Dr. Elizabeth Child transitions from fundraising back to classical piano

In a time when many people are wondering about job security, Beth Child has made a bold choice to leave behind her “day job” at Hospice and return to her passion with classical piano. I took a moment one afternoon to sit down and visit with her about this courageous transition.

You just left Hospice. How long did you work with them?

I’ve been with them two years. I’ve been with St. Luke’s Hospital Foundation for five. I look at it as a seven year chunk where I worked in the non-profit area. I started part-time at St. Luke’s. I needed to leave music for a while for a lot of reasons. I thought, “I think maybe this is a job I can do!” I took courses, learned a lot, and did a lot. They were both wonderful jobs, great organizations. It took me seven years to realize it just didn’t fit me and the music did and always had. I needed to go back to it.

Did you go to college for music?

I started piano lessons in first grade. I started Converse College and got my Bachelors in Performance, then went to University of Michigan for a Masters in Performance, and then the Julliard School for a Doctorate in Performance. I loved doing it.

Have you taught?

I did teach at Furman just before starting work at St. Luke’s Hospital. For six months I took the place of a faculty member that was on sabbatical. I had a taste of college teaching and it was great. I knew at that point that I had to step aside from what I had done my whole life because my heart just wasn’t in it. I had lived in New York a long time and had gone through a divorce and the music just wasn’t speaking to me like it had. Sometimes life is like that, you’ve got to put something down and then you end up growing and changing in this other place that you went. Then you can come back to it. It’s scary, but I feel it’s something I have to try.

What types of performances were you doing before you got into the fundraising world?

I was living in New York, so I was playing some chamber music with friends and library series performances in New Jersey and Connecticut. I was teaching a lot. I had a private studio at my home in Brooklyn and taught all ages except beginners. I got concerts down here because I have ties in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. You can do pretty well managing a career for yourself. It’s not quite like acting where you really have to have a manager. It’s hard now because my home is Tryon. What I have done in the last two months since I got out of the non-profit arena is network like crazy to set up some concerts. I have one in Spartanburg and one in Greenville in the fall, one at Tryon Estates next March, and for The Hobbit this summer. I played a couple years ago for Alice in Wonderland and it’s a lot of fun. There’s no music written for it, but the fun part is you get to read the script and then talk with everybody else on the team and see what composers might fit. You get to work with little kids, which is wonderful.

Will you actually pick specific pieces for The Hobbit?

Since I can’t improvise very well, I go through all the music I have in the house. First, I read the script. Some music does come to mind and then I’ll go find it. For this one I’ve settled on Grieg who’s Norwegian.

I love Grieg’s lyric piano pieces.

Yeah, he’s written a ton of stuff. Also, Bartok and Debussy. I’m going to stick to those three because then you really have to hunt. Probably the most time consuming thing is finding the music and finding where to put it. Gandalf the wizard raises his sword and there’s this blue light on him. I’ve found music for the blue light.

Wow! How do you pick blue light music?

It’s hard. We’ve had good production meetings where we sit with the set designer, the costume designer, and the lighting designer. They tell me what they’re concept is and we bat things about. I’m really just using my own instincts and creativity. I think it helped doing Alice and Wonderland before.

It also helps having in your brain an array of classical melodies.

This Hobbit has a little bit of Asian influence in the costumes. It’s not your typical English shire. I don’t want to say anymore because I can’t put it into words like the director and other people can do.

Will there be any Asian influences in the music?

A little bit. Debussy wrote a piece called Pagodes. There’s some of that in there. Really, I think Chinese and Japanese music influenced a lot of European composers.

Are you a strictly classical player?

Yeah, and that’s tough to get work. If only I could play like Fred Whiskin. If only I could play good party piano. I can read anything, but I just don’t play by ear and jazz doesn’t come that easily.

Who are your favorite composers?

That is so hard to answer. I’m asked that a lot and it changes from year to year. It used to be Mozart and then Bach. I think right now it’s the romantic era. That’s where I really want to spend all my time. I’m practicing Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Schuman, and Liszt.

How did you make the leap from Brooklyn to Tryon?

My grand parents had retired here in the 1970s and so I’ve been coming for a long time. They’re no longer living, but my parents then retired here in the 1980s and my mom is still here. I came back home so to speak. My father’s from Spartanburg. I still have a few relatives there.

I need a new headshot. I need a new demo CD. The ones I have from New York are too old. I need a new glossy flyer. It’s very different. It’s taken two months just to get back in the swing of this. The clothes are different. You’ve got to think about how your hair looks. I won’t use Beth Child; it will be Elizabeth Child because that sounds better for a stage name. It feels like the right place to be even though the economy has made things tough. I’m going to keep an open mind.

It seems like in this economy people are moving toward things they know they are passionate about.

I think so. It just makes me so mad that these companies did such stupid things and lost people’s money. I’m going to something that is very real and meaningful to me, because you just don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I think as far as people wanting lessons and wanting to hear good music and concerts, that’s still in demand. People need the arts. It speaks to everybody whether it’s visual arts, the performing arts, or writing.

What would you say to somebody who’s thinking about a career in music and college for music?

I would go for it and realize that there are a lot of good careers in music. It may not be performing. It may be working with music and media. It may be teaching people over the age of 65 who want to learn new things. I think today’s musician is just going to have to think very broadly. Doing more than one thing is good. Branching out and even being able to play other instruments is good.

Did you ever play Carnegie Hall or have dreams of playing in Carnegie Hall?

I’ve played in Carnegie Recital Hall twice. I made my New York debut there. That’s the gorgeous small hall that’s attached to Carnegie Hall. It’s called Weill Recital Hall now. In 1984 when I made my debut it was called Carnegie Recital Hall which of course sounded really good. That’s where everybody made their debut at the time. I got a New York Times review. Playing in “the” Carnegie Hall, I would love that. That’s every performers dream because the acoustics are so incredible and of course the history of all the people who have played there.

That’s not in my sights right now. I have to kind of start small right now just to get my feet wet again. I’m President of Rotary Club until the end of June and one of the Rotarians asked what it was like getting back into it. “Aren’t your fingers stiff?” I was trying to describe it. The fingers part is like riding a bike, but my brain is seven years older and playing from memory and under pressure you have to do a lot of it.

Do you practice on a regular basis?

I do.

How much time do you put into practice?

I’m trying four hours a day, five days a week right now. That’s just to build repertoire and get it in good enough shape to play like I was used to playing.

That’s like a part time job and you don’t get paid to practice.

That’s right. I think the tougher thing for me will be teaching. I love teaching and I would like to have some intermediate and advanced students. In September I’ll know more about adjunct work at colleges. Furman may have need for accompanists and teachers of piano minors. I think that’s the hardest thing. How do I teach and what does that look like? I want to be teaching and performing in some manner and slowing build up gigs and make money at it. I have a few now, but I need more. I’m just going to take my time. I poured my heart and soul into learning about fundraising. I want to do things all the way when I do them. It’s putting on the brakes with that and going back takes time. You can’t just flip a switch.

You’ll be doing a demo. Do you have a studio for that?

I do not. That’s brand new too because everything I did before was in New York. That’s why the networking is so important. Somebody told me about someone very good in Spartanburg who does head shots. I’m going to need a lot more than that. I’m just starting this process.

I have poured myself into this Rotary year as president. June 25 is my last Thursday as president. I expect to really pour myself into music.

How was it being President of Rotary?

I started with Rotary when I started with St. Luke’s Hospital. It was important to my boss at the time. My mother reminded me that my grandfather had been a Rotarian. I really liked it. I think it does a tremendous amount of good for the community and also for the world. They’re known for helping eradicate polio. I have grown at the two jobs and in Rotary because I’ve had leadership positions and had to do public speaking. It really helped build confidence.

I think that’s made it easier to go back and have that confidence on the stage. I had that to some extent before, but I think it’s better now. I’ve loved the piano since I was a little girl. When I was ten I was already practicing three hours a day.

I’ve heard music lessons as a child is one of the key pieces to keeping kids away from risky behaviors.

I read a good article in Clavier that music lessons, because of the discipline required, can really help the kids that are so into their computers and the video games where their attention span is so short. You have to learn how to be a good listener. It’s a skill they may not get in school. Music lessons can do a lot for today’s child.

When you mention that you won’t take beginning students, is it because of age or level?

Just a certain level, I really don’t take beginners anymore. I don’t have the patience to teach the note names and the staff.

You want students who can already read music…

…and know their rhythms. Age doesn’t really matter. Early intermediate is fine.

When is The Hobbit?

It’s the very end of July.

Is there anything else local coming up?

Hospice is doing a fundraiser October 10. It’s a choral concert at Tryon Fine Arts Center and I am accompanying for that, but I’m playing one solo piece. It’s a Liszt piano piece that’s a transcription of a Schumann song. It’s gorgeous. The only problem is that it’s three and half minutes and then it’s gone. It’s so beautiful.

You can reach Dr. Elizabeth Child by calling 828-859-6508 or emailing mechild@windstream.net.

Pastor Jorel Lawson grandson of Nina Simone visits Tryon

I had the opportunity to meet with Pastor Jorel Lawson when he made a visit to Tryon in June and spoke at St. Luke’s C.M.E. church. The following is our conversation on the Friday afternoon before he spoke at the church.

What do you think of your first visit to Tryon?

Very historic in the sense that my family roots and background are here in Tryon. My great-grandmother Reverend Mrs. Mary Waymond was the pastor of St. Luke’s many years back and it’s where my grandma Nina was born and raised. I saw the house. It was my first time seeing all of that, the church, the house, and even the gravesite. You know that touched me in a very special way.

Where did you actually grow up?

My mother was serving in the Air Force back in 1984, she was stationed in Tucson, Arizona and that’s where I was born. I was there for six weeks and then I was sent to upstate New York where I spent twelve years growing up from infant to adolescence. Then from there at the age of thirteen for my first time I was sent to Ghana, West Africa to do schooling there for about two years. At age fifteen I came back from Ghana and I lived in Chicago. There I stayed and resided for about nine years. I went back to Ghana in 2007 to do missionary work. I also met my wife there. Before I left Ghana, we got engaged, then I left, and then six months later we got married. Since we got married, I decided to move there and I’ve been living there ever since.

You were raised as much in Ghana as any place in the U.S. it sounds like.

Yes.

How would you compare your experience living in Ghana to living in Chicago and upstate New York?

America is very fast paced. We Americans, our mind is always running a thousand miles an hour. We’re always busy. That’s why the time goes so fast, whereby in Ghana it’s kind of slow paced. You got to turn the pace and make it fast and move the way you want to move. If you don’t take time it will start getting boring.

Ghana is lively, but it’s not as lively as the states where some cities are full of noise. Chicago is just noisy, but here in Tryon it’s calm, peaceful, and very quiet. It’s the same thing with Ghana. At the same time you have some lively places. Where I’m at it’s mostly quiet. That’s the similarities between the two.

What was your impetus to do missionary work in Ghana?

I have a burden to help people. Like Jesus said in the scriptures, “The son of man came to seek and save that which was lost.” I believe that as we fulfill the steps of Jesus of walking as he walked that we should go out there and help people in the world. Now of course, I had my fair share of high school life. I was a knuckle head being disobedient and doing what a teenager would normally do. As I got older I saw that this is not the life for me. I used to do drugs. I used to hang out with the wrong crowd and be under a lot of peer pressure, dating different women, and also got in trouble with the law, little misdemeanor stuff. As I got older I saw that this was not a life, and this was not a future for me. I know that I have a higher calling. When I finally came to my senses, I used to watch about Africa on the T.V. and I used to see the people just suffering living in poverty. When you see them, they look like they have no future. As I devoted myself to the ministry and became an ordained minister I had a burden to go out there and help the people. If I can help a soul and help a person to know who they are and what they’re here for I don’t mind my leaving my country.

Was there any specific point that really turned your head around to get your life on track?

The last couple of years before I went full time into the ministry I was a geothermal technician. I was working in a construction company dealing with geothermal energy, from the earth. I was working on trucks, with bobcats, and lifting steel. It was a dirty job. I hate dirty jobs, but they paid good money. If it’s paying good money, you don’t care what happens as long as they’re paying you. I was doing that for a while, but as time went on I got bored with it. We used to go as far as 600-700 feet deep down in the earth. We used to deal with geysers. I just got tired of coming home smelling like gas and kerosene. I just said, “This is not the life for me.” My mother in 2007 came to Chicago, looked in my face and said, “Son, you know this is not you. You have a higher calling. Chicago is not your home. This job that you’re working, yes it pays the bills but you won’t be doing this for long.” When my mom spoke that into me then I saw things on a different note. I said, “Well I’m going to go ahead and quit this job.” For the last six-seven months of that year after I met my wife and we were engaged, I was just working my socks off. I said, “I know I’m not going to be working here soon, so let me just gather up all the money that I can and then I’ll just go ahead and dismiss myself.”

Going back to Ghana, how is that ministry working?

Basically the ministry that I deal with is Charismatic and Pentecostal. I deal with a lot of ministers because when people hear that you’re an American and hear your accent they immediately want to draw close to you. At the same time you have to be watchful because some people will draw close to you just to use you and to get what you have. I go to the villages. In March I was in a village that was about thirteen hours away from the capital of Ghana. Out there, the villagers’ houses are made out of mud. I was just taken aback by how I saw these people making houses out of mud and cow manure and it doesn’t stink. I was very fascinated to see how these people survive. When I go out there and minister, I go out with pastors who know the area and know the community. Basically they are my translators. The one thing about it, we don’t give up. If it fails, hey, I’m going to keep on trying until something succeeds. That’s what we normally do there.

What types of change have you seen from the work that you’ve done so far?

Lives being blessed and changed. When I first arrived, a lot of people weren’t happy with their lives especially regarding marriage and their personal lives. After you sit down and counsel them you help them to see that they are of more value to God than how somebody else would look at them. What every African that lives on the continent of Africa needs, is encouragement. They need somebody who will sit down and listen to them word for word. When they see that someone is listening, and when they see that someone is taking the time to invest in trying to help them then they will respond positively. God puts people in other people’s lives for a reason.

Would you say that the problems with family and needing encouragement are different in Ghana than in America?

As for America, we have counselors, community centers, and even therapists that people go and see to talk about their problems and whatever they’re going through. Ghana on the other hand, they don’t have that, or if they do it’s very rare. They’re suffering because poverty is what’s killing the mindset and the mentality of the African. They work so hard, but they only get paid so little. They go through other means such as prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs. Right now prostitution is one of the main things going on there because there is no money. Now Ghana is right behind South Africa for the HIV/AIDS. You have people getting pregnant from age eleven up to fourteen. Shockingly, the people that get these kids pregnant are young themselves. Since the young ladies are not prepared for parenthood, their hearts and their minds can’t handle that, they tend to leave the child with their mother or with their grandparents and they run away. There’s no such thing as child support. You don’t go to court for that. The males can get away with that severely over there. It leaves the women in such an awkward position because in Africa people look at them different. If you’re having babies at this age then you don’t respect yourself, you must be a prostitute. Instead of trying to encourage them, you have some people that just discourage them. Then they’re just doing it more and more. The latter part is worse then when they first started.

It’s not only in Africa or America, but it’s in the whole world there are people walking without hope. You have to believe that it is going to get better. We can all bring changes in our society, community, city, and our country. If we don’t realize that, then we’ll always be stuck in the same predicament and having people feeling sorry for us. You are somebody, you can do exploits, and you can always talk to somebody. Spiritually the church is the backbone of every country in the world because the church is a place where you come to for peace, solace, tranquility, counseling, anything.

Is Ghana predominantly Christian? Or what is the religious make-up of that country?

You have varieties. Christian is the main religion. Of course, you have Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. It depends on the region. The Greater Accra Region, that’s where I live, you have about 95% Christian with other religions following behind that.

In Ghana you don’t have a state religion?

No, you have the freedom to choose what religion you want.

Is there communication between the religions?

There is communication between the religions. I believe that wars could be prevented if people can just communicate accurately.

Any other plans for your visit here?

I got here on the 15 of May and everything has been so fast paced for me. I made stops like New York, Stroudsburg and Allentown, Pennsylvania, Miami. I’ve been to Jacksonville. I just got here on Wednesday coming from Chicago. I’ll be leaving for Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania early Monday morning. Dr. Armbrust has already taken me for a tour of the whole place. Today I’m just relaxing and then tomorrow St. Luke’s and another Baptist church are going to be having a little barbecue. I was invited over there to come and grace the occasion. Apart from that I’ll be speaking at St. Luke’s on Sunday. When I’m done speaking at St. Luke’s then my itinerary is finished and I just prepare and get ready to go back. Every city that I’ve gone to I’ve made contacts and formed good relationships and friends. Also, we’re trying to collect funds, trying to help sponsor the work in Africa, trying to build churches, trying to send clothes and food to those that are less fortunate. By God’s grace I’ve been very successful doing that. When I go back to Ghana everyone will be able to hear a positive report of what the Lord has been doing here.

How has your mom responded to the work that you’ve been doing?

My mom has been very supportive of my ministry. She has actually invested in my career and she’s very proud of what I’ve become and what I’m doing. She looks at it as a big transformation. She’s going to be continually supporting me in what I’m going to be doing. I thank God for that. I’m very thankful that she has an understanding heart to know that this is what I want to do, this is my dream.

Will your wife come with you on your next visit?

My wife is back in Ghana, but I’m planning for her to come with me the next time that I come around. It will be her first time coming to the U.S.

If people are interested in contributing to your ministry, how do they contact you?

We have three contacts and we have an email address. We have the Amazing Grace International Church. We have our email address which is globaloutreach.2008@yahoo.com or my cell phone which is an international number 011-233-243-909-262.

Richard Sharkey designing the look of Les Misérables

As rehearsals started at the beginning of June with the students for this summer’s Tryon Little Theatre/Tryon Youth Center teen musical, I stopped by the TLT Workshop to meet the newest member of the production team for this year’s show Richard Sharkey.

How long have you been in Tryon?

My wife and I moved up in August 2007 from Tampa, Florida where I’d been working at the University of Tampa. I was their resident lighting and set person that does anything that needs to be done except costuming. I taught a theatre class for the university. I’ve taught stage craft at a couple of different universities. I primarily worked with professional theatre companies though until I started working with the University of Tampa. Then I said, “Whoever gave me a regular salary could have me full time and I wouldn’t work any where else.” Finally, I wrote a letter to president of the University of Tampa saying it’s ridiculous that a university this large of a theatre department doesn’t have a full time tech person. I worked there from 1989 until I retired about four years ago.

You had a good long stint at the university then.

Yeah, fifteen years. I worked with theatres that used the University so I was really familiar with the space and I did a lot of freelance for them in places. Another company that I worked for, Stageworks, did their performing in there around the university schedule.

What type of lighting equipment have you worked with?

When I first started at the University of Houston, I went to school in 1963, they had a little theatre and in the attic there were twelve rheostat dimmers and if you wanted to do a fade out it took twelve people. I used a lot of different types of things, but I’ve been using a computer lighting board for a long time and I’m really happy with it because it does the same thing every time.

In the middle of my college years they switched over to a computer system for the first time. There were so many new things possible with the computer board. How did you train yourself up from the old rheostat dimmers to the computer technology available now?

First of all, I love computers since they first came out in the early 80’s and the video games were type entry like, “Look west” and it would say, “West is a tree with a hole under it.” My brother-in-law was trying to sell and make computers at that time. I got involved in computers and my brother is a musician and computer draftsman. He could never really make enough money to play music full time so he started doing drafting for a company in Houston. I bought my first computer which was an Amiga, and then Don gave me a regular computer with CAD on it. I started doing all the designs on CAD. Really crude when you look back on it, I can’t believe that at the time it was great. I’ve been a computer person all along really. I use a computer program for lighting. I first started working when I got out of college at the Showboat Dinner Theatre which is an equity theatre in St. Petersburg that brought in the stars. They had eighteen dimmers on the wall in a preset board and I would cut out a piece of paper so when I did the fade up I would bring the paper up and it would move the dimmers.

So you could move them all at the same time?

It had little cross-fader thing, but when you’re doing a big show that’s tough. One time we did a production of Cabaret and I had almost 600 light cues in it. It was five different dimmer boards working together and my wife ran part of it and I ran part of it. It could be a lot of fun and a real challenge.

600 light cues in a two hour show is…

That’s about five a minute.

That’s a lot.

We treated it somewhat as a rock show particularly for the girls that were performing in the Cabaret. Les Miz is going to have lots of flashing lights too because of the battle scene and the barricade with the smoke and everything.

Did you study lighting design in college?

I went into college very naïve. I was seventeen and very young and all I wanted to do was theatre, but I had a lot of trouble with professors. I ended up on academic probation. I went into the service and ended up in Tokyo. I went to an audition for a theatre over there and ended up running a little theatre company in Tokyo for two years, which was wonderful. That’s where I started designing. I’d been interested in lights all along. In my first year of college I would sneak into the theatre and let them lock the building and I would go play with the lights for six or seven hours and then I would go down and sleep on a cot for an hour or two and when the students started coming in I’d wake up and go to class. Basically, that’s where I learned how to light shows and what lighting does. I refined that over the years. I see things in light and I can look at the space and I can visualize the set, which is a gift. I thought everyone could do that, but they can’t. Now CAD makes it really easy because I can create three dimensional drawings and look at it and see what it’s going to look like from back stage or the side and where the sightline problems are.

You also are designing the set for Les Miz?

I’m working with Chris on it and we’re talking about things. I’m sure some of his influence will be in the set and some of my influence will be in the set.

Were you originally from Houston?

No, I actually grew up in Denver, Colorado until my senior year when we moved to Houston. I went to high school, one year of college and then went into the service, which is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. They sent me to Indiana University and I studied Russian for nine months. I was supposed to be a Russian linguist but they decided they had too many people, so they put me in what they called a TRANSEC unit. This was during the Viet Nam war. Three weeks into basic training the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened where we’re basically at war and I’m going, “Why did I enlist?”

Did you end up going to Viet Nam?

No, I ended up in Tokyo at a TRANSEC unit where we monitored American communications pretending we were Chinese or the Soviets to see what intelligence we got. I sat in a little building with a trunk line from Hawaii and we picked what phone lines we wanted to listen to. If we did that today people would arrest us. They made it illegal in 1971 or ’72 to just listen to anything that you want to.

So, I met a girl in Japan who went to University of South Florida. The west coast of Florida sounded pretty good, sun and fun. I went to USF and graduated from there and went to work at the Showboat Dinner Theatre. Showboat needed someone to help on the set. It was Don Ameche and the guy who was directing decided they had to build all the furniture for the set and they were hopelessly behind. They brought me in to help catch up and I caught up and they offered me a job and eventually I took over lighting and set design. The Showboat was wonderful. It was an equity star theatre. They brought in all the people I’d dreamed about meeting when I was a kid, Ozzie and Harriet, Gale Storm, Bob Cummings, Cesar Romero, Martha Ray, all these people that I’d seen in movies forever and I finally got to work with them. I did three sets for Cesar, and two for Martha and Elkie Summers. I did a couple sets for Bob Crane before he was killed.

It was a fun seven years. I enjoyed it, but I got tired of doing big musical comedies and a little theatre company, The Alice People, asked if I’d come design for them. They did the show about the Alice People involved with the Manhattan Project which is a very bizarre, strange Alice in Wonderland. It’s not a children’s show. They took their name from the first production that they did. I started designing for both companies. I did this for two years. I don’t know how I did it because my normal day would have me up at six and over at the Showboat to build sound and music until five thirty, stop at the Chinese place and get something to eat on the way, start rehearsal at six thirty or seven, rehearse until ten or eleven, go home, get up the next morning, and go do it again. I was designing and building about 22 productions a year at that point.

That’s a lot.

The Showboat would basically do a new show every five weeks unless they did a musical. When they did the Sound of Music, which I had to run lights on, it ran for nine and a half months, something like 378 performances.

I’ll show you a set I did. There’s a play by one of the Southern female playwrights called The Old Timers Game. I did sets with painted floors like this one.

It looks like a real wood grain floor, but it’s just paint?

Yes.

That’s beautiful.

The Old Timers Game took place in a dugout. We built everything and had Styrofoam bricks. I have some really great compliments from this show. One was a St. Petersburg artist came in and said, “Wow, the paint job on this was incredible.” I had beams that came out like in the stadium with all kinds of aging stuff on it. The other thing that was really neat was, a father brought his little son to this show and at the end he turned to his dad and said, “Dad, why didn’t we watch the baseball game?” I went, “Yes! It works.” That’s the magic of theatre.

It’s going to be fun to work here with a theatre company that the people are here and they want to do it. They want to be involved in it.

The Tryon Little Theatre has a good team that works together to make these shows. Where are you at for the design of Les Misérables at this point?

We have the basic design, but there are still a lot of questions that aren’t answered. We have a revolve in the middle that turns around and becomes the barricade for the beginning of act two. I know there’s a bridge that’s going to be flown in that I will have to design. It’s in my head.

The flying bridge is going to happen?

Yes, the flying bridge is going to happen. I’ve got to find out about the lighting equipment and what we’ll be able to do with the lights for that scene. There are three elements about lighting, lighting the performer, lighting the set, and creating the mood. In Les Miz we’re going for a period feel so I know we’re going to use amber and blues from the front and light from the back.

And this opens…

July 9. I know it’s going to be fun and exciting.

Les Miz is a big show.

It’s a very ambitious show. CATS was an ambitious show and they said they did wonderful. Chris talks about how he’d rather do intelligent, hard shows.

The kids pulled it off last year. I can’t wait to see how they do with the challenge this year. If people are interested in contacting you about projects or ideas about upcoming shows is there a way for them to reach you?

They could reach me through Tryon Little Theatre or at my home phone 828-749-3810.

Look for Richard Sharkey’s design debut at the Tryon Fine Arts Center this summer with the TLT/TYC teen musical Les Misérables. The box office opens at the TLT Workshop on June 22 for advance ticket sales. The production will run one weekend July 9-12. For more information contact the TLT Workshop at 828-859-2466 or www.tltinfo.org.

Jim Peterman making soulful music with Shane Pruitt

This is the continuation of the conversation with Jim Peterman from Wednesday’s edition.
Mostly you do the local gigs by yourself and if you’re traveling it’s for Shane Pruitt.

That band is all of our main effort right now.

Have you been recording?

We recorded something a year ago and we were trying to be back in the studio this spring, but we didn’t make it. If we’re there by fall I wouldn’t be surprised. We’ve got maybe four originals that we could have together. On the last one, there are three. The last three on the CD were recorded at Smithe’s Olde Bar in Atlanta.

Up the skinny little staircase you carried…

A Hammond B3. We recorded at a studio in Atlanta and then the guys that did it have a really nice remote rig and they brought that and know the guys that run the sound there so they could plug into the board mix and did a combination of both.

You made the product and you carry the product with you?

We sell them at shows. We’ve got a pretty busy schedule. I work full time so I’m fitting all this stuff in. Bill the drummer got laid off from his job after 27 years. He’s a “gentleman of leisure” now. Shane does this full time for a living between teaching and playing. I’ve decided that I just want to give up construction work and do this. This is what I love to do the most, but I haven’t been involved since back in Wisconsin with anybody that was really worth going to pay to see regularly for a decent amount of money, but I think this band will become that.

People want to know that if they spend their money, they’re going to enjoy themselves. They don’t go out to have a bad time.

Or risk going out to have a bad time. You know I’ve done the remodeling work for 38 years going on 39 and it’s lost its glamour. This is so inviting. This trio just has brought out the best in all three of us. It’s funny, I was in a band called Cocktail Frank and when that band broke up Bill the drummer and I put a group together with a bass player and Shane. We had played at the Nu-Way. That’s kind of like the home base.

I’ve only been to the Hub Bub in Spartanburg.

The Nu-Way is grittier, a roots place.

I haven’t been to the gritty side of Spartanburg yet.

Anyway we played a gig there and it’s always a great crowd and we always sound good there. You just feel comfortable to get down and the people there really like what we’re doing. It was one of those nights where we just had a great night and the owner said we could stay if we wanted and play. The bass player Rick, a really good friend who does sound now for the Pruitt band, just wanted to go home. The three of us stayed until 4:30-5:00 in the morning. That’s how the Shane Pruitt Band started. I was playing bass on the organ instead of having a bass player and we decided that wasn’t too bad.

That was all you needed.

We got a couple of other gigs and then that was it. We were going with that trio.

It’s nice when you find the right balance.

It is and it was one guy less so we could do more colorful experimental stuff. It was wonderful, it still is. That was three years ago.

The thing about a good music show is that it does lift you up and take you a better mind set than when you walked in the door.

If it’s done its job, it’s done that. You play blues because you feel it. I think all three of us have a pretty soulful connection to music that we play. We’re not a flat out jam band, but with a little bit of a shell and then within that we go off. We’ve got songs that have their space for a solo and the solos are always different. Then within the framework of our stuff, one song might go two or three different places that it never went before and it might last for a while, where the night before it was just what we usually do with it, but always expressive and spritely. That’s really great.

You surprise each other.

Keeping tuned into each other, what we count on is playing off of each other. I think you’re displaying a combination of three guys’ feelings that night. It’s always a little different. Somebody might be up, somebody might be down, and somebody might be in a more rock and roll head or a jazz thing or whatever. It starts out and works itself into this thing with all three moving together with the other influences of the day or the week or whatever to create what it creates that night. It’s not always extraordinary, but it’s always good.

How would you compare working with this group to working with Steve Miller?

There was a jam part of that band as well just in the solo section, but the tune got pretty much played the same every night, which is like most bands. Then the solo part would be the interesting part and it could sometimes change and get really long. Curly Cook is way creative, he’s one of my favorite people. He’s a good rhythm and lead guitar player. He was kind of the guy in that group that initiated that stretching part of the tunes and he left early on because he and Steve couldn’t get along. The form that he had created within those tunes we still played after he left allowed for a fair amount of improvisation and some change in tone and color of the song. Whenever you played it, it could be somewhat different. I was more just a player in that band doing the part that needed to be done.

With this band the three of us are just there to inspire one another and play what comes out that night when you’re playing. We still follow all of the form of a tune. A verse is a verse and all, but this band is just far more encouraging to intelligently follow your spontaneity along with the other guys to be creating something fresh. It’s not always way new, not always completely different than it ever was before, but you’re trying to respond to whatever the stimulus is.

You’re actually having a conversation on stage with sound.

Yeah.

You can come back and listen every time they play because…

…it’s not the same show. I would say that’s where we are. Consequently I’ve been a weekend warrior forever. I got divorced three years ago. My wife enjoyed my music, but she just wasn’t ever up for going out and watching it. Not to get into my divorce, but just to relate to that, once I was not in that environment anymore and I was playing a lot. I kept my business going, I never let that suffer. I’ve really blossomed in the last three or four years far more than I ever thought I would. I’m a good player, a good group player, a good singer. I’ve always got enough to offer that I’d be able to play with somebody and have a good time. I’m singing and playing far stronger than I ever did before. I wouldn’t advocate divorce for any reason for anyone, but just that change in arena, responsibility, being able to have music as more of a focus, and then falling in line with these three guys it’s been wonderful. It’s really important to me now. I’ve always loved music, but there’s an opportunity now to really develop myself as far as I choose to develop which wasn’t there before when I was married because it just wasn’t in the scheme of things.

An artist’s lifestyle, even if they have a day job is hard on the traditional family unit. It takes an understanding partner to juggle a routine that is not just the regular 9 to 5. It’s not normal.

Look at Charlie Parker. He had this lady “The Duchess.” She was probably just the queen of heavy weights as far as being the right person to be with a jazz musician. I think she saw the genius in Charlie Parker and she loved who he was. At times it was argumentative or contrary, but she was there for a long time through that situation. That’s a rare person. It could well have been that you never would have heard as much of Charlie Parker as you did without the Duchess having been involved helping it happen and loving it.

I remember Pat going with me to a Tuesday night thing and a Thursday night thing and I grew more in that first year than I ever thought that I would have. It’s funny because it was the same me and the same fingers you know, but it was a different frame of mind. I didn’t feel held back. This whole different deal was like running with light shoes and not heavy shoes. I really like the way that I stand with music at this point.

That sounds like a good place to be. You’ve got the band and if nothing else every other Tuesday at Lilac Wine Bar.

I’ve developed more singing there than I have in a long time. It’s quieter. People can hear you and you can really feel the room more. If the music’s really loud and you’ve got a lot of lights on you it’s hard to get a very intimate feel of how the people are responding to what you are doing. The Wine Bar is this really nice alternative where you know almost all the people who are in there anyway. You know they’re pretty much in there because they want to hear you play and sing. I love that.

It’s not like you’re hitting replay on the same CD that you heard the last time you were there.

That’s part of the thing with music is keeping your stuff fresh. With the Wine Bar I’m kind of running through all the old stuff I’ve ever done, some of it in a different way. I need to learn some new material, which is great. That’s wonderful that a gig promotes that. Benton Wharton played a couple times with me at the Wine Bar. He’s our manager now with the Shane Pruitt Band. Last Tuesday we didn’t have anybody there. I was disappointed, but that happens. What would have happened to me ten years ago, I probably would have been so discouraged from the situation, but now every chance you get to sit down with another musician and play for two hours is a good situation. It would be great if there were thirty people there that were all going crazy, but if there’s six and they’re not getting in your way at the least and enjoying it at best the two of you still have that opportunity to relate and play good music. That’s learning for me too. I’m getting there. How big that crowd is doesn’t really make a difference, but how well you’re playing, that’s what it is.

Besides Tuesdays, is there another place people can track you down?

If they go to Bill Fletcher’s MySpace he seems to be keeping up with his site. The Shane Pruitt Band website is going through some changes now that Benton Wharton is involved. We’ll be at the Music Camp with Belleville Outfit. They’re putting the show together. We’ve played with them a few times when they’ve come to town. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

They have a website for that festival www.themusiccamp.com. I know some Tryon folks are headed down to camp next weekend at that. In the meantime bite into one of the tasty groups at Harmon Field this weekend for the Blue Ridge BBQ & Music Festival. Jim Peterman will be playing the Main Stage with the Shane Pruitt Band at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Jim Peterman cooking up music for the soul at the BBQ Festival

I caught Jim Peterman playing at Lilac Wine Bar one evening with Shane Pruitt and enjoyed it so much I try to make a point to stop by on a Tuesday night just to see who’s playing when I’m in town. I’d heard a rumor about him playing with the Steve Miller Band and was curious to find out more about his travels before landing in Tryon. The only problem was finding a time for our schedules to match up. After trying to talk by phone during a thunderstorm while he was driving to a gig, we finally settled down and finished the conversation in person.
What bands have you played with at this point?

The ones people around here would know are Steve Miller, the Cocktail Frank Band with Wanda Johnson, and the Shane Pruitt Band.

Where are you from?

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

What brought you to Tryon?

My in-laws moved down here to retire and my wife and I decided we liked the area when we came down to visit, so we moved.

When did you start playing with Steve Miller?

In Madison, Wisconsin we all went to school up there, Steve Miller and Boz Skaggs. Steve left school a couple years before I graduated and started that band in San Francisco in 1966. I went out in 1967 to see how it would sound and it sounded good to add keyboard. After I graduated in June of 1967 I went out there and joined the group. Boz and I both left the band in November 1968 and he went on to do his own thing and I moved back to Milwaukee. I did the first two albums with the band and then left. Left before the money started coming in.

Why did you leave the band?

Personal reasons and I wasn’t happy.

What did you do when you moved back?

We actually moved to Beloit, Wisconsin a little college town. My wife, that was her former residence and her folks were living there so we picked that as a spot. I worked in a factory there for a while. Then got an interview with people at Electra Records to work as a PR man and got the job and moved to Cincinnati, OH.

What did you study in college?

I was an art major with painting and ceramics and then studied music.

Do you still paint?

It pretty much got left behind for music. I’m a remodeling general contractor; I’ve done that for 35 years. I get to use the drawing part of art in that and some design and color choice. I’ve been able to use it some. It’s been nice. Music is more my passion than art. I’ve ended up where I should be I believe.

How long were you in Cincinnati?

I lived there for two years and then they wanted me to move to California and I didn’t want to go, so I left that job behind. I was farming and teaching, whatever I could do to pay the bills. I went pretty much from something to nothing in one day, but we did all right. I learned how to do farming with some animals and doing hay and that sort of thing. I slept good with that work. A friend of mine, who was the first rhythm guitar player with Steve Miller, Curly Cook came to visit me where we were in living outside of Cincinnati in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. He came to live with us for a while and he and I were working on music just the two of us. He plays guitar, so it was guitar and piano. That was working very well but we decided to move back to Wisconsin and he moved with us. Then we started a band there called the Watermelon Band.

What type of music?

Old rock and roll, more rhythm and blues than blues stuff. We were a hot bar band. A fellow name Ben Sindran who we knew from college played piano with us then and I was playing organ. He’s had a show on NPR for many years Jazz Alive. There was one show he had where he went to a performance and was running the show live from a club. He’s got a book called Black Talk that they use for teaching jazz in some schools. He’s a well rounded individual and hot player. But I had a wife and daughter and music wasn’t good for family life at that point in time. I tried my hand at carpentry and stayed with that up until now as far making a living. I just wasn’t providing as much as I wanted to provide as far as the hours I was working, so I went into construction full time. I would play in a band every once in while. Bands tend to come and go. I was a weekend warrior.

I played in a black Baptist church in Wisconsin as the organist for five years. I probably learned more about music and developing a style in that five years as anywhere. I would bring my friends in when we did concerts. During church they didn’t allow any drums. This girl brought me in who was the piano player and I played organ, but then when we had a concert we brought in drums, bass, and horns. It was a lot of fun. Nobody read music. I mean I studied it in school and I can still read chord charts, but I play by ear. The choir in that church, we’d learn by rote, just playing a tape over and over until everyone learned their part. Then I started playing with a girls group from that choir. We traveled in Milwaukee and Chicago for about five years.

You played in Greenville recently?

Yeah, at the Bohemian Café and then at the Music & Sports Festival in Asheville’s Carrier Park.

This was with the Shane Pruitt band?

Yeah. I played solo at Rogers Park for something that Crys Armbrust put together. I guess it was just a fun thing to do for Tryon. It was me and Woody Cowan had a group there. There was a black church group from Landrum there. Crys did some shape note song with two other ladies. Barbara Tilly and Pam McNeil did a number. Barbara Tilly had a woodwind quintet there and they did two songs. It was just soup to nuts. Tuesday I play at the Lilac Wine Bar and I do that by myself, and the rest is with the Shane Pruitt Band.

It’s seems like I’ve heard you do everything from gospel to southern rock, do you have a way of classifying what you do? Do you have a genre that you prefer?

I guess that you’d say that we’re a blues/R&B oriented band. We’ve got a strong gospel thing. The organ is a pretty commanding instrument anyway and the Hammond organ has got that really unique sound. That’s the organ in all the black churches and what jazz is played on is that Hammond. We’ve got that and then the time that I spent in that black Baptist church in Wisconsin and with that group afterwards. That’s always a sound that I really loved anyway before I did all that. Having gone to school for those years while I was playing behind the choir there and the men’s chorus, the women’s chorus, and the children’s choir. In the end you end up playing for everybody and you’re there all the time. They were wonderful folks. I made just dear friends in that community, but it got way too time consuming. What I learned playing-wise from that experience is probably thirty percent of what I play now. Consequently I think people would say we’ve got a strong spiritual sound as well as blues. It’s who we are and everybody plays into it well.

Find out more about Jim Peterman and the Shane Pruitt Band in the Friday edition of the Bulletin. Even better, catch them playing live at the Blue Ridge BBQ & Music Festival on the Main Stage in Harmon Field on Saturday at 4 p.m. Check out the entire line-up of great music this year at www.blueridgebbqfestival.com.