LEGENDARY MAINE SINGER - SONGWRITER DAVE MALLETT DIED AT AGE SEVENTY-THREE

 

Coincidences, creating a strange connection with a person you don’t actually know, at pivotal times in your lifetime, can leave you with a feeling of kinship.

 

At forty-one years of age, my wife at twenty-eight, we bought an old farmhouse for ten thousand dollars.  We had no electricity, we carried our water from the creek behind the house, read by lamplight and heated with firewood – and became freshmen at the University of Maine.

One night after a late class we found there was to be entertainment at the commons.    That was the first time we heard Dave Mallett.

 

 

Just before graduation, we blanketed Alaska rural school districts with applications for teaching positions.  A week before graduation, we celebrated by making dinner reservations at 1 Stanley Avenue in Kingfield, Maine.  A historic old house, the owners prepared gourmet meals by reservation only for a limited number of guests.  After the meal, we went into the parlor and Dave Mallett and his bass player performed for ten of us.

A week later we loaded up in our small Toyota pickup, and as we pulled out of our yard headed for Alaska, I popped in a tape of Dave Mallett singing North to Alaska.

 

One summer we returned to New England on vacation and found Dave Mallett performing at a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine.

 

After teaching for eight years in the Alaska bush, we decided to return to the lower-forty-eight.   As we approached the border between Alaska and Yukon’s Alcan Highway, Alaska Public Radio announced a song by the Maine artist Dave Mallett, and as we physically left Alaska Dave Mallett was singing on our radio.

 

Several years later we returned to Maine.   The first summer back we attended the Common Ground Fair, one of the largest organic farming fairs in New England.  On the events list, we found that Dave Mallett was going to play that night.  So that night we got a blanket from our car, sat on the ground, and listened to Dave Mallet.

 

CELEBRATION

We have attended two other Dave Mallett concerts when he performed in our area.

 

Two nights ago, Dave Mallett died at his home at the age of seventy-three.

NOTHING BUT A LONG GOODBY

 

Though we never actually knew him, it has come as a shock to both my wife and I.

GOOD BY DAVE 

the Ol’Buzzard