Frank Gutch Jr: John ‘Buck’ Ormsby: Maybe Out of His Tree, But Never Out of His League; Plus, Artists Who Should Have Made It (A Musical Roundup)

This morning was cold and wet with a chill that went to the bone, the clouds threatening, the rain off and on but somehow consistent.  I knew it would be.  Yesterday, my friend John Hicks had posted a message that Buck Ormsby had died.  No way, I thought, because I had had contact only a few days previous— just a note, but contact.  When I approached Hicks, he said that he had found out from Ormsby’s son’s page.  He sent me the link and there it was.  We are sorry to report… and the words became a blur.   While it hardly seemed possible, Buck was gone.  Is gone, for none of us will hear from him again and that is truly a sad thing.

Frank Gutch Jr: I Always Wanted To Be a Musician (Videos With Commentary)…

 

…but I could never pull it together.  Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college.  I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! (You’re Music to My Ears)

Repeat after me.  “There just isn’t any good music out there these days.”  Repeat it again.  And again.  And again.  Repeat it a thousand times and it will be no truer than it was the first time.  There is more good music out there than there has ever been.  Truth is, we have forgotten how to listen.  We went through a golden age of radio and had our music handed to us by a system controlled by people who supposedly knew what they were doing and we’ve gotten lazy.  We are the fattened calves, awaiting sustenance from the gods.  We are pools of fat melted on the car seat.  And seriously, dude, there just isn’t any good music out there any more.