This afternoon we got some bad news as we found out that a friend had passed away at the end of last week. His sister called because she was going through his phone to see who had called lately, not really knowing who she should contact, and George had just called last week.

Long time readers (really long time) probably remember that before I had kids I practically lived in local bars because George played guitar and sang in a band called “The T-Birds”. They did 50’s, 60’s and 70’s rock and roll with a bit of blues as well. Technically, the band was actually called “Billy Ray and the T-Birds”. Bill, the lead singer, is the one who passed away.

I can’t remember the last time I saw Bill in person, it’s been years, but I spoke to him on the phone a couple of months back. He was saying that he wanted to have the old group over to jam in his basement and that I was welcome to come along as I so often did. Unfortunately, it never happened and I never got to hear that one last night of live music with Bill at the helm.

Bill had a huge following of friends and fans on YouTube. He would play a music track on his computer and then record himself singing and people loved it. Tonight I was looking for some pictures and found this one, back in March of 2002 when they played at the legion, with Bill singing. That’s how I’ll always remember him, with a mic in front of him.

However, I couldn’t remember any of the gig dates, so I decided to type the band name into Google to see if any of the links led back to my own site and hopefully some photos. Instead, the first link I clicked was this one, which led me to a video he had done only two months ago. It struck me particularly because it was one of the songs that they always did in the band, and in the video he says some really nice things about George’s guitar talents – the track he uses is actually one that they did at practice one night.

I know that as I get older, it happens more and more often that you hear this kind of bad news about people that you knew, but it doesn’t make it any less of a shock or any less sad. Six months ago, he lost his wife, and I truly believe that he’s with her again. I hope that he’s at peace now, he deserves it.