I'm just old enough to have seen LEON REDBONE on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1976, just young enough to not have had a clue what I was seeing or hearing. He was the musical guest twice during the show's first season, a fact that, in retrospect, may have seemed almost as strange then as it seems now. But it was a new show. Strange was part of the idea. He looked like what I imagined the 1920s looked like, sounded like what I imagined the 1910s sounded like and sang an IRVING BERLIN song when he wanted to bring things a little more up to date. He was studiously droll. I assumed he was 60 years old or something. He was 26. The same age MILEY CYRUS is now. Younger than three of the four members of ABBA were then. He didn't hit 60 until 2009, and he was only 69 when he died Thursday. The official announcement of his death, from his family, said he was 127. I'd like to believe both of those numbers are right. In a way, they are. All performers are playing characters; he inhabited his with more commitment and more depth than most. Much, much more. He was born in Cyprus to an Armenian family during a time of political unrest and violence. The family eventually made its way to Toronto. Redbone, whose name wasn't Redbone (or Leon), never talked about this in public. He told people he was born in Louisiana and made up a fake birth name, which also wasn't Leon or Redbone. He invented his own roots—early 20th century American blues, jazz, ragtime, pop country, etc.—and became a lifelong scholar of the music and the musicians who made it. That part was real. Or maybe all of it was real. He "become the character he created," his daughter ASHLEY said earlier this year. "PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT ME WHEN I'M GONE," said a favorite song of his, written in 1930 by SAM H. STEPT and SIDNEY CLARE, but Redbone didn't want you to talk about him when he was here either. He just wanted you to hear the music, and maybe to rediscover your real roots through the ones he made up for himself. And to hear the mysterious truths that live at the heart of even the most fanciful stories. And to laugh and smile along the way. RIP... Farewell also to PARK BLVD RECORDS in Oakland, Calif., which in less than four years of existence became a mecca for hip-hop vinyl and cassette collectors (it will continue to live online), and to the call letters WPLJ, beloved by New York classic rockers of a certain age... GREY WORM makes music, and he loves BILLY JOEL... It's FRIDAY and that means ROCKETMAN, the biopic of the guy who plays piano who isn't Billy Joel, is opening in in the US, and KANYE WEST is the guest on the new episode of DAVID LETTERMAN's NETFLIX thing, and there's new music from DENZEL CURRY, SKEPTA, THOMAS RHETT, MILEY CYRUS, SINKANE, DAMON LOCKS, LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY, DARKTHRONE, KIRK FRANKLIN, JUAN WAUTERS, CAMILA MEZA, SOUNDWALK COLLECTIVE WITH PATTI SMITH, SARAH DAVACHI, J. ROBBINS, CHRISHAN & OG PARKER, DOG BLOOD, SACRED PAWS, PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS, FUJIYA & MIYAGI, JUAN LUIS GUERRA, COL3TRANE, DUFF MCKAGAN, IAN NOE, KISHI BASHI, MATSTUDIO, FRANK IERO & THE FUTURE VIOLENTS, JR JR, FLOR DE TOLOACHE and PIP BLOM... RIP TONY GLOVER.