In memoir 'Words and Music,' late Wilmington writer Philip Gerard takes a bow
When he was in the sixth grade, Wilmington author and creative writing professor Philip Gerard sat down and wrote what amounted to a bucket list. "Write a book" was up there. So were "sail the ocean" and "have an adventure."
Most of those he ticked off dozens of times. Gerard finished a whole shelf of books before his death last year at the age of 67, including the 1994 novel "Cape Fear Rising," which was based on the Wilmington coup and massacre of 1898 and helped bring the historically significant event back into the public conversation.
Gerard's adventures included boating the entire length of the Cape Fear River in small watercrafts, described in his "Down the Wild Cape Fear" in 2013.
One item remained: "Make a record."
Gerard had played guitar since he was a boy and gradually taught himself banjo, hammered dulcimer and the bodhran (Irish drum), among several others. As a boy, he played James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot LPs over and over. As an adult, he had his own part-time band, Whiskey Creek, and his jam sessions with fellow University of North Carolina Wilmington professor Clyde Edgerton, who performed as a duo called Dusty and Ace, were campus legends.
News obituary Wilmington writer Philip Gerard, who helped bring 1898 into the open, dies at 67
Perhaps Gerard, who suffered a serious heart attack in his 40s, had intimations of mortality. So, a few years ago, he contracted with Wilmington producer, engineer and musician Jeff Reid, recruited local musician friends including Dargan Frierson, Catesby Jones and Rick Olsen, and headed to Reed's studio with 15 original songs.
The result was "American Anthem." And, being a writer, Gerard had to write about the process.
Sept. 26 will see the release of "Words & Music: An Album of a Life in Story and Song," a kind of musical memoir, to be released by Beach Glass Books. The publisher, longtime Virginia newspaperman Ray McAllister ("Wrightsville Beach," "Topsail Island"), adds an introduction.
In part, the book is a narrative of the making of "American Anthem" from start to finish. (The liner notes are included in the back as an appendix.) Like many good storytellers, however, often detours, telling stories of his eventful life.
He tells about hitchhiking to Hatteras Island, guitar over his shoulder, the summer after high school graduation and for many summers thereafter.
He describes his days as a young reporter after graduating the University of Delaware. In the age of George Plimpton, consciously or unconsciously, he recounts his forays into participatory journalism, with brief stints as a circus clown, a rodeo hand and a passenger on an attack helicopter during Delaware Army Reserve maneuvers.
And he makes clear that music is central to his life. Gerard had no pretenses about being another Dylan or Springsteen (he classed himself as "an enthusiastic amateur") but the enthusiasm was emphatically there. When he had the money, he added a rehearsal room onto his Wilmington home.
In one essay, Gerard notes how musical terminology, like rhythm, tempo or striking a chord, overlaps into poetry and prose writing. He leaves no doubt that music made him a better author. And it probably made him a better man.
In the book's foreward, his widow, Jill Gerard, recalls how he sang to his dogs on their daily walks.
"Words & Music" might strike the occasional sour note with some readers, especially with purists who will object to his glorification of digital (over analog) recording. But for Gerard, the new gadgetry democratized record making, taking it from corporate labels with expensive studios to something the common man could afford.
In a way, the book is also a challenge. If I could do this, Gerard seems to say, what could you do?
Book review
'WORDS & MUSIC: An Album of a Life in Story and Song'
By Philip Gerard
Chesterfield, Va.: Beach Glass Books, $31. For release Sept. 26.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: 'Words and Music,' the memoir from late Wilmington writer Philip Geard
