November 14, 2021:
But more than that. He got where it was going. Where others saw only silliness he grasped the underlying moral sincerity — that everyone should be free to be who they are.
I think, perhaps, that had been his own struggle. To find the life space to be quirky and different and unique, without the macho and the chronic confrontationalism of mainstream American culture. So that he grasped intuitively or at any rate without words exactly where the undercurrent of that music carried us.
Or perhaps he simply understood the musical language, as he brilliantly understood all musical languages. With his characteristic sensitivity and human empathy.