This email just made my day, my week, my year. It’s about an instrumental called “Quarter to Five (for Tina Loney).” Posted here with the writer’s permission.
Dear David,
I recently had the great pleasure to hear a recording by John Bleich of your July 19th performance in Liberty Pa.
There was an “impromptu” set you did & you played a song Quarter To 5…….in memory for your friend Tina who you lost to cancer.
I have to tell you……that song…….really hits my heart……..knowing WHY it was written.
I have lost 3 family members & 1 best friend to cancer myself.
I cannot listen to your song without breaking down & crying like a baby all over again…thinking of those LOVED ONES I too have lost.
that song…….really hits my heart HARD
it touches me SO DEEPLY the very thought of it makes me tear UP, I am getting teary now as I type this to you.
Please KNOW music does NOT EVER effect me that way……….but THAT SONG DOES.
It is SO BEAUTIFUL I cannot STOP CRYING even just thinking about it………..it goes STRAIGHT TO MY HEART like nothing else I have ever experienced in a song.
I am a grown man, almost 59 years old & was a commercial construction worker for 40 years, a hardened old SOB who just does NOT EVER breakdown & start crying over some SONG……..but this one………makes me cry & HARD TOO, I feel that pain I felt watching my mom & the others die a little each day up until the end & on to this very day some 34 years later.
Your song is THAT touching to me & has become very personal for me because I understand it all too well.
Thank YOU for making such beautiful music.
Dennis