last week saw the deaths of two musical legends...Sly Stone and Brian Wilson...both 82...both responsible for pushing music into new and exciting stratospheres...and for me, both behind the quintessential sounds of summer...the Beach Boys are summer...light, breezy...then soul-searching and ethereal...sitting in traffic in the sixties...if one of their songs came on the radio...you were transported to a little convertible car...speeding the coastline in the sun...or the heartache in the lyrics could stop you in your tracks...Sly and the Family Stone...ground-breaking...and when I hear "Hot Fun in the Summertime"...well, I am back on the beaches of Brooklyn...sun beating on the sand...eating a cold plum or fudgsicle, chocolate dripping down my sunburnt neck...the transistor radios are blasting...moms are yelling not to wade in too deep...I don't have a care in the world...a world that is burning and changing and aching...but Sly is bringing the funk...slyly...we don't even realize it...both men didn't have an easy time of it...such is the true nature of creative genius...but as we celebrate the summer solstice today...take in the last crumbs of daylight tonight...I will think of Brian and Sly...and the gift of music that keeps giving eternally...if only in our memories...
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