Jesse Winchester, R.I.P.

It's bad enough when someone you admire very much dies, but it's worse when you don't find out about it until a month or so later.  Such was the case with the death of Jesse Winchester on April 11th.  I only learned of it today.  I loved his music and his great soul.  In fact, my first wife and I named our son Jesse after him.  He rarely appeared in the Bay Area, but every time he did, I was there.  Most recently was a couple of years ago at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley -- just him and his guitar and a boatload of wonderful songs all written by him, of course.  Damn, this one really hurts. The world is definitely not the same now that he has left us.

Anyway, you can read a good obit here in the Rolling Stone, and check out the Wikipedia entry on him here.

There are scores of his songs that I could put up here, but I'm going to give you a link to one that I heard him sing and play for the first time at the Freight & Salvage gig, which really moved me, never having heard it until that moment.  The song is called "If Only."  From a live performance with just him and his guitar, listen to it right here.