June 13, 2008

George Garrett, the Great Encourager

By MADISON SMARTT BELL

Hey George I just called to let you know That I needed a favor … And I hope that you won't mind To oblige me one more time …

So goes the first verse of a song Wyn Cooper and I have been working on for a year or so now. I think I knew it would be an elegy even when we started it. George Garrett had been sick for quite a while when he died May 25, at 78 — it was bad news but not a big surprise.

Five or six years ago, in the

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