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Date: 6/28/2023
GRANVILLE — Edwin Beckwith just always had a “knack” for music.
That knack, as he called it — “gift” is probably a more apt description — led him from the hills of Granville to playing keyboards at small venues for weddings and anniversaries all the way to tickling the ivories for groups like the Coasters and the Drifters in front of thousands of music fans in concert halls up and down the East Coast.
His gift became apparent when his mother, Toni, saw his talent and gave him an accordion at the age of 8, and he found his “first love.”
“Music is my first love. My passion … even at a young age,” Beckwith, 71, said with a twinkle in his blue and playful eyes.
Armed with the squeeze box, Beckwith began taking lessons and continued for another six years until: “you know … puberty set in,” he recalled with a laugh, and he “got away from music.”
But it wasn’t long before he started his own polka band at 15 and began playing weddings and anniversaries.
“We weren’t doing club work yet,” Beckwith said.
That didn’t last long, however. Cory DeGray came calling in the early 1970s. The late and well-known Westfield musician, who led the Knightsmen, needed a keyboardist for the group.
By that time, Beckwith had graduated from the accordion to the piano, organ and the mellotron, which is a electro-mechanical instrument used extensively by British bands like the Moody Blues, King Crimson, and Genesis in the 1960s. The Beatles used one on the hit single “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
For several years he continued playing keyboards with Cory and the Knightsmen and then started his own band, Berkshire East.
And why the name Berkshire East?
“It was based on the ski slope’s name,” Beckwith said, adding that in today’s world using the famous Berkshires ski resort’s name would probably be challenged in court.
That band stayed together for a year, he said, and then he started another band named the 4th Street Band, which was primarily a backup band for larger acts.
He then jumped from 4th Street to playing keyboards for Monty and the Specialties, which had previously been the backup band for the girls doo-wop group the Velveteens. The vocal group from Agawam had a local hit in the early 1960s named “Teen Prayer.”
Beckwith went back to Cory and the Knightsmen for a short time and then took a break from the music business after his father and brother, Bob, started the meatpacking Hilltown Pork Inc., based in New Canaan, New York, in 1980.
“As they grew, they needed more help,” Beckwith said, adding that he still is actively involved in the business.
“But then it all started again,” he said about returning to playing professionally.
DeGray’s daughter, Korey Bruno, who is the choral director at Westfield High School, was playing keyboards for her dad’s band, but took some time off.
“Cory needed someone to fill in while she was gone,” Beckwith said.
He then got a call that the backup band for the Coasters and the Drifters needed a keyboard player.
Beckwith, who is a fan of the music played by the bands that were part of the “British Invasion” like the Kinks, Dave Clark Five, the Animals and the Rolling Stones, answered and played on the weekends at clubs in the region.
But it was grinding him down.
His last gig with the Coasters was a show outside of Pittsburgh in the late 1980s, he said. He had performed that night with no sleep and still wearing the tuxedo he slept in. After the show, he barely caught the plane back to Bradley International Airport.
“When I finally saw my wife [Cheryl], I said to her, ‘all I need is a blanket and pillow.’”
Beckwith was then in his early 50s and recognized he was overloaded.
“It was just too much. I wasn’t 20 years old anymore,” he said.
But he had to honor his gift, his first love.
“I made a commitment that I wanted more than just being on stage,” he said.
And since then, nearly every day, he practices his piano technique with a teacher working on “melodic minors that are heavy on harmony and [playing] scales,” he said.
He said once he masters the melodic minors, he will have earned the equivalent of a master’s degree in music.
That was obvious when he was played a cut from a Nashville-based band named WILLIS.
While listening, he was tapping his fingers and nodding his head to the beat and listening intently.
“It’s only three chords. It’s got a good beat,” he said with his eyes closed to focus on the music.
Beckwith said he’s been asked to offer piano lessons using his knowledge to help those also honing their technique, but that’s not for him.
“I just don’t want that kind of commitment anymore,” he said.
But he still plays, nearly every Thursday night in Southwick at the former Methodist church at 219 College Hwy. It’s a “jam session,” Beckwith said, and “you just never know who’s going to pop through the door.”
At a jam session in Connecticut six years ago, a man took the mic and belted out Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”
“He sounded just like Otis Redding.” Beckwith said.
And there was a reason, he said.
“He was Otis Redding’s nephew,” he said shaking his head, even now, in disbelief.
While he still leaves enough time in his life to “smell the roses” he’s not giving up his first love: “It’s got me through good times as well as bad times.”