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He Was a Friend of Mine

by Bert Keely & Bob Weir

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lyrics

In 2007, Bob Weir and I lost our friend Richard Newton, the much loved and admired chair of UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Richard's family asked us to play Richard's favorite song - John Lennon's Imagine - for a memorial celebrating Richard's life. Bobby suggested we also try an adaptation of He Was a Friend of Mine, which he had learned from Bob Dylan. The song had a long tradition of adaptation, with Dylan having re-chorded and re-worded what he heard from folksinger Rolf Cahn in 1961, who had re-chorded and re-worded what the Lomaxes had recorded in 1939 by Smith Casey, an inmate at the Clemens Prison Farm in Texas. I wrote new lyrics honoring Richard, and Bobby and I recorded it one afternoon in his Mill Valley home studio - just me on open back banjo and lead vocal, and Bobby on his Martin 000 guitar and harmony vocal. Bobby dubbed a rare guitar solo, a beautiful one.

"He was a friend of mine. He was a friend of mine. Every time I think about him, makes me laugh and makes me cry, he was a friend of mine.

He knew electricity. He knew logic, and biology. But mostly he knew people, he knew humanity, and he was a friend of you and me.

He knew the spice of life. He WAS the spice of life. As a student he saw the future, and became a guiding light, yes he was the spice of life.

Kids gonna miss his high fives. And industry will miss his drive. We shall not miss his vision, because it still survives, technology can help every man alive."

Thank you Richard, for helping us to Imagine.

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released July 1, 2021

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Bert Keely San Francisco, California

His 1979 debut "Take Me Home" is now prized by collectors of psychedelic folk. At the turn of the century Bert turned up the volume on tour with the Flying Other Brothers. These days he performs the most intimate acoustic music with his daughter Megan and son Brandon in SF, and dives deep into jazz on trumpet, guitar and vocals with some great collaborators in the SF Bay Area. ... more

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