A river of music flows forward

“… like a cloud of smoke from an old freight train, like a grain of sand in the driving rain, like a house of cards in a hurricane, I’m gone, gone, gone.”

From “House of Cards” by David Hogan, 1968- 2020 Connecticut in February isn’t exactly conducive to a New Orleans- style second line, where musicians celebrate the departures of beloved friends by prancing in rhythm at the back of funeral processions, perspiring, wailing on their instruments in a joyful noise of homage.

It’s hard to plug in your electric guitar while sashaying down Fairfield Avenue in 40- degree weather.

So, the stage at BRYAC in Bridgeport’s Black Rock neighborhood, a regular stop for Dave Hogan and his band Greylight Campfire, was the perfect equivalent of a second- line. Dan Carlucci of Hitch & the Giddyup was at the microphone, choreographing a rotating cast of singers and players who had to remember Dave with a proper song.

But first, he and the band performed a few of the outlaw- hippie tunes Dave loved, such as Steve Earle’s “Home to Houston,” about a truck driver under attack with the U. S. Army in the Middle East; and a couple of Flying Burrito Brothers classics: “My Uncle,” a Vietnam- era lament told by a young man heading to Canada in the face of the draft; and “Sin City,” an allegorical song about musicindustry thieves and liars.

Dave, who died Jan. 14 in hospice care at Bridgeport Hospital, aged 51, knew a proper song. He wrote them and performed up and down the eastern seaboard, and for the last few years offered his favorites from the artists who mattered the most to him, on the radio as a programmer at WPKN, 89.5 FM.

BRYAC, a cheeky acronym for the Black Rock Yacht and Athletic Club seafood restaurant, was packed. Early afternoon drinking was in order.

Brian O’Callaghan, his long, graying hair framing a sport coat, was wearing a Dave Hogan T- shirt, a souvenir of a 50th birthday party nearly two years earlier. While outwardly unhappy with the occasion, he lit up when he grabbed his bass guitar.

O’Callaghan was a couple hours removed from the emotional memorial service, an outpouring of grief and love over at the Larson Funeral Home, where a couple hundred people — many in Connecticut’s rock and indie music royalty — overflowed into the hall.

“He loved everybody here, man,” O’Callaghan said, fighting a tear and recalling Dave’s guitar skills and songwriting techniques. “He had it, man. Dave was always thinking about the next step, you know? The last thing I said to Dave Hogan was of course something that he said to me first, because that was Dave. I said to him ‘ brothers to the end.’ ”

He described getting to know Dave musically, sitting around a campfire all night, playing one song after another, until the gray light of dawn started coming up around the camp fire.

Up front, near the guitar stands with Dave’s Les Paul and Martin guitars, was a brown wooden box with his ashes. There were rock ‘ n’ rollers with suits standing next to bandmates wearing cowboy shirts and torn jeans. Dave’s partner, Colleen Roche, was gracious, hilarious and bereaved at the same time.

“Dave was an expert mathematician who turned his skill with numbers into a machining career, but it was his commitment to music and his philosophy that ‘ a good song will stand’ that will be his enduring legacy,” Colleen wrote after his two- week decline following Christmas.

“His songwriting was clear and incisive, his guitar style elevated, cool and self- evident. He performed continuously up and down the coast for over 30 years, released several solo and full band albums of original music, and collaborated as a guest artist on dozens more. He was an unflappable, plain- talking and considerate person, eager to share musical discoveries on the air, and to invent them with everyone who played along. I would like his friends to know that Dave prized nothing more on this earth than his time with you. He never failed to thank you for coming to see him play; he considered you all extensions of the band. To those friends he played music with — you know I don’t have to describe what those times meant to him.”

There were a lot of long- haired guys, and maybe the coolest was Scott M. Lacy, a globe- trotting anthropology professor at Fairfield University who looked at the sad crowd and talked about Dave being a river, an important songwriter who preserved moments “to help us know who we are and where we are” and remains with us.

“Dave is here,” Lacy said. “The river is still here. It’s still doing what it does and what it always does and what it will do and what it will always do. Remember he ain’t gone. He’s just ahead of us, and don’t forget this is how it’s going to be.”

Dave, who died Jan. 14 in hospice care at Bridgeport Hospital, aged 51, knew a proper song. He wrote them and performed up and down the eastern seaboard, and for the last few years offered his favorites from the artists who mattered the most to him, on the radio as a programmer at WPKN, 89.5 FM.