HE AIN'T HEAVY

Nature equipped me with a brother whose temperament was nothing like my own.

We did not see eye to eye on anything, until I grew enough so that we saw eye to eye literally, at which point we forged a hard-won agreement that he would never again push me around.

Around this same time, I walked into the basement of a new friend, and my eyes were drawn to a room on the left at the bottom of the stairs, which looked to me for all the world like Aladdin’s cave.

The floor was covered with copies of Musician, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice, to the point where actual floor was really just a rumor. The bookshelves were thick with Doonesbury compilations and music books, and charged with a couple of mini Realistic speakers.

This was Larry’s room. He was my friend’s older brother.

Once he adjusted to my unkempt hair and my occasionally lidded eyes, Larry and I bonded rather quickly over our shared love of music, shared sense of humor, and shared sardonic tilt.

He was a professional drummer, and at the time he was also the artist behind the ads for the Lone Star Café that appeared in the Voice each week.

He played with bluegrass bands, zydeco bands, you name it. He even spent several years playing with Tony Williams of the original Platters.

Larry was the one who sent me the music that became Spanish Wings, and had the infinite grace and patience to wade through all my private mutterings for many years.

Larry has a new gig now, and to say I’m proud does not do my real emotions justice.

If you happen to catch Bruce Springsteen playing out or on TV in support of his new disc, take some time to take note of the man in the hat on the drum riser, the man helping to lend the perfect beat to a regular hoedown of a hootenanny.

That man on the riser is Larry.

That man is my brother.