Nedrock 4

One of the toughest things about playing music for a living, especially playing covers in bars and at tiki huts, was the lack of applause. Even when I was killing it, I would get little to no response. I attributed this to a number of factors. First, in such settings, the guy or gal with the guitar (as I refer to this type of performer) is generally considered background music. And I made things a little harder on myself by refusing to play the old canon. It was customary, even into the '90s and probably still today, to play classics from the '60s and '70s—"Brown Eyed Girl," "Margaritaville," "American Pie," and so on. As I have written about before, coming out of the great rock renaissance of the early '90s I was determined to play what I called the new canon—songs by Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Nirvana, R.E.M., U2, etc. I felt like the herd mentality prevented people from responding to these songs because they were unsure if everybody else was liking them and they didn't want to be the only ones clapping.

Of course, the possibility must be entertained that maybe I just wasn't that good. While I was at the height of my powers in terms of vocal strength and range, it is true that my guitar-playing skills were rudimentary at best, having only just learned to play a few years before. (This is another reason why I didn't have a large repertoire of the classics. If I had played guitar as a kid, I probably would have had the entire Beatles catalogue at my fingertips.) 

I also have to admit that I didn't have the best stage presence. A fellow performer years before had told me that this job is as much stand-up as it is singer. I never really got good at bantering with the audience. One of my recurring lines was, "I take requests, I just don't play them"!

And it didn't help that I fancied myself a rock star. In largely family environments, I sprinkled my set list with drug songs—"Sister Morphine," "Running to Stand Still," "Not an Addict," to name a few—and smoked a joint between sets, sometimes right on stage. To say nothing of my long hair and dangling earrings.

The gold standard in Charleston in those days were the Futch Brothers, particularly my old friend from summer camp, Hank Futch. Hank and Hal would pack TBonz to the rafters every Tuesday night—Tuesday night!—and the crowd would applaud uproariously after every song. Of course, they mostly played the old canon, but they also had their secret weapon, a mien it never occurred to me to try to emulate: Hank's beaming smile.

The most genuine and memorable round of applause I ever received came many years later, in a very different setting. Exactly ten years ago, in November of 2014, out of money and out of favor, I had to move into the homeless shelter here in Staunton. This is actually when I started going by Edward up here. I was still on social media at the time (as Ned Hartley) and, not knowing what type of people I would be rubbing elbows with in the shelter, I didn't want people I knew nothing about trying to find out about me on Facebook. All my life, particularly in college, whenever "Edward Hartley" was called, I would always say, "Here. It's Ned." But now, when the staff at the shelter called me Edward, I left it at that.

Well, it turns out the people in the shelter were just fine, most of them simply in a similar situation as mine, caught a little short. Still, after one weekend I knew I had to get out of there, and the Monday after checking in on the previous Thursday I walked down to the Food Lion exactly one mile from the shelter and asked for a job. Knowing that I would probably run into people from the shelter there and not wanting them to see "Ned" on my name tag and wonder what the fuck, I introduced myself to the manager as Edward, and the rest is history.

Ironically, just a couple of weeks after I checked in, I received an email from SNHU offering me a job interview. I mean, if I had gotten the email a couple of weeks earlier I still probably would have had to move into the shelter, since it turned out I wouldn't actually start working for them until the following spring, but who knows? Anyway, when I was hired, obviously I was hired as Edward Hartley, my university email identified me as Edward, and so I continued with this new handle. Again, I didn't want my students and superiors searching for me on social media.

Now, I have been a proud Ned my whole life, but I'd always wondered what it would be like to go by my Christian name. There was this dude in Charleston when I was in college named Edward with long hair who had a dog and rode around town on a bicycle, and I always wanted to be that guy. One thing I haven't done, however, is demand that all my old friends start calling me Edward. I don't want to be that guy.

I mostly kept to myself in the shelter. I had learned from Cool Hand Luke how to keep my mouth shut and stay out of other people's business. At meals I mostly sat by myself, solving crossword puzzles. In the weeks before Christmas, they brought in members of choirs and praise groups from local churches to sing Christmas carols during supper. They were mostly okay. As with the volunteers who brought in dinner on Friday nights, they figured as homeless people we would be grateful for anything.

One such group consisted of three older ladies and a guy with a guitar. They weren't bad, exactly, just uninspired. The guy had said at the beginning that if anyone wanted to come up and join them they should feel free to do so. After a few lifeless numbers, I went up to offer my services. When I asked the guy for his guitar he was hesitant at first but did hand it to me. As I started playing, the women were still standing and wondering if they were expected to sing with me. I told them they could take a break, and the three of them immediately fell back into their chairs like rapidly deflated balloons, grateful looks on their faces.

I opened with "For the Summer" by Ray LaMontagne. I had randomly learned this song in the months before I moved up here, but I had always been struck by its aptness when I played it after I moved up here. "Rollin' through these hills I've known I'd be comin' / Ain't a man alive who likes to be alone / It's been years since I've seen my lady smiling / Have I been, have I been away so long?" 

I have always prided myself on being able to fill a space with my voice. When I played in subway stations, people would hear me first as they were buying their tickets and then would be surprised when they walked to the platform and saw that I wasn't using an amplifier. The dining hall in the shelter was the size of a small elementary school cafeteria, with probably 60 or 70 people in it, men women and children, and many of them turned to look as I played. When I was finished they gave me a hearty and sincere round of applause.

Next I played Springsteen's "My Hometown," which they loved. I'm telling you, of all the gigs I've played over the years, this performance was by far the most gratifying. We were all in the same boat, in a sea of apathy, and I think we all appreciated a moment of authenticity, from their perspective and from mine.

Afterward, one of my fellow residents—a young woman with curly blonde locks and a spectacular ass (everybody could see it)—came up to me and said, "Well, Edward, you have many hidden talents."

I'll briefly mention two other memorable performances. My regular barber was on Beverley Street between the shelter and the Food Lion, and when I went in for a haircut and told him where I was living and told him about the Christmas performance, he said he had a policy (which of course he had just made up) where he would give a free haircut in exchange for a song. He was kind of an interesting dude, sort of a local impresario, and his barber shop was filled with musical instruments. I picked up a guitar (which he said had once been played by Dave Matthews; who knows?) and played "My Hometown." The people waiting gave me a nice round of applause.

(This was the guy who organized the parking-lot concert in front of his shop that I played in May of 2015, after moving out of the shelter.)

When I played in the subways, I usually played for only a couple of hours during evening rush hour, but on Fridays I would often play longer. One Friday night, in my favorite station at 23d and Broadway, right underneath the Flatiron Building, I played for, like, five hours. I seem to remember seeing some people skipping trains to listen. For my last song, around 10 p.m., I played Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," which resonated throughout the cavernous underground, the trains coming less frequently now. When I finished, one man who had been listening said quietly, "That was awesome."

Nedrock, 23d Street Station, NR Line, Manhattan, summer 1997