To Funk and Die in LA Read online

  "A great musician," D said. "I'll tell you more later."

  Dr. Funk leaned his arms on the edge of the coffin and bowed his head. A low hum began emanating from him that felt as deep as the Mississippi River. The sound vibrated the wood in the coffin. It was a country sound, like birds chirping in a dense forest, but then it changed into the wail of a beast charging its prey. When he turned toward the family, Dr. Funk's grunts became a cry and that cry a hymn. There were words to this hymn but Dr. Funk wasn't singing them. He was pushing through the melody too, reshaping it into something hard and potent as a punch.

  As Dr. Funk moved closer to the family, D felt the bench shake beneath him from the force of the singer's voice. His face contorted as he hit the notes, his blond wig wiggling, the gray hairs on his face twitching. His eyes were red, with dark irises. But there was joy in that face too, as if he were a seventh-grade show-off. Dr. Funk took Sheryl's hand and at his touch she cried heavy, luminous tears. He hugged her while still singing, his hymn now a low, soothing lullaby.

  D covered his face with his big right palm, because he was crying too. A hand then rested on his shoulder, radiating warmth like a heating pad. He looked up and there was Dr. Funk, more pure sound than person, more light than body. D cried loud and without inhibition, his self-consciousness sucked dry by Dr. Funk. D had long ago sworn off tears, not truly cutting loose since his second brother's murder. Tears, he felt, were a useless, hopeless gesture. New policy today.

  When D lifted his head again there was Dr. Funk, his face just half a foot away, singing to and for him, and the old musician was crying too. They looked at each other, suddenly not strangers but relatives united in grief.

  And then Dr. Funk closed his mouth and studied D like he was a Renaissance painting. "I see him in you, son," he said.

  D thanked him unsteadily and found himself holding Dr. Funk's long, bony hands; the old guy was bowed for benediction, like a sinner to the pope.

  It was silent now, save for Sheryl's quiet sobbing and the pounding inside D's ears. Dr. Funk let go of D's hands and the big man slumped backward and blinked away his tears.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later D was standing outside Heaven's Gate next to two of his favorite people—the singer Night and veteran music manager Al Brown. Night was talking excitedly.

  "Yo, we were driving over and my Twitter feed exploded. It was like Obama got shot. It was that crazy."

  "Yeah," D said, wiping his face with a tissue. "It was an intense experience. His voice was so fucking powerful. But if I'd known my cousin was gonna share it with the world I would have tried to keep it together." Walli had uploaded a video of Dr. Funk singing and Sheryl and D crying that immediately went viral.

  "Shit," Al said, "I'd still be bawlin' if that man had sung to me that way. That's as real as it gets."

  The three of them stood in a tight huddle, just as they had on many nights over several tours. A few older folks, true friends of Big Danny, snuck a peek at the celebrity as they entered, but they were there to honor an old friend and didn't swerve from that mission to snap a photo or shake Night's hand. Yet Walli's video had alerted another demographic to the wake. Looky-looks and low-level celebrity-chasers from TMZ or MediaTakeOut or some other parasitic website were arriving with cameras in hand. Night was a star, so lenses were being focused on him. Maybe he would sing to the dead old man too?

  "Can you get in contact with him, D?" Night asked while also checking his posture, acutely aware that this courtesy call had become a minor media event.

  "I dunno," D said. "Maybe there's a number in my grandfather's things. I'll take a look."

  Night was insistent: "D, I need to build with Dr. Funk. I need to talk with that man."

  "Don't get your hopes up," Al said, ever the sage. "I worked on a tour with him right as his band was breaking up. He was sliding downhill fast. He was—maybe still is—a genius. But he's as unstable as the San Andreas fault. What he did for D's grandfather today was amazing. But right now he could be back to eating out of a garbage can."

  "I know all about people counting other people out," Night said. "I know how that feels, and—"

  "I didn't count you out," Al cut in.

  "I know that, Al. But that man is so special. I mean, he's why I pursued singing in the first place. If I could just collaborate with him one time, it would be a blessing. I mean that." Now his voice changed and he sounded as earnest as a priest: "I've been wondering what the fuck I'm doing recording in LA. But now I know: I'm here to write with Dr. Funk."

  "C'mon, Night," D said.

  "No, D, I'm telling you—this is it. You gotta hook us up. You've always looked out for me, and I know this is a difficult time—I know this. But think about it: you could help him and help me."

  What D didn't need was to spend his time chasing a musical ghost all over the City of Angels. But Night was one of his oldest (and neediest) friends.

  "I'm not making you any promises, okay? I'll do what I can do." D looked across the street and saw more men in shorts and baseball caps carrying cameras with long lenses. "Let's go inside, all right? Too many cameras out here."

  As they were walking inside D got a text. YO! It's Walter G. I see online that you're in LA. Let's hook up. I'm at Soho House every day from one to four p.m.

  Damn. Night. Dr. Funk. Walter Gibbs. The past just wouldn't stay in the past.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HOLLYWOOD SINGIN'

  "Hello," Lawrence Pak said with forced professionalism, "can I help you?"

  D Hunter was shuffling around K-Pak Groceries like a tourist in some sad reenactment of a historic battle.

  "My name is D Hunter," he said. "My grandfather was Daniel Hunter. Some people around here called him Big Danny. He was murdered a week ago. Shot dead. The police say this was the last place he stopped before getting shot."

  "So sad," Lawrence said. "Yes, he came in here often. He would stand where you are, buy the paper, and have a cup of coffee."

  "Your coffee must be good for him to come here when he has his own store. There's even a gourmet coffee shop next door." D hadn't wanted to come on so strong but the words just tumbled out.

  "He was a very loyal customer," Lawrence said. "I just know he came in when my father ran the place, and after my father retired he would still stop by."

  D walked over to the coffee machine and folded his arms. "Should I have a cup?"

  "Do you like good coffee?" Lawrence asked.

  "I never drink coffee."

  "Then you probably shouldn't start with mine."

  D moved over to the counter. "Did you know my grandfather was a loan shark?"

  "Loan shark?"

  "He lent money to people in need and charged high rates of interest."

  "Oh," Lawrence said, "I did not know that. I am sorry about your grandfather's death. He seemed to be a good man."

  D wanted to press harder, but if the guy didn't care to admit he and his family might have borrowed money from Big Danny, it wasn't a crime.

  "One more thing," D said. "Do you remember seeing anyone hanging out around here that day? Someone unusual? Maybe someone he spoke with?"

  "I am sorry," Lawrence said, "I did not see anyone." This time D believed him and reached out to shake his hand before leaving.

  D stood on Crenshaw and peered out at the light-rail construction. So his grandfather stopped in this spot maybe once or twice a month for bad coffee. Probably one of several places if he truly was a moneylender. Clearly this was small change. Big Danny wasn't some mafioso who scared people. It wasn't something you would kill for, he thought. But he obviously carried cash, and that's all a drug addict or some street thug needed to know.

  From behind him, a little dog chained up outside the gourmet coffee shop growled at D like he had just stolen artisanal coffee beans. Wonder what that little bastard knows.

  D drove up Crenshaw to Adams Boulevard and made a left toward a church where he'd read online about a meeting on Afri
can American homelessness. It was in the basement of the McCarty Memorial Christian Church, where a small group—mostly middle-aged and elderly women—sipped lemonade, nibbled homemade brownies, and listened to Noel Barnes, a black woman in her thirties with natural hair (a rarity in LA) who worked for a nonprofit focused on the city's growing homeless population.

  In the eighties, McCarty had a flock of over a thousand. Some Sundays there were so many in the congregation they couldn't fit all the members inside. Nowadays the regular membership hovered around seventy. This church, which now had cardboard covering broken windows and paint flakes the size of notebook paper, had been a victim of the area's black exodus.

  * * *

  "Black folks are disappearing from this city," Noel said to the audience as D settled in a chair. "Families are leaving Inglewood and Compton and other traditionally black areas for the Inland Empire or back down south. Hispanics and Asians are moving into these neighborhoods. We could get into a long sociological discussion about that, but what people are missing is that one part of this city's black population is in fact growing. Fifty percent of LA County's homeless are black. That's about forty-seven thousand people—the vast majority of whom are black men. To put that in perspective: if you combine the total number of Hispanic and white homeless in LA, the number is only about twenty-

  four thousand. So when we wonder what's wrong with our families, what's wrong with our communities—well, the answer is living on the streets."

  After the talk, most of the questions were about how to find missing relatives. They were there looking for hope, just like D. Noel was enlisting volunteers for the city's annual count of homeless, and when D walked up, she held out a form for him to sign.

  "Actually, I'm just like everyone else, trying to find a particular homeless man. His name is Maurice Stewart, but he's known as Dr. Funk. He plays music on the streets. Has keyboards and sound equipment so he's not destitute."

  "I see," she said. "Do you have any leads on what part of Los Angeles he's been living in, or any shelters where he may have stayed?"

  "I know he played at least once in Santa Monica recently, but I've seen videos of him up by Highland and Hollywood."

  "If he's chronically homeless—meaning no regular shelter stays or public assistance—he's probably not using his real name. If he's got instruments, he must have found a secure place. Maybe he has a squat or is sharing a space with a friend. But give me your e-mail and I'll forward you the addresses of some shelters in Hollywood."

  As D guided the Electra 225 out of the church parking lot, he thought the visit had been a waste. If Dr. Funk was at a shelter, someone would have put it on front street. The only videos out there were of him performing. He had to have a place. Somewhere off the beaten track, somewhere secure, like the woman said, where he could store his stuff. The musician also had to have access to some dough, since these street gigs couldn't be earning him any real money.

  D went up Highland and parked inside the complex where they held the Oscars ceremony every year. This part of Hollywood was LA's Times Square, full of tourists, costumed superheroes, street dancers, hustlers, toy cops, photographers, and drummers. D walked through the mess of people, feeling like he was back in NYC—except there was no El Capitan Theatre or Jimmy Kimmel marquee on 42nd Street. He heard a familiar song waft through the street sounds as he crossed Hollywood and Highland and found himself before a gaudy, tricked-out McDonald's.

  There were three black men standing near the doorway, all probably in their sixties, in worn, clean clothes. Two had gray hair. The third, who sang lead, was bald as an eight ball and had a salt-and-pepper goatee. These were doo-woppers, men who knew street-corner harmonies from the days when that was hip hop and slicked-back, processed hair was the gold standard of urban style. They weren't singing Dr. Funk. They were singing the Whispers' classic "Just Gets Better with Time," with one of the gray-haired men killing the bass line with a rich, chocolate baritone. D stood there a while, listening as they then sang "Love Machine" by the Miracles. Both were songs written and recorded in LA back when R&B was in the city's blood. He tossed two twenties in their plastic bucket, thinking his grandfather would have booked them at Heaven's Gate.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BIG DANNY'S WILL

  Harriett Wheeler, attorney at law, sat in an ergonomic chair behind the mahogany desk her grandfather had employed when building his South Central law practice. She flipped through sheets of notarized papers dated 2009, when Daniel Hunter and Harold Wheeler Sr. had composed this will over a bottle of bourbon.

  The law firm of Wheeler & Walker had been a fixture on Crenshaw Boulevard since 1965, opening its practice in the wake of the Watts riots. Though both founders were long dead, Harriett had followed in the family tradition and kept the business going, though now the firm was called Wheeler & Hernandez and immigration cases paid the rent.

  Back in 2009, Harold and Big Danny, pillars of a once-vibrant black community, were well aware the neighborhood that had supported them was evaporating, and that this will, these words on paper, was an attempt to stake their claim on the future for Big Danny's family—if they were willing to grasp it.

  Harriett read the document to D, Sheryl, and Walli: "The house at 2105 West Washington Avenue is to be divided up as follows: my daughter Sheryl has 50 percent ownership, my son Fred has 50 percent. But, in the event he is not in the United States at the time of my death, his son D inherits that 50 percent. The property at 5000 Crenshaw Boulevard, known as the nightclub Heaven's Gate, is owned 51 percent by my grandson D and 49 percent by my daughter Sheryl. The retail properties at 2105 West Washington Avenue are to be divided as follows: my daughter Sheryl has 50 percent of both properties. The other 50 percent is owned by Rodrigo Brown."

  "Okay," Sheryl said, glancing over at D and her son, "that wasn't so bad."

  "There's one more clause you all should be aware of," Harriett added. "It reads, In the event that Maurice Stewart, a.k.a. Dr. Funk, is in need of shelter, financial help, or emotional support, I obligate my heirs to assist him by any means necessary."

  D laughed and Harriett wanted to know why this request was funny. "It just seems like Dr. Funk is everywhere and nowhere," he responded.

  "Well," Sheryl said, "it don't matter. No one's talked to him in years, right? He left the wake like a ghost. We can't help who we can't find."

  "There's a bit more," Harriett went on. "If my heirs are able to help Dr. Funk in any way, a bond of $50,000 held in escrow will be released to them."

  "What?" Sheryl cried out, staring at the lawyer as if she was crazy.

  "Were Dr. Funk and your father that close?" Harriett asked.

  "They were friends and all, but I didn't think they were boon coons," Sheryl said. "That Dr. Funk is a grown-ass man. Why do we need to take care of him? That money should come to us free and clear. Anyway, who decides when we've given enough help?"

  Harriett glanced down at the papers. "Well, it says Dr. Funk does."

  "This is crazy!" Sheryl was fuming, as if her dead father had kept her from going to the prom. "What do you think about this, D?"

  While Dr. Funk was a great artist, D couldn't understand either. Big Danny's cash reward was a powerful inducement to make sure his progeny would look out for Dr. Funk despite their better judgment.

  "Wills are a strange beast," Harriett said. "Your parents reveal things to you after they're gone that they could have told you before they went. But people are always in denial. Even on their deathbed, they figure they'll have one more day."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE RELENTLESS BEAT

  D hadn't read The Relentless Beat in several years. It was almost like hearing Dwayne Robinson talk to him again, except there were no motherfuckers, niggas, or bitch-ass niggas tossed in between the intellectual philosophizing. D looked at the title page where Dwayne had inscribed this copy for his grandfather: Thanks for the knowledge and laughs. He had interviewed Big Danny for the book and two-thirds o
f his commentary hadn't made it into the book "for legal reasons." There was actually a pretty long passage on Heaven's Gate in the chapter on LA in the eighties. On this night, though, D was on his grandfather's sofa reading the chapter on Dr. Funk:

  Any close inspection of funk music makes clear that this profound black music movement was a merging of James Brown grit, hippie escapism, Eastern religion, free-flowing psychedelic drugs, incipient black nationalism, and big-band horn arrangements that was unique to a particular cultural moment. It was freaky, optimistic, spiritual, angry, spacey, political, self-confident music full of bands led by charismatic figures who bonded a community of musicians and creatives (clothing designers, graphic artists, shamans). Sly Stone, Maurice White, George Clinton are all celebrated as leaders, catalysts, innovators, and dreamers. Perhaps just below them in the pantheon of funk (an observation sure to cause debate) was Maurice Stewart, a.k.a. Dr. Funk, whose band the Love Patrol could, depending on the night, rival the J.B.'s. Then again, the next night they could be as experimental as the Sun Ra Arkestra. On one classic LP, Chaos: Phase I, they found the perfect balance of accessibility and invention, setting a standard they never would quite reach again.

  Maurice Stewart was born in Memphis, raised in Oakland, and came of age in LA. So the blues and gospel of the South, the progressive thinking of the Bay, and the glittery impulses of Hollywood all formed him. His mother was a music teacher and Sunday school organist. His father was a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none kind of guy who sold Bibles, drove taxis, short-order cooked, ran numbers, picked up garbage, mopped up buildings, and did whatever other honest blue-collar jobs he could find. His father also sang like Johnny Hartman and belted out Larry Graham's "One in a Million You" like he owned it. So Stewart grew up around several musical traditions within his hardworking itinerant family.

  By sixteen he was sneaking into clubs on Crenshaw like Heaven's Gate, becoming a mascot for the musicians, comics, and dancers who frequented those joints. Through those connections Stewart became a regular dancer on Soul Train, and that community of dancers became the backbone of his flamboyant performing troupe.