OPENER

SiriusXM program director Jeremy Tepper, perhaps the greatest expert on outlaw country music I’ve ever come across—and just the nicest guy you could run into at a Dwight Yoakam concert—had died suddenly at 60 of a heart attack. I mention Jeremy here not just in tribute, but because he was one of a few influential music lovers who set me on the bottle-strewn path to the artistic love of my life: country music.