Last week was a bad one for musicians; every time I turned on the news it seemed like one of my heroes had died.

On April 22 Richie Havens passed away. The world is, I think, split up into two sorts of people: people who love Richie Havens' music and people who haven't heard it yet. He was a unique talent, who created unique music and his influence, despite never topping the charts, is all around us in things we listen to.
I first saw Havens on the film of Woodstock, where his long-haired shamanistic presence and intense rhythmic workout on 'Motherless Child” blew me away. He had a big rich low voice and found rhythms on an acoustic guitar that no one else seemed to have discovered. His version of Bob Dylan's 'Just Like a Woman” is one of the half dozen great Dylan covers. In later years he collaborated with the band Groove Armada – have a look on YouTube for their sensational performance at the Glastonbury Festival a few years back.

A local legend
Want to hear someone who carries on Havens' legacy? Check out local blues guitarist Grant Haua whose playing captures some of the soulful musical complexity. Grant has spent a long time listening to Havens – everyone should.
Two days later Bob Brozman died. Not many people know his music. Brozman was an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist. He played blues, gypsy jazz, calypso, ragtime, Hawaiian and Caribbean music and more. And he was one of the best. If you listen to guitar music, check him out.
And, on Friday, it was George Jones.
'If we all could sing like we wanted to, we'd all sound like George Jones” Waylon Jennings once sang. I'm pretty much with Waylon on that one. I don't think Jones' death came as a particular shock to anyone; the biggest surprise was that a man who had lived so wildly lasted so long. He was 81.

A certain sound
And George Jones was simply about the best country singer who ever lived. He sang like a saxophone, like a country Van Morrison but with more control. He could swoop between notes and cover octaves in a single emotive phrase. Like Billy Holiday his voice made the most banal songs sound profound.
George Jones had number one hits in every decade from the fifties to the nineties but really had two parts to his career. In earlier decades he was most influenced by Hank Williams and kept his voice in higher registers. Later, under the guidance of producer Billy Sherrill and the 'Nashville sound” of the seventies, his voice deepened and his songs of hard times and heartaches could tear your heart out.

Recording emotions
Billy Sherrill also added copious strings to the mix, making these some of the most sentimental records ever made. But they worked – because of that voice. Jones' biggest hit from those later years was 'He Stopped Loving Her Today” and gives some idea of the level of cheese that he overcame with his vocal skill and sincerity.
Let's delve into that song a little. The reason – not wanting to give too much away – that 'he stopped loving her today” is because he is dead. That'll do it. After the first verses and chorus the music dips down low for a 'recitative”, a spoken passage, and George intones solemnly: 'You know she came to see him one last time / Oh and we all wondered if she would / And it kept running through my mind / This time he's over her for good.” Really? Really???
Cue a sudden building climax of strings into the heartbreaking last chorus. That's country music for you...

Simply brilliant
George Jones was brilliant. Ritchie Pickett first introduced me to him many years back and I don't know if I ever thanked him. Ritchie appreciated not only his music – he would have spanked me for calling it 'cheesy” - but also the man's lust for life (and alcohol and cocaine).
Jones was once stuck at home after his wife of the time hid the car keys to stop him driving intoxicated to the liquor store. Half an hour later he was arrested on the side of the road, drunk in charge of a ride-on lawn mower. They don't make ‘em like that every day.