Lynn Blakey, a beloved country and rock music musician, has died.
Her exact age has not been reported, but Parade Magazine reported that she was in her “early 60s.” Her cause of death was also not reported.
“The great Lynn Blakey has passed,” author Bob Mehr, who wrote ‘Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements’ posted on Instagram. “A North Carolina-based musician, Lynn played with Let’s Active, Oh-OK, & Tres Chicas & inspired one the greatest songs of all time, The Replacements’ ‘Left of the Dial.’
“On one level ‘Left of the Dial’ celebrated the ’80s American indie scene and paid tribute to the tiny-watt college stations at the far end of the FM dial, where the Replacements got most of their airplay,” Mehr added. “But it was also a love song, an evocation of Paul Westerberg’s infatuation with Blakey. They first met when the ‘Mats & Let’s Active shared a bill at San Fran’s I-Beam in late 83. He bummed cigarettes off her & they spent hours walking & talking in the rain.”
Blakey told Mehr that she thought “Paul decided he had a crush on me.”
“I was in love with the idea of being in love with her,” Westerburg told Mehr. “I used that to pine with.”
Mehr wrote that Blakey eventually moved to Athens — the land of “sweet Goergia breezes” to join the band Oh-OK.
“The song is about the first year of Paul and I meeting and hitting it off and logistically it not working out,” Blakey told Mehr.
“I’m very sorry for her loss,” he added. “Sending condolences to her husband and Ecki & all her loved ones.”
Blakey formed the country group Tres Chicas with Caitlin Cary and Tonya Lamm in 1999.
The group released a pair of albums — “Sweetwater” in 2004 and “Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl” in 2006.
