As time went by we said a few words to each other and gradually I
realized that besides being an excellent keyboard player with a
decidedly gospelly tone, "Falstaff" was a prince of a guy. I learned
that he had been a Marine, that he had picked up piano from an older
player and had played around in a few joints sitting in with numbers of
bands.
The more I got to know him the better I liked him. Despite his diminutive stature and shy ways he had the heart of a lion. I would often tell people that were I stranded in a dark alley confronted by a gang of thugs, that I would rather have Falstaff with me than anyone, as I knew he would fight to his dying breath.
Eventually Falstaff was incorporated into Clara's touring band and rehearsed with them all summer for their engagement at the Blues Estafette. It was only at the airport leaving for that gig that I learned that while in the Marines he had travelled abroad extensively.
When we returned from Holland the band began performing many local engagements, and at nine sharp, while the others were still setting up or tuning up, I had only to nod to Falstaff and he would begin to play. At several gigs he and Clara would perform gospel duets, just the two of them, and even though we were in bars, the audience always loved these songs.
Clara had become like a godmother to Jennifer, the young girl I've informally adopted (you can read about her elsewhere on BLUES WORLD) As time went by, Falstaff became her godfather as well. He could tell that I was growing genuinely fond of him and had great respect for him. Clara told me he was surprised at this. "Why would he like me?" he asked her. But like him I did.
In his last months with us he made it to the gigs and played despite being in distinct pain from the cancer that would soon take him away from us. He would sing his two "standards," Barrett Strong's "Money" and, with bitter, sad irony, Bobby Bland's "Farther Up The Road."
Perhaps a week before he died he asked me to come over to Washington Park to go to
the flea market there with him. We were both afficianadoes of such things. Fairly
recently he had had some instruments stolen from his garage, and had located them at
that flea market and been able to buy them back very cheaply. On this day he took me to
an ongoing garage sale not far from the flea market, one that runs the first weekend of
every month. Showing me that location was his parting gift to me.
About a week later, after a further stay in the hospital, Clara called me to come over. I said I'd make time the next day, and she told me she didn't think he'd be there the next day, so I went over right then. He was lying on a rented hospital bed in their living room, eyes open, but unconscious. His condition had deteriorated markedly in just several days, and I could tell he was not long for the world. Clara sent Charles Jones, their good friend, and I, to the kitchen so she could talk to him. Charles left, and I sat there with Clara, as she stroked his head and wiped his lips. I saw her feel for his pulse then check for his breath, and I knew he was gone. In the prior month she had not left his bedside for any longer than it took to go to the bathroom. The doctors and nurses at the hospital said they had never seen a wife give better care to a husband.
Soon after he died, Charles Jones returned, and several other friends came by, and Clara sat, in her regal, queenly way, for hours telling stories about him, until the funeral home came to pick up his body.
At his funeral, saxophone player Ersking Ogelsby, who had made the trip to Utrecht with us, and who had sat in with us on many of the local gigs, performed a horn solo that was profoundly moving.
Clara McDaniel and Abram Foster are two of the finest human beings I've ever encountered in my fifty one years on the planet, and Falstaff will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace.
Joel Slotnikoff