Nightglow Window

Gone, But Not Forgotten

I stumbled on to the music of Michael Hedges by accident after tagging along to a concert, completely clueless, with John S. and Steve L. at Humphrey's By The Bay back in the early 1990s. I was semi hooked from then on and saw him play live (usually with a big group of friends) about four or five times after that. He died in a car crash along the Northern California's State Route 128 in 1997 and the news was a shock.

It's a sunny day here in C-bad and we spent about four hours in the yard, which was both nice and needed. Now I'm scrubbed clean and waiting for sunset and a bike ride along the beach with my kids. Until then, I'm trolling through my 2,800 songs on iTunes, looking for something I haven't listened to in a while.

I listened to the bottom half (we'd call it the "B-side" in my day ya little whippersnapper) of Ghost In The Machine by the Police this morning while coming back from a surf check to Del Mar. It was a total wormhole back in time to my 1981 room in San Clemente.

Now I'm listening to "Arrowhead" by Hedges. It's a nice change of pace and also brings back a ton on memories -- but it's this video I uncovered on YouTube (shot just weeks before his death) that best reminds me of what an amazing guitar player Hedges was. Sure it's classified as "New Age" (whatever), but the amount of sound he gets from a single acoustic guitar is still amazing and unmatched.