I’ve been waiting to read Jackson Browne’s reaction to the death of David Lindley. And now we know why it took him awhile: he didn’t want to let him go.
I wanted to know how Jackson felt. As soon as I heard that Lindley was gone my thoughts turned to Jackson. They made so much wonderful music together.
When I first heard Jackson’s songs on Late for the Sky I loved them instantly. But at the same time I fell in love with the violin playing and pedal steel sounds that sent those songs into another hemisphere. And that was the work of David Lindley. To my ears it was musical perfection.
Baby Boomers are now of the age where the musicians of our youth are leaving us. It hurts when someone dies whose music you loved. And for me David Lindley’s death hurt more than most. He represented sweet musical perfection. As someone somewhere else noted, if you wanted someone to play along to a song in a major key, there were none better than David Lindley. So many times his music made me feel so happy, so positive, so in touch with raw emotion. It was your gift to us all.
Rest in peace David.
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An edited version of Jackson’s post on Facebook
today:
David Lindley, the guitarist, lap steel and fiddle player who gave his personality and his inspiration to so many of my songs, passed away on March 3rd. The outpouring of love, and the widespread recognition of his mastery has been very moving. I want to join in the resounding chorus of appreciation for his gifts, but nothing I write seems quite good enough. Words have never been enough to describe what David Lindley brought to a song.
I played with David for the first time in a
dressing room at the Troubadour in 1969. My friend Jimmy Fadden of the Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band had brought him to say hello, and pointed out that David had
his fiddle with him, saying he would probably sit in if I asked him to. I
already knew him from the band Kaleidoscope, whose first album, Side Trips, was
one of my favorite records. We started to play my song These Days, and my world
changed. His playing was so emotional, and immediate - it cast a spell over me
and everyone there. It didn’t matter that he had never heard the song before.
What he was playing made it more emotional and more real than it had ever
sounded in the years I had played it alone.
……
David is a very large part of me - who I became, and who I remain. No one ever played like him. …. He didn’t play the same thing each time. He was always exploring, always hearing something new. Always in the moment.
…….
My own world is shattered by David’s passing. He
was my friend and my teacher. It was with great pleasure and certainty that I
revisited our special connection over the years. I guess I thought that he
would always be around.
I've been struggling to write something and post it for the past two weeks. It was hard to begin, and it’s hard to conclude, I guess, because I don’t want to let him go. David was kind to everyone, and so funny. Incapable of uttering a dishonest word, or playing a dishonest note. There will be tribute concerts, and a documentary about him, for sure. There will be ways for us to continue to celebrate his life. And we all know there will never be another David Lindley.
- Jackson Browne
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