Keep Me in Your Heart (Warren Zevon cover for Johnny Harper)

My friend and mentor, the inimitable Johnny Harper passed away. His memorial is this Tuesday at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley and I have been asked to play this Warren Zevon piece, one of Johnny's favorite songs. Honestly, I'd never heard the song before they asked me to play it. I thought it was lovely, but I just don't have Zevon's voice, so I moved it into a different key and played it in a way that feels more natural to me. Getting through this on Tuesday night without losing it will be a win. Luckily, I'll have Jennifer Jolly and some other folks helping me along with it. I miss Johnny so much. It feels acutely unfair that he's gone. All the more because I spoke to him just a few days before he passed. He had worked with me on these songs I'm releasing now and I was so excited to meet with him and play him the final mixes (where, likely, he would offer equally succinct commentary on both places where the songs could be improved and where he found things to appreciate...he was good like that; even both in praise and critique). "Now's not a good time," he said when I called. As it turned out, there wasn't another: a few days later I heard he'd passed suddenly in the night. This one's for you, Johnny.