Tom Verlaine,Television Guitarist dead at 73

Television founding member and guitarist, Tom Verlaine died peacefully in New York City surrounded by close friends according to a news release from Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Verlaine’s former partner Patti Smith.

Smith made a comment in an email to CNN on Sunday;“In him, I felt the energy of a father – a man to hug, to laugh with, to share in mischievous jokes and wild imagination,” Smith said. “He was the perfect friend and support for me as a little girl.”

“I think every person who was lucky enough to be close to Tom had their own version of this experience – whether through friendship or work, with Tom you had your own shared language, understanding, and universe, something so precious and rare, a one of a kind relationship with a true rarity of a soul,” she added.
“There has never been another like you and there never will be,” she wrote.

Smith’s mother, legendary music writer, Patti Smith who dated the late rockstar in the 1970s and remained lifelong friends, shared her own heartfelt tribute on Instagram writing; “This is morning thinking about Tom. Grief is not an affliction, but a privilege.”