“It’s a strange thing when your friends become your heroes and I’ve been lucky it’s happened to me a lot.”
The news hit us like a brick wall, twice. None of us knew how close to death David Bowie and Glenn Frey were. With their final months living away from the public spotlight, their deaths started the year with a grim reminder of the mortality facing our legends. Bowie was 69; Frey 67. Just days after Bowie died, Bruce Springsteen, 66, opened his River tour in Pittsburgh. The only question before fans was which Bowie song would he play.
There was no question what Jackson Browne was going to play. After postponing three shows in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia due to illness, many fans were eager to see him perform at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Browne immediately put the sold out crowd at ease. His voice was clear, his music was spirited and his interactions with the audience were funny.
Usually Browne saves Take It Easy, a song he and Frey collaborated on, for later in his concerts. But with Frey's death occurring just one week before, the song took on a more poignant meaning than placing it along Browne's other hits to close out the show. As Browne strummed his guitar before the song, he took a brief moment to give Frey the highest of praises. “It’s a strange thing when your friends become your heroes and I’ve been lucky it’s happened to me a lot.”
This was no ordinary performance. Jackson was clearly moved and called on his community to sing along, or as he sings in another song, to pull him through. "Are you gonna sing it with me, or what?
Browne is like no other singer/songwriter. A lifetime of activism and providing a playlist for love, sorrow, the road we've left behind and the road we're about to take. At 67, Browne still has a fire in his belly as he produces original music. He's added young backup singers on his album "Time The Conqueror" while influencing the next generation of musicians like Dawes and Sara Watkins. Known for so long for his melancholy lyrics, Browne jokes that he even has two happy songs, before going into "Just Say Yeah."
Browne was astoundingly 16 years old when he wrote These Days, a song first recorded and released by Nico in 1967.
Browne's music is filled with civic engagement. Sitting alone at the piano, he sings The Load Out, a tribute to his fans and roadies. In concert, it's as if he's sitting in your living room, with you tapping your feet, clapping your hands, and singing along. Being one with his audience who are in no rush to end the night, Browne flows right into Stay, the 1953 doo-wop song written by Maurice Williams when he was 15, one year younger than Jackson was when he wrote "These Days."
Many of Browne's songs look to the past and none balances nostalgia with the future as the journey Looking Into You, the story of a man returning to the home he grew up..."to see where my beginnings have gone." He was welcomed inside by the family now living there, and "when it left me so warm and so high" it was time to leave while asking "are you ready to fly?"
Jackson's second album was filled with backup vocals from David Cosby, Bonnie Raitt, Glenn Fry to even Elton John. For Everyman was Browne's response to Crosby's dream of sailing off to a utopian island. Browne wasn't ready to give up.
Many of Browne's songs have to do with our place in society. But his trademark is coming up with the words that speak to the heart and soul of relationships with the world, with another person, and with yourself. No song does this better than For A Dancer.
"Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know"