On February 16th, 2010, David Witherspoon passed away at the age of 61. Here are some thoughts I have been thinking about my wonderful friend.
In an upstairs Italian restaurant we played standards together for the first of many tuneful times. We huddled over reheated plates of Arrowmont food after hours and chewed the fat with Bill. We hauled equipment through the back doors of rehearsal halls, living rooms, lobbies, bars and churches. We sat in pits looking up at gorgeous actors and spun sounds into microphones, over music stands and straight through hearts. We composed on the spot ("Takin' that note / Nobody wrote / Puttin' 'em down. . .") and exchanged silent glances like inside jokes. Audiences cheered, listened, yelled at us. We played faster, longer and closer. In hill shadow, on river swells and across crowded rooms, the song was always sweet.
I stepped away from the piano once and played a tune on the banjo. David told me, "Keep your day job." He was interested in and concerned about me. He counseled me on love. "It's good for you," He'd say.
On hikes we disagreed, hollered, argued, but love always found us parting with an embrace. We admired all his cats and cooked ginger soup at the cabin up Hook Road, and we cried together telling stories by waterfalls and looking at each other by a hospital bed bewildered.
Once he wrote a lyric about a girl he loved who lived in the city where the lights obscure the stars. I am not easily starstruck, but David was bright sunlight to me. I basked willingly in his warmth and sometimes squinted at his shine.
I am trying to see the stars tonight, but the light of my friend obscures them all. The sun makes me cry.
In an upstairs Italian restaurant we played standards together for the first of many tuneful times. We huddled over reheated plates of Arrowmont food after hours and chewed the fat with Bill. We hauled equipment through the back doors of rehearsal halls, living rooms, lobbies, bars and churches. We sat in pits looking up at gorgeous actors and spun sounds into microphones, over music stands and straight through hearts. We composed on the spot ("Takin' that note / Nobody wrote / Puttin' 'em down. . .") and exchanged silent glances like inside jokes. Audiences cheered, listened, yelled at us. We played faster, longer and closer. In hill shadow, on river swells and across crowded rooms, the song was always sweet.
I stepped away from the piano once and played a tune on the banjo. David told me, "Keep your day job." He was interested in and concerned about me. He counseled me on love. "It's good for you," He'd say.
On hikes we disagreed, hollered, argued, but love always found us parting with an embrace. We admired all his cats and cooked ginger soup at the cabin up Hook Road, and we cried together telling stories by waterfalls and looking at each other by a hospital bed bewildered.
Once he wrote a lyric about a girl he loved who lived in the city where the lights obscure the stars. I am not easily starstruck, but David was bright sunlight to me. I basked willingly in his warmth and sometimes squinted at his shine.
I am trying to see the stars tonight, but the light of my friend obscures them all. The sun makes me cry.
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