John “Chick” Shelton, junior high jazz-band director. My next amazing music teacher was Mr. Shelton, but even the students called him “Chick.” The music building of Wiley Magnet Middle School in Winston-Salem is now named after him. Chick was a round and rosy ball of energy, who probably had gone gray in his twenties. He had played trumpet in the U.S. Army Field Band years ago, before touring professionally in big bands. He was a straight-up jazzer with some street cred, having seen all kinds of crazy shit on the road, and he had an awesome sense of humor. He took approximately zero shit.
His Wiley Junior High Jazz Band was famous. He had this bunch trained within an inch of their lives. They rocked The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson theme song and the James Bond theme too. You have to understand, this was off the chain back in this era. A student band performance was always some Sousa and out-of-tune children’s wind ensemble adaptations of DvorĖák or Tchaikovsky. Not that interesting to a kid.
The finale of Chick’s student jazz-band show, which I first saw in fifth grade, when they toured our elementary school, was the drum-set solo. It was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. The drummer froke out (past tense of “frokar,” v.: “to freak”). Fireworks on the toms! We grade-schoolers also froke, like we were seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was determined to be the Drum-Set God too when I finally got to seventh grade.
But unfortunately I would have to audition against the heavyweight champion of all Wiley Jazz Band history. Wade Culbreath, the incumbent eighth-grade drumming legend, was the best kit player that Chick had ever seen come through the school. Damn him and all his talent and hard work! At thirteen years old, he was already as good as most pros. His dad led the local professional working big band, and Wade had probably learned to crawl with sticks in his tiny hands. Wade is now the principal timpanist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and taught for years at UCLA. So, in seventh grade, I stepped up to audition against the master, got my ass kicked, and went home with my tail between my legs.
But Chick encouraged me all year as I sat on the sidelines. He gave me listening lists, things to practice, and let me come to some rehearsals, even letting me fill in for Wade when he was absent. I learned a thing or two watching a prodigy such as Wade up close. And at rehearsals Chick didn’t give Wade a free pass. He made him work for it. Kindly. He called Wade “Dumbhead!” He threatened to throw things at him, busted him for rushing, and so on—but always with a smile. Witnessing this, I actually felt a little relieved I had a year to prepare for my turn in jazz band. I wasn’t ready in seventh grade.
The next year, I’d improved quite a bit, and that Wade bastard moved on to the next school to terrorize his senior competition. I became the Wiley Jazz Band drummer, and the first rehearsal began with “Ben Folds, you dumbhead—you’re slowing the whole outfit down with your damn sock cymbal!” Chick used antiquated words like “sock cymbal” instead of calling them “hi-hats” like everyone else in the twentieth century. If it was the sixties in most of North Carolina, in Chick’s band room it was the fifties. Hi-hats/sock cymbals are that pair of cymbals next to the snare, which can be operated with a foot pedal. He also called the drum set a “trap kit.” “Dumbhead! If you’re gonna play the trap kit southpaw, get here early enough to turn it around!” I still use “trap kit” and “southpaw.”
Chick retired after my eighth-grade year, and later, when I was in high school, he called on me to write horn arrangements for the Tony DiBianca Band, a professional local jazz group he was in, built around an electric accordion. Certainly they couldn’t actually have used the garbage I wrote for them. It wasn’t very good. But I had to copy each part by hand, transpositions and all, and get it in on time. Chick paid me for my time and went through the charts to show me what wasn’t working. He was still teaching in retirement. He couldn’t help it.
Years later, in 2011, Chick attended my induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. He and his wonderful wife had kept up with my every career move. The ceremony was delayed so that Chick, in his declining health, could make the trip one step at a time from the parking lot to his seat, smiling the whole way. It is not hyperbole to say that I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for him. He passed away in 2014.
Chuck Burns, senior high school music director. Chuck was one hip band teacher. We’d listen to my cassettes of new music after school and he would provide some really great perspective on the current music I loved. He taught me to listen to music for more than its fashion sense, by recognizing the connection between all the different eras and styles. If I’d introduce him to, say, the Clash, he’d point me to some Bob Marley, or even some gospel jazz to show me how much more similar these styles were than I’d thought. He facilitated my application to the University of Miami after I played him an album by the Dixie Dregs, a sort of Southern fusion jazz outfit who’d graduated from Miami’s jazz program.
Minnie Lou Raper, senior high school orchestra director. Yes, that’s her name—get used to it. Even I was able to. Mrs. Raper took our high school orchestra out of town constantly for competitions and concerts and insisted our high school take orchestra seriously. The marching band had always gotten the most attention, but Mrs. Raper encouraged me to focus on the orchestra instead. She also suggested that I audition for as many things outside of my high school as I could, so that if I wanted to apply for music school one day, I’d have a solid résumé. I followed her advice and piled on loads of first-chair regional orchestral percussionist positions, competition ribbons, and so forth. And, yes, it did come in handy.
Maestros, rockers, rappers, pickers, and grinners—where would all us dumbheads be without the right teacher at the right time? If you were lucky enough to have experiences like mine, go substitute-teach for one day and get your ass kicked. Then let schools know how much you appreciate their music programs and teachers. Tell your representatives while you’re at it. Nobody ever did it alone.
CHEAP LESSONS
DURING MY SENIOR YEAR OF high school, I worked two shitty jobs on the other side of town into the wee hours of the morning. I created constant drama with my girlfriend and wasted the rest of the time obsessively installing and reinstalling crappy car stereos or being kicked out of class for being a clown. My studies dwindled to nothing. Each afternoon when the final bell rang, I’d run to my car, hoping to hit all the green lights for my afternoon gig at Hertz Truck Rental. My title was “rental representative,” and my desk was empty other than the phone with a typed script in case anyone called: “Hello. Hertz-Penske Truck Rental. How may I help you?” About once a week someone would rent or return a truck and I would fill out the paperwork, put gas in the tank, and back it into its parking space. I was a sixteen-year-old who looked twelve, sitting alone at a desk on display at the center of a ten-by-ten-foot Plexiglas cube, in the middle of a parking lot, in a truly dangerous neighborhood.