![]() I would learn many things from this man he was to become the greatest teacher of my life.Įveryone called him Alec-“Smart-Alec”-although that was not his real name. I later learned that this was worn to create the illusion of being taller. This strange little man wore a hat that seemed too big for him, not formed or fitted like the hat my father wore to work, but round on top and crushed in the back. When we drove up the long gravel driveway the first thing I saw was a small black man standing with a big sickle, like the one the figure of death holds to mow down the condemned. A railroad track ran less than a mile north of the property. Late in the summer of 1949, we moved to Memphis, Tennessee, into a big old house on three acres east of the city limits with a cotton field in front and farms behind. Due to my poor vision I thought he was kidding me about the dots on the paper, the way adults obscure the truth by telling a child one thing when something else is the “grown-up explanation.” The first song on my first lesson was “Motor Boat,” which consisted of playing middle C in repeated eighth notes, the irony of which would reveal itself in later years.Īs they say in professional wrestling, business was about to pick up. He told me about the lines and spaces and the dots that symbolized the notes on the keyboard. He looked up without emotion and continued the lesson as his child ran crying from the room. One day at my lesson one of his children ran into the room screaming and crying with a bloody nose. (Charlie Rich had these, as does Jerry Lee Lewis.) My teacher’s expression was blank and emotionless. He had snow-white hair like my grandfather and the kind of ghost fingers I would see on many great piano players, with transparent, almost blue skin. We went across town to a piano teacher whose name I don’t remember. Afterward, she continued to play in church but never professionally.īut she wanted me to play. Her drive and competitive spirit pushed her over the edge and she had an emotional breakdown when she was fourteen. They played classical competitions statewide. She played in church and she was an accompanist to an older girl violinist. Not a prodigy, she was quick to explain, just a good young player. ![]() My mother had been a semi-pro in childhood. I could remember the feeling of the moment while hearing it recreated on the white cardboard record.īefore I started school my mother wanted me to have piano lessons. I played the record over and over until it wore out, fascinated by my own voice coming out of the box, singing “Ramblin’ Wreck” and talking to Santa Claus. Like all the good jolly fellows, I drink my whiskey clear. Most children sang “Jingle Bells” or “Silent Night.” I sang the Georgia Tech fight song: I’m a ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech and a heck of an engineer. The song was then recorded by midget elves onto a disc of white cardboard that looked like a smaller version of my grandmother’s old 78 records. Each child talked to Santa and was asked to sing a song. Santa Claus, with real white hair, whiskers, and red velvet suits with white fur trim. Marking the entrance to the North Pole Village were Mr. Marshall Field’s department store had a giant Christmas tree, rising high up through the huge store. Midnight the Cat would mew “Nice,” and Squeaky the Mouse would start the music box. “Plunk your magic Twanger, Froggy!” said Smilin’ Ed McConnell to his Buster Brown gang. But the stories on the radio were mine: Bomba the Jungle Boy, The Green Hornet, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters, and Captain Midnight. He had a theme song, “Near You,” that he played every day at the beginning and end of his show. ![]() He never stopped playing the piano under the dialogue. He played the piano, sang, gave the news, the weather, and a sort of running commentary. The stories and music of the radio came from far away, but every afternoon there was a show that came from Chicago: “Two Ton” Baker, the Music Maker. Like the cowboy songs of Gene Autry and Red River Dave, each song told a story of a remote place and time. My mother would sit at the upright piano, playing and singing song after song off old pieces of sheet music from her past. Sometimes in the morning it would be the first thing I heard, shutting out the sounds of reality-the traffic outside the window and the people moving around. I don’t know when I first heard the music in my head. If you've got Dickinson, you don't need anybody else. ![]()
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