Wow.

Watt, Cricklewood Green, Rock 'n' Roll Music to the World and Recorded Live albums.

I've never thought of myself as spookily prescient — if I had, I'd probably sit with a crystal ball in a gypsy costume at county fairs. But it's absolutely true that, in the last few weeks, I was strongly compelled to seek out and listen to Ten Years After's

Alvin Lee died today and I'm sad.

Fact: You have never seen a human being nail an air guitar performance like Young Ricky Koster blowing threw "I'm Going Home"— although it's important to note I far prefer the version from Recorded Live to his iconic take from Woodstock.

Fact: I wore clogs for years because of Alvin Lee -- at great personal peril in Central Texas in the late '70s.

Fact: Before the age of the easily-accessed silk screen design, I tried mightily to make my own version of Lee's Fillmore West t-shirt, which he seemed to wear with some regularity onstage.

Fact: After my senior year in high school, when I battled Dallas rush hour traffic to and from my much-hated summer job working in the collections department at a loan company, I listened to Watt incessantly. There was a certain melancholy about that whole summer – not the least because high school was over — and TYA's "Think About the Times" resonated in huge fashion.

Fact: I was crushed when Lee left Ten Years After. He made a collaborative album with Myron LeFevre and, though I gave it a shot out of loyalty to Alvin, it was so bad I warped it with a hair dryer, took it back to the record store, and exchanged it for something else.

Looking back, I realize that Lee wasn't the greatest songwriter in the world – he'd have been the first to tell you that. And for all his rocket-ship fretboard speed, he probably wasn't the most technically gifted rock guitarist, either.

He was stinkin' fast, though, and, as a rock star, he was just about a cool as it got.