As each new issue of the MBSI's "Mechanical Music" or the "AMICA
Bulletin" or the COAA's "Carousel Organ" or "Carousel And Automatic
Music News" comes out, I see we are losing more and more of our old,
familiar friends in the mechanical music field, either by retirement
and selling off their treasured instruments or by their passing.
How depressing!

One loss I am feeling very deeply at this moment, as Glenn Thomas and
Play-Rite get ready to issue a new roll of his early arrangements, is
that of my dear, talented friend, Rich Olsen, who arranged sixteen
Wurlitzer style 165 rolls for me.

Rich has been gone for less than four years, but every time I hear
one of the tunes from the first roll he arranged, the pain of his
loss renews itself in spite of the joy the music brings to me.
Here are two of the tunes, showing what I mean:

Be My Boogie Woogie Baby:  http://wurlitzer-rolls.com/6836-3.mp3 
and Clarinet Polka:  http://wurlitzer-rolls.com/6836-7.mp3 

Such talent!  And I am a bit ashamed to say that I often took it
for granted when Rich was alive and I left my appreciation largely
unexpressed until after his sudden death on October 22, 2013, at
the age of 60.

Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, New York