O.Henry Ending
On the Road with Fred
By Joya Wesley
My dad has a funny way he likes to say that he has “haaaaaaad fun.”
“No, thank you. I have haaaaaaad fun,” he’ll often say to a suggested exertion that has not purpose other than fun. His tone has a tongue-in-cheek finality to it that makes it clear that if fun never happens to him again in life — in any way, shape or form — he’s good. I’m blessed to be able to say, with exactly the same tone, that I have haaaaaaad my father in my life — his early fun-pursuing years not withstanding. If the recent goodbye hug we shared after a session with Dave Fox at Earthtones Recording Studio in Greensboro’s Gateway Center were our last ever, God forbid, I’m good, too. Unlike so many of my sisters and brothers who would have been happy to have had any time with any father, I haven’t had just any father. My father is the brilliant trombonist, bandleader, arranger/producer Fred Wesley, a man recognized as a forefather of funk music, and known far and wide as a delightful guy who spent many of his seventy-two years having mad fun alongside the likes of funk icon George Clinton. These escapades (detailed in his book, Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Side Man) cost my father his marriage to my mother, Gertie, his childhood sweetheart growing up in the often mispronounced port city of Mobile (mo-BEEL), Alabama. She held down the roles of mother and father for most of my formative years in Los Angeles, and to her I am eternally grateful. I’m also grateful to God for allowing me to be by Fred’s side as he circled back through divorce, rehab, remarriage and relocation to renew our special connection — and now to create a partnership so precious and unique that we’re both the envy of all our friends. I say “Fred,” because “Daddy,” inevitably draws snickers if I let it slip while we’re on the road. Eight years ago, I was lucky enough to get the gig as my father’s manager and began a continuing adventure that’s not just fun, but full-on “funky good time,” as the lyric goes in a song from when he was a leader of James Brown’s band. Whether in London or Greensboro, a city I called home for eighteen years, I travel with Fred’s current band, whose members are as positive and as light-hearted as he is. The core of the group has been with him for twenty-seven years, and we do an average of four tours a year, mostly in
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June 2016
Europe, but also South America, South Africa and the United States. Along the way I’ve learned valuable lessons from Fred. Tops among them is that traveling is a joy when you focus on its joys rather than its inevitable inconveniences. Tops among those joys are the delicious foods and treasured friends to be had by keeping an open mind and an open heart. An open mind introduced me to baby marrow soup — a creamy blend of zucchini and potato I first enjoyed in Abu Dhabi, then figured out how to make at home in minutes with my beloved NutriBullet Rx. An open heart made me friends with a Nigerian priest I met on a plane from Chicago, and later met for lunch in Paris at his monastery’s community meal, which cost five Euros and included carafes of red wine. I’ve walked the famed Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, taken in the beauty of Italy’s Follonica coastline, and made friends with a Japanese recording executive who now lives in New York, thanks in part to a letter we wrote supporting her application for U.S. citizenship. On the road, it’s all about quality of the people and experiences you encounter, not quantity. I’ve also learned how the magic of music unites people in all corners of the world. Devoted Fred-lovers come in all flavors, ranging from hardcore European “funkateers” in their 70s, who have been to countless concerts and can trace in detail every contribution Fred made to the funk, to Asian 20-somethings who shook their booties to his music for the first time at the Malasimbo Festival in the Philippines last year, and continue to do so via YouTube. Whether he’s shopping at the Piggly Wiggly in his adopted hometown of Manning, South Carolina, or playing at the venerable London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, Fred makes the air around him a reliably groovy place to be. Even when he’s not present. A few years back, my father left me a voicemail on my birthday, the anniversary, he said, of one of the happiest days of his life. It still makes my eyes tear up to recall how he got choked up telling me how he “had never seen anything quite so beautiful, or loved anything quite so much.” No wonder I’m the world’s No. 1 daddy’s girl, and always will be. OH Joya Wesley, a former Greensboro newspaperwoman and radio host, now lives in Mobile, Alabama, when she’s not traveling. Keep up with Fred Wesley’s work through his blog: www.funkyfredwesley.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
A daughter of a junk master and brilliant musicians learns valuable lessons life, love and fun from her father