11 minute read
Cha rac ter St udy By Jenna Biter
Tuned In to the Generations
Gar y Brow n’s musical l egac y
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By Jen n a Bit er Mount the steps to The Carolina Hotel, walk the lobby to the dining room, and sit down to a fine breakfast under cr ystal chandeliers. Five mornings out of seven, Gar y Brown Jr. will be in the corner tinkling the keys of the shiny baby grand just like his grandfather Robert L. Murphy did for 30 years before him.
Veterans of the hotel staf f, and even some g uests, watched Brow n g row up play ing music. At first it was str ictly af ter school. He debuted a longside his g randfather and uncle, R ev. Dr. Paul Mur phy, when he was only 14 years old. “My g randfather or uncle would be on the piano. Sometimes my uncle would be on the upr ight bass or the sa xophone, and I would be on the dr ums,” says Brow n. “T hat makes me the third generation.” He flashes a smile.
Event ua lly he shared his g randfather’s break fast g ig, penciled into the schedule more and more of ten, especia lly af ter he g raduated f rom Pinecrest High School in 20 07. Grandfather was prepar ing g randson to continue the family’s legac y. “I wanted to,” Brow n says. “It was never forced on me.”
In 2022 he’ll have been at it for 19 years. It’s a legac y that spans more than music. Gar y’s father, Gar y Brow n Sr., has been work ing as a chef at the resor t for 42 years, cook ing now at Fair woods on 7.
From a rock ing chair on the w ide, w raparound porch outside the hotel ’s dining room, Brow n motions to the g rounds. “To be in this atmosphere, you definitely have to make sure you are professiona l,” he says. W hen he was a teenager, Brow n remembers being ner vous that patrons would approach him to chat while he played. “I asked my g randfather, ‘W hat if somebody comes up to me?’” His g randfather explained it was a par t of the job, par t of being an enter tainer, not just backg round noise.
Nearly t wo decades later, Brow n’s fingers sca le the black and white keys on autopilot while he sma ll-ta lk s w ith g uests. He raises his eyebrows and af fectionately impersonates their w ide- eyed awe, “‘Woooo, you’re not even look ing at your hands!’”
For Brow n, play ing the piano is like blink ing — he can focus on the action but doesn’t have to. “I’ve litera lly been so tired that I could rest and play the piano,” he says. “One time, I a lmost fell of f.” He drops his head, slumps to one side in imitation. “You k now, how your body drops of f ? I nodded of f, but it’s weird because my fingers kept play ing.” He folds into laughter, remember ing the waitstaf f ’s amusement at his expense.
Brow n can read sheet music but usua lly plays w ithout it. “I gauge the crowd, see who’s there, see who’s into it,” he says. He’ll spr ink le in pop songs for younger g uests. “I love music. I like hy mns. I like ja zz. I like reg ular music that people hear on the radio. Either way I put my ow n touch to it.”
He’s been play ing — well, tr y ing to play — the piano since before he can remember. A s a toddler, he would crawl to the piano and pull himself onto the bench to hammer at the keys. T hen, in the second g rade, he entered an ar t contest w ith the assig nment to draw what you want to be when you g row up. His pict ure depicted the
adult Gar y seated at a baby g rand. “I didn’t k now how to draw hair, so I just drew a mohawk,” he says, r unning a hand over his tightly cropped haircut.
Even w ithout the mohawk, his elementar y ar t work was prescient. “I not only play piano, I t une pianos,” he says. “A nd my g randfather t uned pianos, and my uncle t unes pianos.”
His Uncle Paul a lso plays at the resor t at least once a week, as he has for the past 37 years. A nd his mother, the daughter of Rober t and Paul ’s sister, Cathy Mur phy, is a piano technician, able to reg ulate and repair pianos.
T he family’s musica l legac y began when Rober t opened Mur phy’s Music Center, a piano store, in Aberdeen in 1972, at the time one of the few Black s to ow n a Sandhills business. He shut tered the store in 1980 because of the recession, but his misfor t une had an upside.
Dur ing the economic dow nt ur n, Mur phy couldn’t af ford to pay t uners to maintain the pianos he had in stock, so he lear ned to t une the instr uments himself. T hat led to a new business, Mur phy’s Music Ser v ice. W hen he star ted play ing at the resor t in 1982, the combination launched the family’s musica l arc.
“My g r a ndf at her t aug ht me how to t une by e ar first ,” Brow n says. “T hen, a f ter I le ar ne d to t une by e ar, he a l lowe d me to use a dev ic e a s a n a id. If t he dev ic e is broken, you st i l l ne e d to b e able to t une t he pia no.”
He dives into a masterclass on the process. “For most of the keys on the piano, there are three str ings,” he says. “I use the felt to mute the lef t and r ight str ing, so then it only exposes the middle str ing.” Brow n descr ibes the tedious process w ith hand motions as if a piano were in f ront of him. With only the middle str ing exposed, he sets the note before indiv idua lly t uning the r ight and lef t str ings until a ll three are in t une.
“T hat’s pret t y much what I do a ll the way dow n the whole piano, and the piano has over 260 k nobs and t uning pins I have to t ur n,” he says. “A lot of times, I go through it t w ice.”
Patience was the first sk ill Brow n lear ned f rom his g randfather. “I used to look at him and say, ‘W hat is he doing?’ I’m like, ‘He’ll never get done doing that.’”
But w isdom comes f rom exper ience. “You just focus on one str ing at a time,” he says. He points to a decorative retaining wa ll on the g rounds, “It’s like somebody building that br ick wa ll r ight there . . . one br ick at a time.”
At first, Brow n lear ned the t uning trade in his g randfather’s shop. W hen his g randfather decided he was ready, Brow n accompanied him to t une in customers’ homes. T hen he g raduated to t uning pianos solo w ith only pick up and drop - of f by Grandpa.
W hen his g randfather was diag nosed w ith cancer, Brow n stepped up. “He was t uning the piano, and I was r ight beside him. But he didn’t have enough streng th to do it. So, I said, ‘I got it, Grandpa, I got it,’” Brow n says. “T hen he’d hand me the t uning hammer, and I’d t une the piano.” W hen Mur phy’s condition worsened and he had home hospice, Brow n would ser v ice pianos and
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br ing check s back to his g randfather until he passed away in 2012.
Nearly a decade later, Brown still shows up for his grandfather’s clientele. He helps to suppor t Murphy’s Music Ser vice, r un by his grandmother, T homasina, but also has his own tuning business, Murphy and Brown’s Moving Music. “Call either or, and I’ll still show up,” Brown says and cracks a smile.
Af ter Robert Murphy died, Brown was upset he didn’t play the piano for his grandfather while he was in hospice care, so he added a third, compassionate, leg to his business. “It just opened my eyes to the opportunit y. You know, since you didn’t do it for your grandfather, you can do it for other people.
“I’m the last person they hear before they pass away,” he says w ith sober g ratit ude. “A lot of family members are mour ning, don’t k now what to say, don’t k now what to do. T hen when I come w ith the music, the music fills the gaps.”
Sometimes Brow n br ings his sons, Gar y Brow n III and Jayce, just shy of their ninth and fif th bir thdays respectively, w ith him when he plays for hospice patients, so they can w itness the g if t that music can be.
Like their dad, the boys gravitated toward the piano as toddlers. “I would see them going to the piano and doing the same exact thing I did,” he says. But like Murphy didn’t force the piano on his grandson, Brown doesn’t force it on yet another generation. “A lot of people that come up to me, they say they used to take lessons when they were young, but they don’t play anymore. Maybe they had a strict teacher, or they just didn’t practice when they were supposed to,” he says. “But when they hear me play, they say they wish they would have kept playing.” Brown knows the next generation will get there on its own, if that’s where it wants to go.
“My g randpa a lways told me, ‘If you find something you love to do, you never work a day in your life.’ T hat’s why I lear ned how to play and I lear ned how to t une,” he says. “I love it.” PS
Jenn a Bit er is a w r it er, entrepren eur, an d milit ar y w ife in th e San dhills. Sh e c an be re a ch e d at jenn abit er @prot onm ail.com. Cont a ct Bro w n for any of his pi an o ser v i ce s b y c alling him at (910) 315-1362 or em ailing him at gar yb ro w n1362@g m ail.com.
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