2112, or the beloved instrumentals like "YYZ" or "La Villa Strangiato," I think about "Spirit of Radio," both because it's one of his finest lyrics, and most of all, because of the sense of humor and obvious love for music that comes through in every measure.

There are places where he seems to almost anticipate the gospel chops of the next century in his (perhaps Steve Gadd-inspired) linear fills, and it changes time signatures more often than most drummers change their socks, but it's the places where for measures on end he plays...the bass drum. Just unadorned quarter notes on the kick drum. The kind of thing he could have played after one lesson as a kid. Hell, the kind of thing he could have played before taking a single lesson. But it was right for the music, so monster drummer Neil Peart—who wrote the part—played the simplest thing possible. What's more, besotted (as the rest of the band was, along with pretty much everyone in the world was) at the time by the Police (and in Peart's case specifically the playing of the band's utterly dissimilar Stewart Copeland), he goes into...reggae. About as un-prog-like a musical style as is imaginable. But it felt right, it fit the song, so into reggae they went, by god.

Sure, there are those other parts where it goes into 7/4, 'cuz hey, that too fit. (And most amusing of all, when the song leaves 7/4 and goes back into 4/4, that's actually the measure which feels wonkiest, as the beat is displaced, ala "Sunshine of Your Love" or "Bell Bottom Blues." A tricksy bagginses, that Peart.)

The world has moved on. And we're unlikely to see the likes of a prog god like Neil Peart ever achieve mass popularity again. So pour one out for the reclusive percussionist, even though he'd probably hate it.

RIP Neil Innes

Whenever I think of my favorite musical artists ever, Neil Innes never comes to mind. And yet the man who wrote "Knights of the Round Table" and "Brave Sir Robin," among so many others, probably brought me more joy than all but a tiny handful of musicians.

RIP Eddie Money

I was never exactly an Eddie Money fan. I was a suburban white boy growing up in the northeast in the late 70s and early 80s, so of course I knew and liked a handful of his songs; that's just how it was. But to call myself a fan wouldn't just be a stretch, it'd be inaccurate.

Still, it amused me when he scored an MTV hit in the early days. This not terribly telegenic and definitely not smooth and polished rocker, nothing like Michael Jackson or Duran Duran, was on nearly as often, thanks to his "Shakin'" video. And if I didn't especially want to watch it, much less listen to it, well, it still made me smile.

But I've always thought he did have one true shining moment of real rock and roll greatness. His breakthrough hit "Two Tickets to Paradise" is good. It's not great but it's good, maybe even very good. The drums, by the fabulous Gary Mallaber, are fantastic, the percussion's great, and the guitar solo is ever so sweet. But the lyrics to the verses are jejune and the chorus simplistic.

But the music during the verses is great. And if the music during the chorus is just okay, well, that all gets washed away during the B-section, the "waiting so long" part, which seems as simplistic as the chorus and yet somehow taps into something incredibly primal and eternal, thanks to the combination of the sentiment, the melody and the instrumental backing, along with Money's vocal delivery, which sells the underlying emotion perfectly. If I were to ever capture a moment that well, I'd be a very happy artist indeed.

RIP Aretha Franklin

The greatest American singer of our lifetime? The greatest female singer of our lifetime? Or simply the greatest singer of our lifetime? Pace Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon and Prince, it's pretty damn hard to argue that the Queen of Soul wasn't just the first two but all three—certainly until yesterday she was the greatest living pop singer in the world.

But she was also a brilliant artist, who knew how to make the most of her spectacular instrument, turning in mind-blowing performance after mind-blowing performance. Taking "Respect," a song already done fantastically by its writer, Otis Redding, and blowing his version away by adding a bridge and her pipes and transforming it into a feminist anthem should not have been possible. And for the Queen, it was a day's work, and a life's triumph.

And if that was all she had done, her place in history would have been assured. But of course that's just the tip of the iceberg.  "Chain of Fools," "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman," "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," "Think," "Do Right Woman - Do Right Man," "Rock Steady" and dozens of others don't even begin to scratch the surface of her contribution to popular music. And that's without even getting into her importance to the civil rights movement.

For many of us suburban white kids, her incendiary performance in The Blues Brothers was our first conscious introduction to Aretha, although of course her music had been in the air since we'd had ears.

I was deep in my hard rock Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith phase the first time I saw the film, and this kind of soul music was not in my wheelhouse. And yet I remember being utterly transfixed from the moment she began singing, barely breathing until the song was over. I've probably watched it two dozen times since then and it's never lost one bit of its power.

Steven Hyden wrote about her performance at Montreux:

If you’re like me, it’s impossible not to compare what she’s doing to what Art Garfunkel did. In the Simon & Garfunkel version, the part when Garfunkel sings “…and pain is all around” always chokes me up. He’s a friend offering solace, but you can tell he’s not exactly in the best way, either. He’s trying to be strong, but he can’t help but expose his inner pain.
Aretha does not sound weak. She is not praying to God for deliverance. She is the voice of God.
When Simon & Garfunkel perform “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the final “sail on silver girl” verse seems superfluous after that “pain is all around” verse — the song’s emotional peak has already been reached. But when Aretha does it, that last verse feels like a legitimate climax. As a listener, you feel yourself ascending toward the divine. She’s reaching out, extending herself to give all of humanity a big bear-hug. “Your time has come to shine / all your dreams are on their way,” she sings, and you believe her, because her voice has automatic authority when it comes to such matters. She sounds immortal, and this is a relief, because what is immortal can’t ever die.

Damn skippy.

That performance, obviously, also features some sweet damn piano playing from Ms Franklin—if your band was auditioning for a new pianist, and she walked in and started playing the way she does here, you'd sign her up after about three bars...and that's without even hearing her sing.

For further proof, let's turn to her takeover of Elton John's "Border Song."

Again, that fantastic piano is courtesy the Queen herself, a reminder that had she wanted to go in that direction, she absolutely could have beaten the likes of Elton or Billy at their own games—hell, she could have been a leading studio pianist without even ever opening her mouth. And while I've never actually heard him say it, I like to think Elton John (an avowed fan) had the same reaction to hearing her cover of his song as Otis Redding did (with admiration) when he heard her version of "Respect": "that woman stole my song." I mean, from literally the first line, when she's barely singing above a murmur, she's in complete and utter command—of both her voice and the song. And, of course, being Aretha, she just builds from there.

And yet the recording I keep finding myself going back to is this, for reasons which I suppose are pretty obvious.

As with the recent losses of Prince and David Bowie and B.B. King, there's a gaping hole in the soul left by their absence. But those holes are only there because those brilliant artists made room in the soul, stretching and pulling and pushing and enlarging, through their art in the first place. And for that we should be eternally grateful.

Rest in peace, Queen. And thank you.

RIP Bob Dorough

My oldest kid told me the other day about some tumblr thing where you're supposed to list the 10 albums which had the biggest impact on you. She laughed at the absurdity of such a notion, and then looked astonished as I ripped off my top 10 list of the albums which had the biggest impact on me. It was far from the first time I'd ever pondered that exact question, I explained.

But when it comes to songs, to artists, one who's up there for me, personally, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Brian Eno is Bob Dorough.

He had a fine career as a jazz pianist and singer, but for people of my generation, it was as the creator of Schoolhouse Rock that he'll forever be remembered, and rightly so. He created dozens of enduring tunes with catchy lyrics designed to actually make you learn without even realizing you were and succeeding magnificently. He sang a large percentage of them, too, and his friendly, accessible voice was absolutely perfect, as the gentle but propulsive "My Hero, Zero" makes obvious.

And yet look at his versatility: the same guy who wrote that and "Three Is a Magic Number" wrote the genuine funk of "I Got Six," sung by brilliant drummer Grady Tate, and the delicately haunting "Figure Eight," sung so tenderly by the ethereal and impossibly wonderfully named Blossom Dearie. And those are just some of the multiplication songs he wrote, never mind the history and science and grammar.

Thanks, Bob.

RIP Dolores O’Riordan

Well, this one hits surprisingly hard. Although never close to being one of my favorite bands, The Cranberries nevertheless created some absolutely top-notch pop, a commodity that is always in demand and eternally short supply.

Damn.

two years down the road

And still no easier.

Who knew that The Man Who Fell to Earth was also The Man Holding the World Together?

RIP Fats Domino

Few could bring it like The Fat Man. Thanks for the music, big fella.

RIP Tom Petty

He hailed from the deepest of the deep south, but that's not where his music came from.

I mean yes, sure it did, at least part of it. Some of what made Tom Petty the musical titan he was came from that Gainesville, Florida upbringing, where the swampy blues clearly took hold of him at an early age. But his music seemed to come from so many other places. From London and Liverpool and from Greenwich Village too. From breezy Southern California to sultry, loping New Orleans and to the earliest cradle of rock-n-roll, Memphis. Tom Petty reached it all.

And today he's gone, way too early at age 66. So let's take a moment to remember just how great, and I am talking GREAT with a capital G-R-E-A-T, this man really was.

He grew up influenced by the biggest of the big, as many American baby boomers were, people like Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn and Roy Orbison. And by the middle of his career he was having his own influence on them. You saw it when he toured with Bob Dylan in the mid-80s, when he played with Dylan and Orbison for one amazing shining moment with the Traveling Wilburys, and every time a smiling and appreciative McGuinn took the stage with him. Because when you're a talent like Tom Petty—songwriter, bandleader, guitar player and oh my God YES, singer—it has a tendency to touch everyone. Even your heroes.

But for a man with such an identifiable sound—the nasally tenor, the Byrdsy jangle, the ability to go from sweet to raunchy in the blink of an eye (think of the dramatic vocal and musical turns he made so often, like on "Refugee" and "Here Comes My Girl," something literally no one did as often or as well)—it really was hard to pin him down into one category or musical style. It was a byproduct of the stunning confidence he always seemed to carry—at least with his music, anyway—and a true sense of devil-may-care fearlessness.

It's why a proto-punk-pop ripper like "Don't Do Me Like That" appears alongside an anthem like "Refugee" or a bopping melody like "Century City" on Damn the Torpedoes. It's why maybe his greatest song, the pure crystalline McGuinn splendor of "The Waiting," can appear literally side by side with the near-metal of "A Woman in Love" on Hard Promises. Or why his greatest Roy Orbison-inspired ballad, the ethereal, irony-drenched "Free Fallin'," is right there alongside the Stonesy romp of "Runnin' Down a Dream" on Full Moon Fever. And nearly 20 years after his recording career began, on the remarkable Wildflowers album, he was able to blend gorgeous balladry (the title track), with the kind of barroom raver that would have made Bob Seger proud ("You Wreck Me") and still have time for the bluesy shuffle of "You Don't Know How It Feels."

On the first great song of a career that had just so damn many of them, 1976's pop splendor of "American Girl," Petty wrote and sang this fairly simple lyric:

"After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to."

It never struck me until today just how much that easy, seemingly throwaway defined who Tom Petty was. Musically speaking he had just so much to say, and so many different ways to say it. He surrounded himself with a truly great band in the Heartbreakers (it's hard to imagine a more instinctive or talented backing band than Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Howie Epstein and Stan Lynch)—where he, like Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band, was the clear Alpha Dog. Yet he seemed just as it ease playing alongside his idols in the Wilburys or onstage at Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert surrounded by the likes of not only Dylan and McGuinn and George Harrison, but Neil Young and Eric Clapton as well. Wherever he was, Tom Petty was in control. Greatness has a way of doing that to you.

In fact Tom Petty made it look so freaking easy at times, such simple and sweet melodies abounding with such (on the surface) simple and sweet lyrics that it was sometimes easy to miss what was lurking beneath. Let's take one magnificent song as an example.

People have laughed affectionately at lines like the ones in "Free Fallin'," where it almost seems like he's making it up as he goes. ("She's a good girl. Crazy 'bout Elvis. Loves horses. And her boyfriend too.") But TP, as always, knew what he was doing, and no songwriter of his generation or others was a good at playing possum as he was. Because it's all a set up for the one of the greatest lyrical turns in rock-in-roll history. And one that took just five words.

"And I'm free.
Free fallin'."

In the first line we have the very definition of rock-n-roll rebellion, right? Following lyrics on such familiar Southern California banalities like horses and shopping malls, we get the rally cry of "I'm free." And we picture Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash proudly strutting their true, unabashed American birthright of breaking away on their own terms. And for a moment we're lost in it.

But then comes the kicker.

"Free fallin!" 

Everything changes with those two words. He's done running away on his own terms. Now instead, he's plummeting to earth without a bit of control. He's lost, taken by the gravity of everything around him and with the only looming certainty being the surface of the earth getting closer and closer as he falls, an ending as un-romantic as any he could have imagined just a few approaching seconds away. While the lyric begins in the absolute spirit of rock-n-roll freedom, it ends with what we can only imagine will be a literal thud, a million miles from anything that could be described as the rock-n-roll idealogy, And Petty does it all, and says it all—spanning a world from unlimited possibility to sheer hopelessness—in just five words.

Awesome.

I saw Tom Petty just once in concert, in the late summer of 1989 on his Full Moon Fever tour, and to be very honest, while I've always been a big fan of his, my primary reason for going that night was my beloved Replacements were the opening act. There were actually more than a few people who were there just to see the Mats that night, many of whom left after their 45-minute ramshackle set (which is chronicled on the Shit, Shower & Shave bootleg.) 

I stayed; damn right I did. And I thought they were nuts for leaving. Because even though you couldn't find two bands at more opposite ends of the spectrum—the cool, polished, eminently tight and professional Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers belied in every way the loose, sloppy and wholly undisciplined nihilism of the Replacements—how could I not? He was just too damn good!

He didn't disappoint. It was a roughly two-hour set that showcased everything great about Tom Petty. From his love of covers (he opened with "So You Wanna Be a Rock-n-Roll Star" and had a very pleasing go at the Gram Parsons-era Byrds' "You Ain't Going Nowhere") to the estimable material from the then-new album ("Running Down a Dream," which closed the show, was a particular live cooker, and the solo acoustic "Yer So Bad" was a delight) to all of those amazing standards (the anthemic "Rebels" towards the end and "American Girl" at the beginning, plus sprawling versions of "Breakdown" and "Don't Come Around Here No More," to name just a few), it was one of the most enjoyable of the many, many concerts I have seen in my life. Today I am especially glad I got to see him live, even if just once.

But the best part of the show, at least to me, came relatively early on, maybe 7-8 songs in, when he did "The Waiting." First of all, doing what could objectively be called possibly his greatest song ever so close to the beginning of a full-length show was a ballsy move. And one you don't see many megastars making.

But it was the way he did it. It's a perfect pop song, period. A perfect recording, a jingly and jangly love opus that starts high and ends higher and just gets better and better each time you hear it. But on this night, as well as many other nights on and around this tour, he did it acoustically. With very little help from the Mike, Benmont, Howie or Stan. It was just him out there, doing an earnest and threadbare version of something everyone came to hear, yet maybe didn't expect it like this. And it was, well, amazing.

(Here he is doing it about a year earlier).

The voice. The confidence. The musicianship. The self-assurance that what he was doing was maybe not what the audience expected to hear, but what he knew they wanted to hear. He had it all that night. Because Tom Petty always had it all.

I'll close with some of his own words, from another one of his later-career gems and one of my favorites, "Walls." Which say what I think all Tom Petty fans are thinking about the man and his music today, as simply, sweetly and appropo as ever:

"Some things are over
Some things go on
Part of me you'll carry
Part of me is gone"

RIP Glen Campbell

There's going to be a lot written about how Glen Campbell was one of the greatest guitarists ever, and that's true. There'll be a lot written about his studio work, his time with the Beach Boys, his huge success in the late 60s and 70s, his television shows, and the terrible sadness of his final years.

And there's going to be a lot written about the Jimmy Webb songs he recorded, as well there should be. A lot of people have called "Witchita Lineman" the greatest pop song ever. I'm not sure I can go along with that...and yet it's pretty hard to disagree. The late Sir William Joel of Long Islandington once described it as "a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts" and that's pretty spot damn on. It came about because Campbell had already had a hit with Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and, like Chuck Berry had the previous decade, he clearly saw the commercial value in using a specific location as a hook, so much so that he asked Webb for "another town song." "Do me another song that makes me long for home," Campbell told the songwriter and damn if Webb didn't do exactly that in spades.

If there's a more romantic couplet than

And I need you more than want you
And I want you for all time

Well, I've yet to discover it.

RIP Chris Cornell

What a voice.

Soundgarden. Audioslave. And one very very memorable session with fellow bandmates and friends called Temple of the Dog, which did two things: 1) Delivered "Hunger Strike," one of the best and most iconic songs of the 1990s, and 2) Kinda resulted in the formation of a band known as Pearl Jam.

The man did a lot and indeed left a mark. And damn could he sing.

Some people just look like rock-n-roll, in addition to sounding like it.

Chris Cornell was no doubt one of those people. He so very, very was.

RIP Chris. You'll be missed.

And for the record, this was one of the scariest and most unforgettable videos ever made. It still is.

RIP Chuck Berry

"If you tried to give rock-n-roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'"—John Lennon

Chuck Berry is gone. He died today at the age of 90.

In a musical genre where old age is much more wishful thinking that anything based remotely in reality, Chuck beat the odds and fooled 'em all, like he always did. He outlived basically everyone who came up with him in the early days of rock-n-roll and so damn many who came up under his influence. 90 years in rock-n-roll is an ice age, and era, so much more than a lifetime. And still it hurts so much that he's gone. Gone too soon. RIP Charles Edward Anderson Berry. And damn.

It's hard to say that Chuck Berry invented rock-n-roll, because so many people played a part in this magical and in many ways still indescribable invention that we now call rock-n-roll. Did Chuck invent it? Did Elvis Presley? Did Roy Brown and Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner? Did Hank Williams? Did Ike Turner? Did Jerry Lee Lewis? Hell, did the amazing Big Mama Thornton?

Yes to all. And no to all. Rock-n-roll emerged from the lava, from the magma. Thanks to giants like all of those mentioned above and others. Thanks to people with the talent, the vision and, yes, the balls of Chuck Berry.

Here's what we know. If Chuck Berry didn't invent rock-n-roll—and I am not contending he did (see above paragraph)—he sure as hell refined it. He did what Miles Davis did to jazz. What Marvin Gaye did to soul. What Johnny Cash did to the American songbook and what Michael Jackson did to pop. He wasn't the first, but it's really hard to argue that anyone did it better. And in Chuck's case, that anyone did it better for longer.

Here is what I will say tonight, while mourning a man I never met (I saw him in concert once in the late 1980s, something I now am just so damn grateful for) but have listened to devoutly and worshipped since I was just a young white boy in Catholic high school 30+ years ago.

Chuck Berry invented rock-n-roll guitar.

Chuck Berry invented rock-n-roll songwriting.

Chuck Berry invented rock-n-roll as therapy for the twisted, haunted soul.

And Chuck Berry invented a sound. A sound so unique, so whole, so complete and so overpowering that the only way to describe it is "the Chuck Berry Sound."

What Chuck Berry did was he took everything his brilliant ears and body ingested and made it into something more. The blues and doo-wop and boogie woogie and jazz and country and gospel and the sweetest soul sounds you ever heard. And he took them all and he added those elements that only he had, those tortured and lovely and brutal things lurking inside his brain, and he strapped on his Gibson guitar and he mixed them all together in a musical jambalaya that no one had ever tasted before, and he hooked us in one bite. From the opening, ear-splitting strains of "Maybelline" on through, he fed us rock-n-roll like no one had ever heard or imagined before. And in doing so he foretold so much of what was to come. From the Beatles and Rolling Stones who worshiped him to Jimi Hendrix who bled him, from Stevie Wonder who channeled him in unimaginable sensory ways to Chuck D. and the forerunners and geniuses of rap and hip-hop who used his streetwise tales and too-cool-for-school skat-a-tat lingo to blaze their own trails, Chuck Berry saw it all. Maybe he's not  the father of rock-n-roll (or maybe he is). But to me, anyway, he is more. He's the father of the 20th century sound. And beyond.

As an equal parts musical fanatic and sports fanatic, the best comparison I could always make to Chuck Berry was Magic Johnson. Outsized and overbearing, playing the same old game in a way we never imagined it could be played. To picture Magic is to picture Chuck—the effervescent smile and devilish gleam in their eyes, always one step ahead of everyone else, seeming to make it up as they go but always in such dynamic and rhythmic control, 1,000 different ways to wow us waiting at their fingertips. And at the end, a wink. And a promise of more to come. Magic Johnson leading the fast break and firing a no-look pass was the first cousin to Chuck Berry's duck-walking across the stage and stretching it all out in the spirit of unbridled musical ebullience.

The songs explain it all far better than I ever could. The sheer fun of "Too Much Monkey Business." The epic travelogue of "The Promised Land." The torrential sadness of "Memphis." The very  raison d'etre of rock-n-roll stardom that was "Johnny B. Goode." The statement of purpose(s) of "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Rock-n-Roll Music." The rumbling fever of "Downbound Train." The rebellion of "School Days." The outright glory gush of "Back in the USA." The aching of "Carol" and "Nadine." The youthful joyride of "You Never Can Tell." The naughty wink of "My Ding A Ling." On the tale rocks, on the train rolls. Take those Chuck Berry creations and dozens of others and put them under glass. Paint them in oils. Preserve them in amber. Their likes we will never see again. And that we did get to see and hear them, for 60+ years, makes us so lucky. So damn lucky.

Hail, hail rock-n-roll, Mr. Berry. Thanks to you our hearts are beatin' rhythm and our souls will always, always be singin' the blues. 

RIP John Wetton

First Chris Squire, then Greg Lake and now John Wetton. The list of great prog bassists from the 70s is getting mighty short. (Mike Rutherford and Roger Waters, you guys take care of yourselves, hear?)

Wetton had an interesting career. After being in perhaps King Crimson's finest lineup—with sincere apologies to the early 80s version—he toured with Roxy Music and then joined the big at the time but seemingly now virtually forgotten Uriah Heep, before forming prog supergroup UK with old Crimson bandmate Bill Bruford. When that didn't pay off with the kind of financial windfall many were expecting, he tried again, this time with Yes guitarist Steve Howe, Yes and Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes and of course prog rock's answer to Buddy Rich, Carl Palmer. And boom: the money finally rolled in.

It wasn't really prog, of course, more like AOR pop rock, and that's fine; there's never too much catchy music around. But it was easy to forget just what a fine musician Wetton was when he was playing material as catchy but unchallenging to someone as proficient as he. So to remember him, we're going with this odd one-off supergroup, combining Steve Hackett, guitarist for almost all of the best Genesis albums, Ian McDonald, a member of the first King Crimson incarnation, later founding member of Foreigner, and the writer of this song, Chester Thompson, former drummer for Weather Report and Frank Zappa and, of course, touring drummer for Genesis, and Wetton himself.

Love Is All Around

In which one utterly kickass trailblazer suitably salutes another utterly kickass trailblazer.

RIP George Michael

And the worst year of my sentient life continues.

It would be inaccurate to say I was ever a George Michael fan, or a fan of Wham! At the time I foolishly thought myself above what I considered such pop piffle. And yet...and yet when the videos came on, I never turned the TV off. Not because I enjoyed the videos themselves—although the videos for "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" was a lot of silly fun—but because, in the end, as always, it comes down to the music, and Michael's gift for melody was undeniable. (As were his voice and his production skills, as well as his extraordinarily handsome looks, but none of those have ever meant anything close to as much to me as melody.)

So...yeah. Somebody wake me up once 2016 has gone-gone.

RIP Leonard Cohen

I swear to all that is holy that I am so damn tired of writing RIP posts for my favorite artists this year.

Damn.

Leonard Cohen is dead. I don't have much to say other than he was a musical hero of mine. He wrote with his heart not just on his sleeve but laid out bare on the table in front of him.

He sang with a raw, plaintive sensuality that no one else ever has. He either did rock-n-roll like poetry or he did poetry like rock-n-roll. Or both. He bled hot and red blood into in his music while he waltzed to it. He was loneliness and sex and grief and humor and soul and pain and honesty and fear and religion and strength and pathos. He was all that and more. He was sui generis in music history and we will never see another like him.

He wrote story-songs and hymns that belong under glass or hanging on the wall in some museum, not just on vinyl and compact discs and digital files. He wrote "Suzanne" and "Chelsea Hotel" and "Tower of Song" and "Bird on a Wire" and "Dance Me to the End of Love" and "Came So Far For Beauty" and yes, my favorite song ever, "Hallelujah." And more than that.

So long, good sir. You will always hold the mirror.






"It looks like freedom but it feels like death;
It's something in between I guess,
It's closing time."

the day after