A few minutes ago, I heard Dave Mason passed away peacefully in his favorite chair day before yesterday. I am so sad to hear this. Dave was a great musician and a cool guy.
He played with the greats from Jimmy Hendrix to Steve Winwood and so many others. Without going into detail, I listened to a lot of his solo music and Traffic albums in the late 1970’s all the way to the end of his career. I was fortunate to see him in 1977 at Ole Miss where I drove my old Toyota with my Mississippi State parking permit on the bumper. I had temporarily placed duct tape over the sticker to make sure no one trashed my car on the rival campus!
Dave was great, I was close to the stage and I took a few photos with my 35 mm film camera. One of those is right here. I saw Dave quite a few times over the years and in February of 2018 I met him before a show in Durham, North Carolina and we talked for a while. His wife was there and she was very nice. I met Johnne “John” Sambataro that night as he was playing guitar with Dave. He showed me his gear and how he had his iPad set up ready to interface to the set list and his pedal board tuning. Johnne played with a long list of musicians from Eric Clapton to Peter Frampton and then some, but he was a great guy taking time to talk to a stranger on the stage before the show.
I took a photo of Dave from that 1977 show and gave it to Dave’s wife that night. I also showed it to Dave, and we had a laugh at it. I still remember what he told me when I said, “Back then we had a lot more hair.” He smiled and said, “We may be old but we are still cool.” Dave will always be cool.
Dave Mason will live on in my vinyl collection and in my memories. I already miss him. Here are the lyrics from his biggest hit “We Just Disagree.” I know the words to this one and burned it up in my car all those decades ago. I think I will listen to it right now.
Been away, haven’t seen you in a while
How’ve you been, have you changed your style?
And do you think that we’ve grown up differently?
Don’t seem the same, seems you’ve lost your feel for me
So let’s leave it alone
‘Cause we can’t see eye to eye
There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy
There’s only you and me and we just disagree
Ooh, oh-oh-oh
I’m going back to a place that’s far away
How bout you, have you got a place to stay?
Why should I care when I’m just trying to get along?
We were friends, but now it’s the end of our love song
So let’s leave it alone
‘Cause we can’t see eye to eye
There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy
There’s only you and me and we just disagree
Ooh, oh-oh-oh
See ya down the road.