Honestly, I don’t feel my age, but just in case we older Gen-Xer’s need a reality check with which to pay our AARP memberships, our music icons have been biting the dust at a startling rate. In the last few months, we’ve lost Lemmy Kilmister and David Bowie… and also Glenn Frey, who co-wrote one of my favorite ballads, “Desperado,” a song that’s all the more haunting now.

But Keith Emerson, who was to keyboards what Hendrix was to guitar, died last week, and I’ve been thinking about him since then. For those who may not be familiar with Emerson and his gifts, he was a preternaturally talented musician… a music composer, synthesizer artist, and inarguably one of the best keyboardists in the history of keyboards. Emerson’s was the death that resonated with me as a loss I felt on a personal level.

Keith Emerson (photo from likesuccessdotcom)

This is going to be redundant for you FaceBook friends who’ve already seen this post, this clumsy attempt at expressing myself in the moment, but I’m pasting it here rather than rewriting it, or writing something different:

Also, lest we forget the range of Emerson’s talent, here’s his Piano Concerto No. 1:

Rest In Peace, Keith Emerson.