RIP: Ben Keith

Sad news...

From the Los Angeles Times:

Ben Keith, the veteran steel guitarist who played on Patsy Cline’s 1961 hit “I Fall to Pieces” before befriending Neil Young and going on to play on more than a dozen of the Canadian rocker's albums, has died. He was 73.
He died of a heart attack, director Jonathan Demme said Tuesday. Demme, who directed Young’s concert films “Neil Young Trunk Show” from earlier this year and 2006’s “Heart of Gold,” said Keith had been staying at Young’s ranch in Northern California, working on new projects with his longtime collaborator.
Keith was featured prominently in both. In “Neil Young Trunk Show,” shot in Pennsylvania at a stop on Young’s 2007-2008 concert tour, Young said a key reason he chose to tour with Keith, bassist Rick Rosas and Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina, rather than convening the full, hard-rocking Crazy Horse trio, was that “I can do more variety this way, because Ben plays so many instruments.”
Demme called Keith “an elegant, beautiful dude, and obviously a genius. He could play every instrument. He was literally the bandleader on any of that stuff… Neil has all the confidence in the world, but with Ben on board, there were no limits. Neil has a fair measure of the greatness of his music, but he knew he was even better when Ben was there.”

Ben Keith made a joyful noise...

The entire obit is here.