Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?

I used to see the band Dave’s True Story at a lot of music venues around New York City. The band started as a duo — David Cantor and Kelly Flint — with sidemen until Jeff Eyrich joined as bass player, manager, and, eventually, Kelly’s husband.

Although I saw them perform quite a bit, I didn’t get to know them until one fateful night at the old Living Room at the corner of Allen Street. It was in 2003, after Kelly’s pal Norah Jones won her first five Grammy Awards. The New York Post, where I was then a metro editor, had recently published a story with a front-page photo of Jones’ modest, $1,400-a-month apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in full color, with a circle around her window. Norah was outraged, and reportedly left the place and never went back.

Story continues below playlist.

https://open.spotify.com/user/reginaldmarsh/playlist/7MQwFkW7B4jubsqss4F9KI

On the night I saw DTS play at the Living Room right after the story appeared, Kelly was furious. Not one to break her character — the funny, sexy, slightly chilly jazz chanteuse —  in DTS, Kelly let loose, angrily condemning the Post and, as I recall, spouting negativity about journalists in general for what the Post had done. She was in high dudgeon.

Kelly probably recognized my face as a regular member of the DTS audience, but I don’t think she knew my name, let alone the fact that I worked at the Post.

After the show, I approached her and told her where I worked and that I wanted to assure her that journalists weren’t all evil incarnate — even at the Post.

I don’t know whether she was inclined to believe me, but she agreed to talk to me about it. For all I knew, she could have been hoping for an opportunity to dump on me for all the wrongs, real or exaggerated, that she felt had been perpetrated by the media.

As it turned out, we had a good conversation and parted on friendly terms. In doubt I changed her mind about members of the media in general, but I think I got her to understand that we’re not all alike. That, alone, was a pretty satisfying outcome.

Kelly and I have remained friendly since then and have kept in touch since Dave’s True Story broke up in 2007 and Kelly got busier with her special needs son, Ben, and focused on her company and on her solo music.

We recently got together to catch up after not having seen each other in a number of years. Click here to read my interview with Kelly for The Journal News/lohud.com.