Johnny Gimble

When he said something, you thought "What's the other meaning?" His granddaughter mentioned this.  I smiled and agreed.   There was always at least one other meaning.  Perhaps a pun.
Yes he was a great musician, and he was one of those who "play to live."  Like me, he always looked like he was having a tremendous time.  Unlike me, I believe he was.  And of course the joy was infectious.
He gave everybody a solo and collaborated on a lot of what are called "twin parts."  "Arrangements," actually.
Somewhere in the later '80s, I played with him up near Liberty Hill, and I caught him conversing with the Christian spirits.  He felt something impending.  I guess it was that first stroke.  He lived to recover and make a couple records with which I helped.  His playing had been effortless before the stroke, pure joy.   After it, he told me, it required effort.  Sounded, if anything, even better, more astounding on Beaumont Rag for instance.   And then a decade and a half, and now gone.
I heard some of the old Texas Playboys enjoying this humorous line of talk:  "Hey, when you die can I have your <      > ?"  (fiddle, car, wife….)   Ha ha ha.
I would like to be Johnny.  I know he suffered, as humans do.  But he was elemental.  He was plugged into some vast positive reservoir that now feels inaccessible to me.   It is dammed up somewhere on the Cap Rock, beyond a thousand pumpjacks silently murmuring "Dollar….dollar….dollar….."