GREENWOOD, S.C. (AP) - Students who get aboard a Greenwood County School District 50 bus driven by Dennis Patterson likely have no clue how many years he spent working with legendary musicians and playing instruments alongside some of the Lakelands’ most talented players.
That’s mostly because he’d never admit how talented he is, said Larry Freeland, a close friend to Patterson who was in the Swingin’ Medallions in the 1980s.
“He’s so humble,” Freeland said. “He’ll tell you he ’plays a little keyboard,’ but that is one of the most tremendous understatements ever. In my opinion, he’s one of the best keyboard players I have ever played with.”
Now 62, Patterson was 4 when he started learning to tickle the ivories. His father, Thomas Patterson, was known as “the piano man” in Calhoun Falls, where Dennis was raised. His father taught him and his two brothers to play by ear - and to play from the heart. Before school started, he would spend his mornings with Laureen Hazelwood, who taught him to read music and play the organ.
“The whole family could play,” said Dennis’ brother, Jerry Patterson. “We were around music pretty much all the time.”
When they were home, he and his brothers would play in rotation with their dad, accompanying him as he played the melody. Before going to church on Sundays, they would play gospel and religious songs on the organ and piano.
“I really don’t know how mama put up with it,” he said. “Organs and pianos are loud.”
As a teenager, Patterson got a thirst for the stage. His mother told him he could start playing with bands - so long as he didn’t miss school and kept his grades up. At an age no older than many students who board the buses he now drives, he was learning to love playing live.
On stage
He was only a high school senior when a band he was with played at a club in North Carolina where he noticed something was amiss. He saw what looked like cut chicken wire along the edges of the stage - which he realized used to be a sheet of chicken wire separating the band from the audience, to keep any beer bottles or other items from being thrown onstage.
“It was just like Blues Brothers,” he said. “I’ve never played anything like it. I was just standing up there hoping ’please don’t throw a bottle.’”
For years, he hopped from band to band.The first rock song he learned to play was “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” which he learned from John McElrath of the Swingin’ Medallions. He was later asked to join the Double Shot Gang, which he played with for years.
“I was achieving lifetime goals for mama and daddy - to please them,” he said. “If I didn’t love music though, I wouldn’t have done it.”
He continued building his repertoire of songs and improving his skills on the keys throughout the years, landing parts with illustrious artists. Before he could play in the backing band for Percy Sledge - the artist who first recorded “When a Man Loves a Woman” - he was told to memorize every song on Sledge’s best-of album.
“I remember the first time Percy saw me, he looked me up and down and said ’Just remember, they came to see me - not you,’” he said.
The allure of bigger stages fueled him - they were easier for him to play than smaller venues.
“When I play, I like to watch peoples’ faces and see what they like,” he said. “I like the big sound on the PA system. The more people out there, the better.”
Eventually, he was offered an opportunity to play on the biggest stage of his career. A radio station serving the Southeast had a contest to find the best local band, and the winner would get to open for REO Speedwagon at Greenville Memorial Auditorium - now the Bon Secours Wellness Arena.
Dennis’ brother, Jerry, was the sound technician for his brother’s band at the time, The Magic Band. He was as excited as his brother to compete for the opportunity of playing alongside REO Speedwagon.
“That was just amazing, I own all of their albums,” Jerry said.
When The Magic Band beat out the other contenders, Patterson got to play alongside his bandmates for thousands in what he says is the greatest venue he ever played.
“When REO took the stage, their sound tech let me walk in the area under the stage,” he said. “I looked up through the floorboards, and there they were. No one could see me, but I could see them just a few feet away.”
Changing tempo
Patterson worked for 29 years in Abbeville’s Milliken plant, starting during his senior year in high school and working while he played his music. His mother had worked at the plant, which was built in 1896 - he has a framed picture of her at work while she was pregnant with him.
“When you’re on stage, you can’t beat it,” he said, “but in the down time you’re just thinking about the work you’ve still got to do at home.”
At 50 years old, Patterson decided to make a change, and chose to go back to school. He quit his job at Milliken in 2003 to pursue a degree in electrical engineering at Piedmont Technical College.
“I was looking for something totally different from what I had been doing,” he said. “I saw people coming in with four-year degrees and I said, I can do that. I guess it was important to me to get my degree.”
He got his associate degree in 2009, graduating with a 3.96 GPA, and soon after started working as an adjunct professor teaching circuitry and electronics. He joined Tau Alpha Pi, an honors society specializing in engineering technology.
“The only thing that held me down was math and those timed tests,” he said, with a laugh. “I went to college when I was 50 years old - it took me a little longer to take tests.”
While looking for a job after college, he said he didn’t know what business he wanted to get into. He opened the newspaper and saw an advertisement for a job as a bus driver - and figured he’d give it a shot. At Greenwood County School District 50, he started off driving his own bus routes. He would bring homemade math notebooks for students to work on during the ride - he still has a few copies around in his home studio where he plays and records music. Now he trains new drivers from a manual he wrote, and has had 38 drivers pass their certification exams thanks to his training.
He aims to retire at the age of 66, with a plan to work as a musician for wedding receptions - playing piano for brides who are taking their first dances with their husbands. His early retirement present to himself, a state-of-the-art Yamaha Montage keyboard, sits hooked up to computers in a room at home.
His old Korg and Nord keyboards sit among the items he stores in his home studio, where the speaker towers blare notes into the house he and his wife of 24 years share. The Hammond B-3 piano that he’s kept since 1969 sits downstairs, and while it may have been replaced by high-tech software and computer-assisted composing, he still likes to play the oldies on his newer equipment.
“Music is a release,” he said. “I hate to say it’s an addiction, but it really almost is.”
___
Information from: The Index-Journal, https://www.indexjournal.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.