Prince, Haggard, Bowie, White, Frey: Lousy year for music
[...] any year that silences the voices behind Sign o' the Times, ''Space Oddity, ''Tequila Sunrise, ''Shining Star and The Bottle Let Me Down can't qualify as anything other than awful.
Prince's stunning death on Thursday adds to a tragic roll call that already included David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Maurice White and Merle Haggard.
"Running out of living musical heroes, those we measure everything against, emulate, know we won't surpass but inspire us to try," Carrie Brownstein, actress and Sleater-Kinney singer, tweeted Thursday.
While the circumstances behind Prince's death remain unclear, most others were mundane, independent of rock 'n' roll excess.
The Eagles, a band whose carcass Frey once left by the side of the road, was back together and an ongoing creative force before he died.
The band that once brought country influences into rock 'n' roll was bringing rock 'n' roll to country in its later years, appealing to a new marketplace whose stars sounded like they grew up on Eagles songs.
The man was indefatigable in concert, a whirlwind who drilled his bands until they met his exacting standards.
The deaths of musical heroes resonate because their work is aimed straight for the heart.