R.I.P. Dan Fogelberg

As a kid in the '70's, Dan Fogelberg epitomized what would come to be known as soft rock. While his songs and style would become a source of mockery for many in the anti-'70's years that followed, there remained a sense of honestly and soulfulness in his work, the likes of which seem to have faded in the last few decades.

If the name - or his Greatest Hits album cover - doesn't ring a bell, and if songs called "Same Auld Lang Syne", "Leader of the Band", and "Longer" mean nothing to you, I can virtually guarantee you've heard his music at one time or another. For, while his heyday might have been some thirty years gone, his songs have survived, withstanding the advents of rap, grunge, "alternative" - you name it.

In my case, the man holds two significant spots in my memory.... I remember hearing his songs many a time while sitting in the back seat as my parents drove us everywhere. At the time, I was too young to know that all his many tunes were actually performed by the same person. It would not be until years later, when a group of friends who had grown up in the same period would put on their parents' copy of Dan Fogelberg's Greatest Hits. Eventually, someone got the cassette. Later, someone bought the CD. It wasn't something we listened to religiously or anything. It was just something we'd break out once in a while, for a song or two, to take us all back to a time when we were really young, and music was just something that came out of a car radio, with no concerns about who sang what, let alone their place on the charts.

It's been a while since I've listened to Dan Fogelberg. That said, I can hear him right now.