Frank Gutch Jr: Death Becomes Relevant (A Look at Musicians Who Passed Over in 2014)…..

People die.  I know they do.  But the closer I come to the end myself, I become more reluctant to admit it.  When I was young, death was funerals.  You knew someone had passed by the crowd of well-dressed people lining the streets in front if a funeral home or the long line of cars passing by with lights on.  Or the number of people at a church on a weekday afternoon.  Or the serpentine of gatherers at a viewing, which at moments seemed to be a national event (the two which directly come to mind involving President Kennedy and Rudolph Valentino).  At that young age, death was a ritual.  I came to hate rituals.

Frank Gutch Jr: They Will Never Pass This Way Again— Musicians We Lost in 2013, Part One; Plus Notes…..

The first time I think I even thought about death was when Hank Williams died back in 1952.  New Year’s Eve it was, but I only remember the headlines.  I was five years old and Hank was a regular part of my day.  Dad, the curator of the famous Gutch record collection, had only a few records at that time and Never Again (Will I Knock On Your Door) was one of them.  I loved that song so much that I begged and begged Dad to play it every time he headed toward the record player and, usually, he obliged.  I remember Dad humming along in a grunting kind of way, almost as if the music was going to bust out of him at any moment, but it seldom did.  Dad was a lot like myself in that when the music was playing, singing along seemed a lack of respect.