Someone wasn’t paying attention to the man’s wishes…
I heard an old Jerry Wexler interview over the weekend that Nick Spitzer did for American Routes. I loved hearing interviews with Wexler. What a cat! My close personal friend and bandmate Sethro met him not too long before he died. Of all the musical experiences Sethro had without me, in his other bands, that may be the experience about which I’m most jealous. Spitzer wrapped up the rebroadcast of that interview with a story I’d heard once before: when Wexler was asked what he’d like his tombstone to read he said, “More bass!”
What musical epitaph would you like to have engraved on your tombstone (or urn or whatever)?
I look forward to your responses—and hope it’s ages before your wishes are put into practice!
Though I’d be tempted to quote Irving Cohen and have it read “Gimme a C… a nice bouncy C!”, instead I think I’d have it say something like: “Life is too short to worry about anything more than a catchy melody.” That doesn’t capture my philosophy quite as well as I’d like, but it’s getting there.
Because life is too short, I think I’d be tempted to piss off our old friend The Great 48 and have mine read, “We mean it, man!” More likely, I’d quote the opening line from “Garageland,” a line that still sums up much of my interest in making music with my friends: “Back in the garage with my bullshit detector.”
“How does next Thursday sound to you?”
Either that, or:
“Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go…”
I was reading a biography and discovered the Little Walter is buried in the same cemetary as my folks. One time I went out there and looked his grave up (not my photo)