Jackson Browne Remembers Dan Fogelberg

Jackson Browne stopped by the Rolling Stone offices this morning to talk about his thirty-year battle against nuclear power, and afterwards he shared memories of his friend and collaborator Dan Fogelberg, who died yesterday of prostate cancer. The two first sang together on Browne's 1974 album Late for the Sky. "He was beautiful, an angel," Browne said. "People either don't know it or don't remember it, but he had the highest harmonies. He sang above Don Henley and J.D. Souther on those tracks. My favorite song of his ["Same Old Lang Syne"] was about running into an old lover in a supermarket on New Years — I shouldn't admit it, but it made me cry. It encapsulated the passing of time and the revisiting of former hopes and dreams. He was a really emotional songwriter and a beautiful singer."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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