As his numbered days passed by, as his withering body told the story of his growing cancer and soon-to-be death, Bat McGrath did not fear mortality.

Unlike many of us who look toward the end of our lives and see only uncertainty and fear, McGrath, the singer-songwriter who enchanted Rochester audiences for decades, instead embraced mortality. On Tuesday, he died peacefully, just as he expected he would when, late last year, he decided that he would not undergo possible life-extending treatment to confront cancer.

"I know who and what I am and I'm fine with it and accepting it," McGrath told the Democrat and Chronicle in January about his cancer. "You think about this. Sometimes you think about dying and what I'm going to do and how can it be: Is it better to know or not know?

"... Something happens to you. As soon as the doctor said that I wasn’t living, I kind of went to another place. ... Something happens in us that this is OK. I don’t know."

Mr. McGrath's close friend Doug Emblidge on Tuesday confirmed that Mr. McGrath had died. Emblidge, a reporter-anchor for WHAM-TV (Channel 13), has been close with Mr. McGrath for years and helped arrange local concerts for Mr. McGrath in his final year of life.

Mr. McGrath's wife, Tricia Cast, was at his side, Emblidge said. Mr. McGrath was 73.

"Bat’s songs mattered to so many people, because of the stories they told, and the emotions they evoked," Emblidge said. "He was simple and complex at the same time. There was depth to his lyrics and he refused, at his own financial peril, to compromise to record company demands.

"He told his school guidance counselor he wanted to live on a farm and write music. Both wishes came true. How great is that?"

A Nashville-region resident, Mr. McGrath suffered from colon cancer. He often noted how he had not been as diligent with medical care as he should have.

"If I had gotten a colonoscopy 10 or 20 years ago this probably wouldn't even have happened," he said in January. "... The moral of the story really is for people to get screened and not to be brave at the end of your life."

In the early 1960s, as a teenager, Mr. McGrath was part of a band called The Showstoppers that was signed by Columbia Records. Afterward, he joined guitarist/songwriter Don Potter in Rochester as a duo that released an album on Epic Records.

In 2013, Mr. McGrath and Potter were welcomed into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame.

Potter is, in fact, performing at the Lyric Theatre in Rochester on Saturday, a concert likely to now be bitter-sweet because of Mr. McGrath's death. Both Potter and Mr. McGrath were part of the band that joined flugelhorn master and trumpeter Chuck Mangione in the Grammy-nominated "Friends & Love" concert at the Eastman Theatre in 1970.

With Emblidge's help and planning, Mr. McGrath returned to Rochester for concerts in the past year. In January, he also performed solo at the Lyric Theatre before a packed house.

Country star Wynonna Judd turned Mr. McGrath's song, "Come Some Rainy Day," into a hit, and, of course, Mr. McGrath sang the song at the Lyric. "This is my medley of hit," he said as an introduction.

At that show, Mr. McGrath charmed the audience with other of his songs they knew so well — "Wegmans," "Blue Eagle," "Western Florida" — while mixing the concert with both humor and acknowledgments that he had few, if any, performances ahead of him.

"I always said that a great artist knows when it's time to leave the stage," Mr. McGrath said at the start of show.

Then he offered a dramatic pause, and said, "Having said that, I'm not a great artist."

There is an entire region that knows the truth, that Mr. McGrath was not only a great artist but a reminder of how to relish each day that we have. Both his songs, his life — and even his death — imparted that lesson.

GCRAIG@Gannett.com