All that brought me some cheer is that he must have been on the kozmic wheels o’ steel on Friday evening. For as I dragged my hide through the pouring rain here in Manhattan and uptown on several trains, my infernal device solely rotated favorite Atlantic gems – particularly the late Hathaway, Led Zeppelin, the various incarnations of my favorite vocalist Stephen Stills (especially the Buffalo Springfield and his second, underrated country-rock outfit Manassas) and Archie Bell and the Drells’ immortal “Tighten Up, Parts 1 and 2.” There’s a muddled echo from Roger Guenveur Smith’s Huey Newton play in my head: “Don’t ever let anyone take your 'Tighten Up' away from you!”

Even when latter-day Atlantic act Gnarls Barkley stole into the mix, it felt alright that artists signed to the label long after Wexler’s 1975 exit were bum-rushing the par-tay for I have long felt that St. Elsewhere was the first complete album-as-art to be anointed in the digital era – one which crucially built on the soul legacy most carefully nurtured by purist Papa Dip. More than its obvious predecessors - 3-Feet High and Rising, Paul’s Boutique, Odelay and Stankonia - St. Elsewhere is a fully realized statement that most skillfully wed the rhythm & blues coined by Papa with the Dixie-fried grit of Stax (the Memphis label with which he formed vital relationships), added a major (sepia) chapter to the lineage of southern rock promoted by Capricorn under Wexler’s watch with the late Phil Walden Sr., and updated the blues aesthetic to negotiate the surrealities of today’s black street culture.

The House that Miss Rhythm Ruth (Brown) built - vitally sustained by Wexler and his Atlantic brotherhood of the Erteguns, Tom Dowd, Joel Dorn, and associates - retains such a strong legacy that its after-effects can be measured still in the daring brilliance of Gnarls Barkley and another of my beloved postmodern meta-Atlanteans, Kid Rock, who comes to the tri-state with southern rock’s true flagship band Lynyrd Skynyrd on Labor Day weekend. If I have recovered enough, I will venture out to Joisey to shake my moneymaker with tha Kid and pour plenty spirited libation out for my Papa.

Meanwhile, though, I am struggling to process. It’s too strange and metafizzik for my people, but how I feel about his passing is too deep for mere words – albeit they’re my trade. Wexler and Uncle Stanley and Mr. Dorn were/are all such great raconteurs, I don’t believe any words of mine can convey meaning here…only sounds should suffice. Yet I don’t make songs without words; we might have to try at an upcoming Buffalo Springfield tribute we’re arranging on the Lower East Side. It just seems so strange that a mere two nights before his passing, some of us Atlantic faithful were sitting under the stars at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, being regaled by some of the label’s major acts (Roberta Flack, Les McCann) and affiliates (last minute surprise Hugh Masekela) all assembled to honor Mr. Dorn (who went to the Upper Room last December). In retrospect, it definitely seems Papa Dip waited in the wings while his old colleague had his turn under the Manhattan night’s proscenium arch.

So I asked for my personal Amen Corner of beloved bredren brought to me by da Wex to chime in and testify in my stead. Mourning has undone most but my dear friend Harry Weinger, vice-president of A&R at Universal, kindly hollered back:

"To us R&B nuts who found a life in the music, Jerry Wexler was 'Uncle Jerry.' I am somewhat cut from his cloth: a New York Jew, a former Billboard writer, a soul man who always demands 'more bass.' But that's about where the fabric ends. I cannot imagine how he carved out his legacy in the times he did, how he divined the greatness of his artists with such seeming ease and intellect. He was a beacon of truth - and he really was 'Uncle Jerry': he not only made it possible for guys who cared about 'more bass' to keep the faith, he was always willing to share his stories, to aid the keepers of the flame, to forever keep alive the essence of soul and the power of beautiful music."