I'm surprised no one mentioned this, maybe I am old. But I liked him!

Dan Fogelberg's legacy will linger 12:05 PM CST on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 By MARIO TARRADELL / The Dallas Morning News To fully appreciate the scope of singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg's musical talents, dig out your copy of 1981's The Innocent Age and give it another listen.

The two-disc set, which was released as the demise of disco made room for the nurturing of new wave, stands as the late Illinois native's artistic zenith. Mr. Fogelberg, who succumbed to prostate cancer on Sunday, spent his entire career based in folk music. But he then took his uncluttered melodies, storytelling lyrics and soothing voice into pop, rock, jazz and even country territories.

The Innocent Age, an ambitious 17-song cycle written and produced by Mr. Fogelberg, touched on romantic longing, familial reminiscing and ecological ruminating by tracing the varied stages of life, from birth to death.

Age will be best remembered for two of its four hits, "Leader of the Band" and "Same Old Lang Syne." Mr. Fogelberg's best writing breathes in "Lang Syne." The song's lovely yet melancholy melody provides the perfect cushion for the vivid words. Upon bumping into an old girlfriend at a grocery store, a conversation ensues. Time has brought them back together, but they aren't as they were when the fire first flickered inside them.

"She said she'd married her an architect," he sings, "Who kept her warm and safe and dry/She would have liked to say she loved the man/But she didn't like to lie/I said the years had been a friend to her/And that her eyes were still as blue/But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw/Doubt or gratitude."

Through his successful run of studio albums from 1974 to the mid-1980s, rock critics unfairly maligned Mr. Fogelberg, deeming his sound too soft. Those critics failed to recognize the one-time Colorado-based artist's creative breadth.

He was considered part of the Southern California '70s pop-rock clique, primarily because he had a musical kinship with Joni Mitchell, Gram Parsons protégé Emmylou Harris and Eagles members Don Henley and Glenn Frey (all of whom were guests on The Innocent Age).

But with smooth-jazz flutist Tim Weisberg he recorded 1978's Twin Sons of Different Mothers, which had a largely jazz-focused bent. On 1985's gold-selling High Country Snows, Mr. Fogelberg ventured into country and bluegrass with such luminaries as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill and Chris Hillman. With 1987's ill-conceived Exiles, he ventured into generic '80s pop-rock, no doubt as a way to appease his label. By then, his commercial clout had waned.

His biggest pop hit remains 1979's "Longer," the folkie gem that appealed to a wide audience and still plays as warmly familiar nearly 20 years later. Before his cancer diagnosis in 2004, when Mr. Fogelberg was still touring regularly, "Longer" was his quintessential concert staple: the song to unite the young and the old, the impressionable and the jaded.

Phoenix, the album that houses "Longer," was the predecessor to The Innocent Age. Such a connection is notable since he was at his artistic and commercial peak then. Now, after his death at age 56, Mr. Fogelberg's "Leader of the Band," his ode to a dad whose musician ways rubbed off famously on his son, seems mighty bittersweet.

The song's hook could make you sigh. "I'm just a living legacy/To the leader of the band."

Sadly, he isn't anymore.