Yes, when musicians die, it means something

As I'm sure you know, Ray Charles died today. BlondeSense deals with it simply and well.
One of the commentors said something that hurt me, about how the media types just sort of summarized his accomplishments and it made it seem so small. He was a mountain of a man and a positive force and we can imagine our lives without what he brought to them, but we don't want to.
I can relate. I figured Ray Charles was coming, and while I like him, he isn't the closest to my heart or anything. But I can relate to how something can be so profound to you and yet just pass the mass media by.
I remember the day Dee Dee Ramone died. The Ramones are hands down, without a doubt, my favorite band. When Joey died, it was upsetting, but not a surprise, since he had been sick. But Dee Dee was okay, he just overdosed on a drug that he had supposedly kicked.
I was in the car, trying to drive home. They announced his death and all the air sucked out of the car. I rolled down the window, so I could breath. The DJ was sad, but in that breezy, media way. She said, "Aw, he was a great bassist." Yeah, fair enough.
And then the other DJ said something like, "The Ramones were a band from the 70's, blah blah, you can hear their influence on bands like Green Day and Offspring."
FUCK!
How could he say that? He made it seem like they were nothing, an anomaly, a strange little band with one hit that happened to be an influence on retro-punk bands THAT I HATE. The Ramones were not a random happenstance of a band, they were a revolution. There are alot of bands that snotty people prefer to point to as the beginning of the revolution that was punk, all good bands, bands like the Stooges, the MC5, the Velvet Underground. But the Ramones are another beast entirely. They did two very unique things--they made the whole thing about pop and they made the punk revolution real and accessible.
The Ramones are one of those bands that's sort of everywhere and yet not so it's hard to get a chance to listen to them. Alot of friends of mine have poo-poo'd my obsession, and then after I pelt them with the Ramones they suddenly see the light. They are one of those few bands whose appeal is hard to pin down, they truly have a certain je nais se qui. And yet once the penny drops, they wind into your mind and there they stay. One friend asked for a copy of the song "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg". Another drunkenly confessed that he had been listening to them endlessly on the sly. My boyfriend learned all their great riffs. An ex-boyfriend wrote me a letter, thanking me for showing him how great the Ramones are.
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Why not have the bass player play the same line as the guitarist? It seems simple now, but once it was very, very weird.
What does this have to do with Ray Charles? Nothing, except that his death, coupled with Reagan's, and coupled (tripled?) with something Elayne Riggs tossed in as almost an aside, I've been thinking alot about how much the death of a celebrity means to an individual.
More thoughts to come.