The Denver Post

Dan Fogelberg
I read this morning that Dan Fogelberg died in his home inMaine at 6:00am. He was 56 years old, just three years older than me.

The irony is not lost on me that his passing a week before Christmas and his song “Another Auld Lange Syne” (loosely translated, “times gone by”).

In this song, Dan writes of meeting an old lover in grocery store on Christmas Eve, drinking beer in her car in the parking lot, reminiscing about old times and snow turning into rain. So vivid was the story, I could see myself in the picture.

The journalist referenced an interview with Dan in 1997. In response to the journalists comment about his music having a “weighty tone” Dan said that it did not represent his personality. “I’m not a dour person in the least. I’m actually kind of a happy person. Music doesn’t really reflect the whole person. One of my dearest friends is Jimmy Buffett. From his music, people have this perception that he’s up all the time, and of course, he’s not. Jimmy has his serious side too.”

I was introduced to Dan’s music in the mid 70’s by my good friend Tim. We were in college at the time. Long hair wire rimmed glasses, bell-bottom jeans, and what we called waffle-stompers were the wearing apparel of the generation in theFront Range.

“Souvenirs” was the first album (yes, it was vinyl) I heard of Dan’s. I was jealous of Dan’s straight long hair looking almost Native American on the cover. Long hair was a part of that generation but I could no more grow a straight lock of hair than I could hold up my pants without a tight belt. Undaunted, I still tried. I was this skinny bean pole kid with this head of hair that looked like if you turned me upside down you could dunk my head in a bucket of soapy water and use me as a mop!

One of my first guitar pieces I learned to play was “The Gambler”. We played it solemnly in the dorm late at night, sitting around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. We thought of ourselves as artists but we were just college kids. While we were playing around with music, Dan was creating it, and in a time when there was no internet, word got around remarkably fast and his following grew. Every girl I knew loved Dan. So of course, if there was a chance in hell of getting lucky, a guy was always in good stead if he knew a couple of “Fogelberg” tunes and of course the odds improved an order of magnitude if he could actually play one of his songs!

In the article I read, the journalist wrote that his music helped define the “soft rock era”. I understand an industries need to categorize products for marketing purposes but like all artists, boxing them into a genre so ill defines the art. While I believe the journalist was being complementary, Dan’s music was more than soft rock. To him, I suspect it came from a familiar place, a place where he’d been, a feeling he had, something he’d seen along this short journey. For me, it was an influence in many ways and shaped my life to bring me to where I am today.

Its contemplative nature such as in “Sketches” from his Nether Lands” recording still remind me of heart aches I have had in my life or in the title track from Windows and Walls, I wonder if such a fate awaits me as I grow older. Then there is “Gypsy Wind” from his Phoenix recording and the lyric, “…I still recall the place, where I first felt your gypsy wind playing on my face” or one that I always turn to when I need to remember my own greatness “Nexus”
“Wealthy the spirit that knows its own flight
Stealthy the hunter who slays his own fright
Blessed the traveler who journeys the length of the light”

It’s sixteen degrees outside as I write this. Behind me, my dog Rocky is snoring rhythmically and I can hear the Monday morning traffic on the interstate in the distance.
The sun is coming up and the waves of low level clouds of scarlet, gray, blue and violet fill the eastern horizon. It’s already seven inMaine on this Monday morning and Dan’s family is missing him terribly.

Two time zones to the west, I write this memory as a tribute to Dan, a man I never knew but the nexus across which our paths crossed changed the course of my life for the better over so many years.