Crossposting here and elsewhere....

I met Kendall Morse when I was 17 years old. He was a featured performer at the DC Folklore Society Getaway and took the time to sing a song into a tape recorder for a kid who thought it was funny. (I still sing the song, too.) Over the years since I got to know him more - at Getaways, at Rinktums (music gatherings in Maine and New Brunswick), on porches and in living rooms. He taught me more songs, over the years, and of course stories.

One day Kendall, Jacqui, and I were talking about his good friend Utah Phillips, and i suggested maybe some of us could contribute songs to a CD to raise some money for him. Kendall reached out to Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton, and all of a sudden our little project wasn’t so little anymore. More artists and friends joined us, and ultimately Singing Through the Hard Times got nominated for a Grammy award. For a good year afterwards, Kendall wore his Grammy nominee’s medal on special occasions - which for him included going to the post office.

We all know Kendall was funny (“You let me do the jokes,” he used to say when I’d make some feeble attempt to keep up with him), but he could also be wise. And he could be difficult. He could lift a friend from an emotional abyss and he could fall into his own. He could be gentle some times and quick to anger at others. But he never lost his sense of humor.

In the last years of his life, Kendall had plenty to get bitter about - his beautiful was gone, taken by the cancer, and sometimes it seemed like he couldn’t find his way out. Friends helped, Jacqui helped, family helped, but it was something in Kendall’s spirit that wouldn’t let go. Not long after his voice went, I talked with Kendall about what he was going through. He said, “I just about gave up last week. But I’ll tell you something. I’ve woken up every day of my life with a song in my head. And the other day, that song was ’76 Trombones.’ Now that’s gotta mean something.”??

The last time I saw Kendall was at our music gathering in February of 2020, just before the pandemic kept us all apart. He was struggling cognitively, but in some ways he was as Kendall as ever. When he saw me he said, as he usually did when we met in the last few years, “Have I ever thanked you for making me famous?” I could have easily said the same to him. Then we sat down together and I played guitar while he whispered the lyrics to Utah Phillips’s “Phoebe Snow.”??

There’s more I could say about Kendall - and more I will, since I expect to be quoting him for the rest of my life. I’ll miss him terribly, and I’m so glad - so privileged - to have counted him as a dear friend.

Rest in peace, Kendall. You will always live in your songs, your stories, and our hearts.

"Rolling home, rolling home
Rolling home across the sea...."