Eddie Money died this morning at the not-very-old age of 70. Variety has the most comprehensive obituary I’ve found, if you’d like to know more about him… and I confess, I really didn’t know much.

The truth is, I’ve always sort of taken Eddie for granted. I’ve never owned an album of his, and the one time I saw him live — back around 2000 or thereabouts, along with Styx and REO Speedwagon in one of the first “triple threat” shows I attended — I dismissed him as the worst act of the evening. Looking back, I feel bad about being so snotty.

See, the thing about Eddie Money that I didn’t credit him for 20 years ago is that he was a journeyman entertainer. Not a virtuoso, not a genius, not really at home in the pantheon of flashy, strutting rock-and-roll gods… he was just a hardworking guy from New York who was easy to picture in his former career as a police officer. Dedicated to the job, out there every damn day without fanfare, like somebody in one of those golden-lighted all-American Ford commercials, doing the work to keep the country moving. I appreciate that sort of thing a lot more now than I did when I was younger.

He started logging hit singles in the ’70s, and it’s been startling today while reading the various tributes to him to realize just how many hits he had, and how many of them I’ve liked over the years. I remember singing “Take Me Home Tonight,” his 1986 song with Ronnie Spector of The Ronnettes, during after-school rehearsals for the one and only play I appeared in, and feeling pretty damn superior because I knew who Ronnie Spector was while my fellow castmates thought she was only a backup singer. However, my favorite Money song is from a couple years earlier. “Think I’m in Love” was the first single from Eddie’s 1982 album No Control, and it slams my personal sweetspot hard: guitar heavy; a catchy, propulsive sound; a certain sense of drama but an overall upbeat tone… this is the kind of song that makes me want to put the car windows down and drive faster than I ought to. The song went to 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the video was a staple of MTV’s early playlists.

It is also kind of batshit insane. Which of course all the best early videos were.

Rest in peace, Eddie Money. I’m going to crank this up now and fill the crisp, early fall air with some good rock and roll…