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02/18/2005 Entry: "In memory of Keith"

I found out today that my friend Keith Burgess died yesterday. He was 54. He'd been battling cancer for a while. I played with Keith in a local band called Straight Shake, later called Smokin' Hose. It was the band I was in before Blind Albert, so this would of been over 10 years ago. I made good freinds with a couple of guys in that band, notably Henry "Hank" Dugan and Keith. For some reason, I gave Keith the nickname Fishbone. I don't know why. But he was a really good harmonica player. Arguably, he's the best in the area. He had this crazy hip shakin' thing he would do when playing. He was as skinny as a rail, and looked so funny--I of course being the drummer seeing him most of the night from behind. I remember this one time at band practice... I had this idea of segueing two songs together that were in the same key. Keith looked at me with this kind of "shock and awe" look. "Segue?" he said. "Yeah," I said, "you know, when you put two songs together with no break in between?" He'd never heard the term before. So the next week at practice, he said "Let's practice those two tunes that we, you know, um, hedgehog together." Now, when talking with musicians, I always use the phrase hedgehog instead of segue. And sometimes, musician friends will use the term back at me. Keith's legacy.

Replies: 1 person has rocked the mic!

I'm sorry to hear about Keith. He and I went through school, K-12, together. I remember with we were in kindergarten. When our mothers took their turns at hot lunch duty, Keith and I got to play in the cafeteria of Butler School. We rolled each other around on the table cart, and hid in the closet under the stairs when the "big" kids came down for lunch. There were two little holes in the wall and Keith would poke the kids as they came down.

Posted by Aunt Ginny @ 02/18/2005 04:43 PM EST

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