While We Were Out ...

We lost two important pieces of the Great American Quilt: legendary singer James Brown and former President Gerald Ford.

First, the Godfather of Soul ...

James Brown didn't play music. He didn't make music. He invented it.

Brown, the pioneering rock-soul-funkmeister who has rung every note out of every one of his classic hits, from "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" to "I Got You (I Feel Good)," died Christmas Day at a hospital in Atlanta.

He was 73, although somehow it seemed as if the man and his music had been around forever.

Rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy called Brown's death "a seismic passing." Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger called it a "huge loss to music." ...

"Music is usually on the two and four, but I changed it to the one and three," Brown told E! Online in 2000. "I invented that beat."

Brown put his signature beat to use in "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" and "The Payback," to reel off three more of his 100-plus hits on the R&B charts, most of which made Billboard's overall singles chart, too.

In the 1960s, Brown put his signature voice to the civil-rights movement, speaking out against rioting but declaring "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud") in another hit song. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Look magazine asked if the iconic performer was the "most important black man in America?"

With legend status came the spoils: the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 1992; the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 1993; and the Kennedy Center Honor, presented in 2003, the same year as his 70th birthday.

To say Brown is in the Rock and Roll of Hall of Fame, too, doesn't cut it. He was in the original class of the Hall of Fame, circa 1986. Among his peerless peers: Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and Elvis Presley.

And then, "The Accidental President" ...

Gerald R. Ford was a man of limited ambition who, through bizarre circumstances never before experienced by the country, achieved an office that others win through the greatest determination and calculation. The nation's 38th president, Ford wanted only to become speaker of the House. History had another place for him.

Ford was comfortable in the House, representing a Michigan congressional district for 25 years, rising to Republican leader and working toward his dream of one day running the chamber, when President Nixon called. ...

And so the man who did not covet the presidency, who never had sought national office and who wanted only to become the "head honcho" of the House, became president by chance — unlike many since who have devoted huge amounts of time and money in pursuit of the Oval Office.

"I have not campaigned either for the presidency or the vice presidency," Ford told the nation in his inaugural address on Aug. 9, 1974. "I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it."

RIP to them both.

P.S. BaT will be on the road again beginning tomorrow night. Updates are possible, but questionable. Come Jan. 3, the holidays will be over, and hopefully, our lives will be back to semi-normal. If I don't see you before then, Happy New Year, everyone!