Brooklyn, New York,
1942. The United States of America were becoming more and more
involved in the Second World War, the strain felt on families around
the nation. Yet, in this time of destruction and propaganda, there
were also some things good happening, such as the birth of young Eric
Nagler, on the first of June. With his father as a high school
biology teacher, he was spared from the draft and having to be
directly involved with the conflict in Europe, but that wasn't the
same for the rest of his family. Coming from Jewish heritage, and
being Jewish himself, Eric recalled how those from his family who
came to America before the war were saved, while the rest just
disappeared, never to be heard from again. This was only the start of
growing up in what Eric called “the shadow of the war”. He would
hear the stories his uncles told from their time overseas and would
come home from public school with the Army-McCarthy hearings on air,
a very different childhood from the ones of youth who would later
come home from daycare to watch Eric on their own televisions. It
wasn't even until about when he was 7 years old that the first
television came to his neighbourhood. A nice 7” model (with
accompanying magnifying class to make it 9”) upon which they would
watch Pinhead and Houdini, or sometimes Howdy Doody.
But television was
never a big memory for Eric, back then, it was all outdoors. When
fall came around neighbour Billy Smith (biggest kid, best skates)
would come out with the chalk and roll down the street marking a path
for their Cops and Robbers roller skate track. From there, spring and
summer held the times of ball games, of which Eric could easily list
off twenty or more to this day that they would regularly play. Those
memories of activity were seen in school as well, where Eric recalls being
second baseman, yet outside of school, around this time was also when
Eric would start to find music.
It all started with the piano. There
was one in the house that he would bang on as a child. His father
would tell him to “stop that racket”, but his grandma would issue
requests for such songs as “The Tennessee Waltz”. For these
requests, he would simply bang a little softer, yet his grandma would
tell him how beautiful this sounded. Encouraging Eric's first musical
dream, learn piano. His parents paid for him to have lessons, which
didn't go so well. After three months of lesson, he was done with
piano for good. Shortly after this, he heard the sound of the
saxophone at a friends house, and had the new dream to learn that.
When he excitedly told his mom, she said he couldn't. After all, “it
wasn't a valid instrument in the orchestra”. She told him to
instead learn clarinet, a real instrument. So they bought him one, he
had some lessons, and hated that too. Then, well then came the bass.
Eric remembers hearing Charles Mingus playing the “Haitian Pipe
Song”, it was at that moment that he knew he wanted to be a
bassist. He was excited to tell his parents. But then his mom told
him that “the bassist sat in the back of the orchestra and only
played one note”, she said Eric should really be learning the
cello. One night Eric's father brought one back from the high school
where he taught, Eric was so tired of the same routine that he didn't
even bother coming home that night. The cello was returned to the
school untouched.
One night, while
reading comics instead of doing homework, he heard a noise coming
from downstairs. It was something he had never heard, an instrument
his older brothers friend was playing. Scruggs Style bluegrass banjo
music. Finally, Eric had found the instrument and the noise he had
been looking for his whole childhood. Ever since, the banjo has been
his instrument of choice.
It was music that he
wanted to pursue, but his parents “conned him into university”
saying he could do anything he wanted as long as he got a degree. So,
off to university Eric went. Here, he received a degree in
psychology. From there, he received another degree in educational
psychology. It was partway through his doctorate in psychology that
Eric realized, as he put it, “this was bullshit”. A psychology
degree wasn't going to make him a musician, his parents just wanted
him to go into something different than banjo music. It was at that
point that Eric left formal education for good. Instead, partially
before and partially after then, he became a hippie. After all, it
was the sixties by then.
Eric had no idea where
to find people playing music like he was playing, the music he had
come to love. One day though, his brother told him about a New York
City neighbourhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan called
“Greenwich Village” where he heard that people gathered on
Sundays and played the same type of music as Eric had. From then on,
he joined this group of people like him, and they would all play at
Washington Square fountain in Greenwich village. They were referred
to as “beats” back then, “beatniks” after the Russian Sputnik
satellite was in the news. In
those days, no one really “wrote songs”, so they could all just
play music and communicate at levels deeper than words. They would
all just know what to do. Unfortunately, one of the group did
start writing songs. After those
days it was more “sit and listen” to someone perform, then
another person would perform. To this day, he still hasn't really
forgiven Bob Dylan for doing that to them.
I had then asked Eric what it meant where on his website it said he
“managed
to avoid getting my head bashed in by truncheons when the cops
attacked us in Washington Square for singing without a license.”
Really, I was interested in knowing the story and what “singing
without a license” even meant. Upon bringing it up, Eric started
laughing saying how it “really was a funny story”. Every year,
one of their large group (a friend of Eric's named Lionel Killburg)
would travel to New York City Hall and request a licence, allowing
them all to play in the square. Until one year, Town Hall simply said
no. After all, “they were a bunch of hippies, they were riffraff”.
This didn't stop the “riffraff” from playing. The next Sunday,
they gathered in Washington Square to sing and play their music. That
week, they were greeted by police, who gave a stern warning. So what
did the group do? They went the next day as well. So did the police.
Instead of playing music, the group all sat in the fountain and
didn't make a sound, glaring at the police in complete silence. One
of them started singing “we shall overcome”, and by the time
anyone else could join him, the police charged at them with their
clubs. With no regard to their victims, the police started bashing in
heads and smashing skulls. They then surrounded the fountain,
supposedly to “protect it from the hippies.” I had yet to see
what was funny about this. It was then that newscasters came, and a
Senator, and local (very wealthy), Fifth Avenue residents. They
were all angry. Yet, not at the group of young musicians. At the
police. After being yelled at for not allowing people to
sing,
the police were pretty embarrassed, as was the politician who first
said they couldn't, next weekend, the group was back singing and
playing music. Now I can see some humour!
It
was a while after this that Eric was visiting at a friends house when
his friends' sister walked in. She had heard that a man who had
been doing a voter registration march in Mississippi had been shot,
and that Martin Luther King Jr. would be continuing the march with
some members of his church and those in the local community, around
Canton, Mississippi. Eric was asked if he had wanted to join, and he
said sure. Although Eric was never what he would call an “advocate
for equality rights”, he knew the difference between right and
wrong, and he knew that how America was treating his fellow citizens
was for sure wrong. After about twenty-four hours of driving (they
had to stop in Memphis, someone they knew wanted to try their luck as
a country singer), they made it to Mississippi and the voter
registration march.
Eric emotionally recall Martin Luther King Jr
They
had marched for a few days, the crowds size averaging around fifty
people, but growing near towns and cities. Eric being there had
garnered mixed reactions. He recalls how one man walked up to him and
stated how “we don't want you white northerner bastards here, we
want our own nation, not integration”. Yet this was followed by two
elderly ladies from Martin Luther King's church who walked up to him
and expressed how they were “so glad to have him here, trying to
help us integrate”. Comments similar to those ladies kept Eric
walking, standing for what was right.
As
they got near Jackson, Mississippi, the crowd numbers slowly started
to swell. They were walking down the streets, singing, clapping and
singing when from beside the road Eric heard an elderly, female voice
yelling “praise the lord” excitedly from her front yard. With the
feeling of power the crowd was giving him, he yelled at her to join
him to the Senate buildings where they were heading. After about
twenty yards of walking with him, another girl came onto the yard and
starting yelling “how dare he take her to the buildings, he had no
idea what could happen there.” With that, the elderly lady
reluctantly went back, and Eric moved on. By the time they reached
the Senate, Eric guessed the crowd to be around 15000. Seemingly,
they all passed through a wall of silence. No one was talking.
Surrounding
the building were armed, white, policemen. Not far behind the police
were officers in full riot gear, and closer to the buildings were
soldiers with snipers. Beside the police, glaring at them, one for
each officer, were African American men in white tee-shirts and
overalls. Eric realized he recognized the man in overalls nearest
him, it was the man who a few days earlier told him he wasn't wanted.
Eric also noticed the reason why the officer seemed especially afraid,
the African American man had his teeth filed to points, and was
glaring up at the officer. The moment was tense, and Eric started to
hear people cry in fear. He heard one person start to cry behind him,
and turned to see the old lady from the front yard. He didn't blame
her, he felt the same way.
It
was at this point in my interview that it seemed Eric's music store
went quiet. It seemed the customers were all listening, Eric started
to tear up, and I had to focus to keep myself from doing the same.
The speeches started, a few minor people speaking in regards to the
idea of black power, people really talking about black power for the
first time. Then Martin Luther King stepped up and started the speech
that had already became history a year or two before.. “I have a
dream..”, the speech made in Washington in 1963. Between the tears
that were coming to Eric, he told me how Martin “talked about men
and women, black and white, being together, working together, boys
and girls, black and white, of every colour, being in school
together. That was his dream.” when he was done.. someone about
five thousand people away started singing. More people joined that
man. Then behind him, another voice started singing in counterpoint
to the man, making a round with the crowd. It was the old woman from
the front lawn who came to join Eric. That moment gave Eric a
strength that he still has with him. Her voice still heard in all
its power to this day. As hard as you listened, the singing had
drowned out everyone there to jeer. Eric's life had been changed.
Night
times during the walks were usually held at all-black universities,
during these nights, if Martin Luther King was with them that day, he
would situate himself right at the entrance to the university. Shaking hands and meeting everyone, thanking them all. When it came
to Eric's turn on one of these days, he was too nervous to shake
Martins' hand. But he walked within two feet of the man that helped change
the face of America, and that man thanked him.
After
doing some research, I now know that the man who Eric first heard
about who was shot must of been James Meredith, who was actually only
wounded I've now learned. The march that Eric must of been a part of
is titled “The March Against Fear”, started by one but finished by
15000.
Martin Luther King jr, would eventually be assassinated in a hotel
located in Memphis, Tennessee. But the young boy who went from
watching Houdini on television, to playing cops and robbers in the
street with Billy Smith, to having his heart stolen by the magic of
the banjo, to being charged at by police in New York and singing with
Martin himself in Mississippi, he would continue on in his incredible
life.
Next
Wednesday, the adventure continues with moving to Canada, the recently deserted
battlegrounds of Sarajevo, a JUNO nomination, Sharon, Lois and Bram
Elephant Show, Eric's World, and a small music store in northern
Ontario.
Eric and I
No comments:
Post a Comment