I remember making a quick phone call after I got out of my first National Folk Festival programming committee meeting a few years ago. I rang my friend Brent Hosier — a Richmond music historian of the first rank — and asked with an exasperated tone (as if some big secret had been kept from me all these years):
“Alright, tell me all about Gary Gerloff.”
Gary Gerloff, who passed away Saturday morning, made an indelible impression on me from the moment I met him. I’m told he specialized in that sort of thing. The longtime local musician — who performed a type of Americana music that he referred to as “Psychedelic Dixieland” — continued to be a distinctive and unavoidable presence at those committee meetings. With a build and a beard not unlike Jerry Garcia, Richmond’s own “Captain Trips” was kind of like the precocious class clown who keeps wanting to start his own discussion groups at the expense of the lesson plan.
Ah, but who would usually be the first among the group to bring up a topic nobody wanted to discuss, or to suggest an artist/genre/aesthetic that was somewhat provocative? Who was sure to get the discussion flowing with a thought or an argument that no one else anticipated? It was Gary, who could quickly become as serious, insistent and persuasive as a prosecutor when it suited his fancy. This guy was no clown — he was as sharp as they come.
According to his pal Todd Ranson, viewing arrangements are currently being finalized and “a full Catholic funeral is planned.” Reading this fine essay on Gary over at the Cool Stretch of Highway blog, I wished I had known him better… a lot better. I’m proud to have known him at all.
An excerpt:
He’s never left his hometown for more than a month. And if the former capital of the Confederacy, an aloof and well-mannered place, never will be considered a musical Mecca, it does hold special appeal for him.
“I just love the dignity of living in a once-defeated city,” he says. “A great deal of pride once carried us here. It gave us a noble cloak, and adorned us with the air of some ancient Greek city-state. Richmond is like some old whore or piece of architecture. She’s been around forever, it seems. But when you notice her in a certain light, why, there’s a real charm to behold.”
He’s talking in his basement over a 20-foot bar with three sinks. (“One to wash your hands. One to wash your face. And one to throw up in.”) Behind the bar are display cases jam-packed with the things he holds precious: bobble-head dolls of Satchel Paige, Grady Little and Keith Richards; miniature ceramic hand-painted jazz ensembles from New Orleans; an autograph from Hunter S. Thompson; a collection of Three Stooges shot glasses; an English nose whistle; two James Brown posters from concerts at The Arena; a stuffed and mounted bear’s head casually draped in a feathered Mardi Gras mask and beads; and a 1970s photograph of his late brother Peter, arm-in-arm with the family’s maid.
Behind him, on a 9-foot Brunswick regulation pool table, lie seven bamboo fly rods, an assortment of air horns, one birdhouse in the form of the Parthenon and two Halicrafter short wave radios. Behind the pool table stand 15 vintage guitars and six worn-out, antique tube amplifiers.
He says he’s tempted to call his 1960s split level, with its 1400 sq. ft. terraced deck, “a tumbled-down shack in BigFoot country,” but instead refers to it as his roost, his outpost and his thinking line of defense. He lives here on a densely wooded hill a half-mile from the James River with his wife who’s an accomplished pianist, his 11-year-old daughter who’s an aspiring writer, and his seven-year-old son, whom he tags a “yellow-haired monkey.”
All are unimpressed with his musical persona, one that plumbs the depths of American music and its attendant emotions.
Known to his fans as “Gary Garcia” because of a likeness for the late leader of the Dead, he labels himself a relic from another era – a living fossil. “I see myself as a bluesman first. Second, I am a champion of heartfelt emotions. I like awkward displays of love. I am an encourager of dreams,” he says.
Richmond musician Johnny Hott has played with Gerloff for 15 years. “His fans are about 30 years old and up. There’s this jam-band, Grateful Dead tie-in,” he says. “We were opening once for the Jerry Garcia Band after Jerry had died. There was this one guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt who was walking slowly to the stage from the back of the crowd, getting bigger and bigger, and he was chanting to Gerloff in a trance: ‘Jerry…Jerry…Jerry…” totally transfixed on him.”
Gerloff picked up his first guitar at age 12, and promptly abandoned all other ambitions; music became his life.
There will be a lot said about Gary Gerloff in the coming days. But his buddy Tim Timberlake passed along along a couple of quotes from a Times-Dispatch article on Gary from 2001 (written by Jim O’Brien) that helps us to get a grip on what a special dude that he was. [Say what you want about the man — he gave great interview. Here is another revealing Q&A, from Plan 9's 9X Magazine.]
Let’s let this beloved “force of nature” — who could always speak for himself very well — speak for himself:
On new music:
“I may not understand it but I don’t fear it,” Gerloff said. “When I go by Twisters or some place and I hear sounds like the end of the world Parts 1 through 4, I encourage every bit of that. You want to know why? That’s the launching pad and kids are going to develop and their final twist after I’m done and gone will incorporate everything we’ve been through.”
On how he would like to be remembered:
“Well I’ve been described as a force of nature and I don’t know whether I like hearing that or not. But if I’m going to be viewed, I want to be viewed as somebody who cared about other people and the impact music can have. I want to be viewed as someone who made a stand for what I consider to be important music.”
And that you are, my friend. That you are.
Gary's life will be celebrated at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church on Huguenot Road tomorrow. Visitation is from 4-6pm and a full-blown mass will follow at 7. Then it's on to the Positive Vibe Cafe for lively reflection. Throat lumps and tears guaranteed.
TT
