Alaska with attitude : Oh when the saints …

Around the time of my 70th birthday I noticed the number of my favorite musicians who were in the same age range, feeling sort of comfortable getting old with them. Now, having gone to the place out past 80 I am realizing many of us are dying — Jeff Beck yesterday, the most recent. They leave behind what someday may be called the greatest era of American popular music. And I am marching on with them still a year older than Keith Richards. Thinking ahead, if anybody is listening despite my love of classic rock,I would like to have one of those New Orleans jazz funerals. Philip would you bring your trombone? And carrying that a little further, wouldn't it be something if rock bands could stand to the same sort of ceremony? Start out with Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" or Laura Nyro's "When I Die" and wrap it up with a wild run at "Layla" or the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up." With trombone of course.

I hope the following doesn't sound morbid. I woke up today with Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" in my head and that had me thinking about other songs. Mind you this playlist is not any indication that I am preoccupied with my own death, it's, like always, about the music. And the picture? Well anybody who knows me knows I am not religious, still I know religion exists and at times I get a flash of the beliefs. This opening in a dismal, overcast sky brought them to mind.