That is sad. You are such a lucky fellow Russ. You've met most of the people I idolize. Seems like more and more of the people in my favorite music collections are dying out. That goes for country music too.
I love the technology of today; computers and the net, modern appliances, and just countless things that make my life much easier, but musically speaking I wish I'd been born about haf a century before i was actually born.