Bands of the Battle: From Vietnam to Greenville, Gary Salt keeps on drumming
Perchance all mothers of young men in the 1960s had reason to worry. There was conflict in distant lands: the draft was inevitable. But Gertrude Salt believed her son was holding his own safety net in each hand, in the form of drumsticks.
He vividly remembers what got him started drumming: “I went to a very small school in Cove City. The elementary school had a nice auditorium and every year there would be a Halloween Carnival. One year there was a band that played there called the Melodets. The guitar player was local; his name was James Bryant. The drummer was Charlie Pat Wise. I saw Charlie playing and he had sunglasses on with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He just looked the coolest I’d ever seen. Well time went on and I actually bought his old set of drums. But I was inspired by that evening to play the drums.”
Getting started late, as he put it, at age 14, Gary took lessons from the county band director who would come to his elementary school once a week. He went on to high school where he played in marching and concert bands and a combo that played popular tunes of the time. He was the drummer for the Creations, a role that would later be filled by Bob Aiken. The band played in local teen clubs around Kinston and competed in Battle of the Bands.
“I remember as a youngster watching my big brother playing drums in the band, ” Gary said. “I also remember JK [Loftin] running in place while he played guitar, and Donald Parker getting on his knees to sing to Miss North Carolina when the panel of judges came by.” Alger Salt recalled the Creations playing in the Battle of the Bands in Kinston. Gary said they won that competition around 1965-66.
In 1967 Salt’s mother hired Guyte Cotton, his former band director, to instruct him the summer before taking his audition at the 440th Band at Ft. Bragg. He had to pass that audition to be able to obtain a guaranteed enlistment.
“It was supposed to, hopefully, keep me away from Vietnam,” he said. “After basic training my orders were supposed to read to go to the Naval School of Music for 6 months for advanced individual training. But instead I was assigned directly to the band. I went to the school of music after 8 months of being in the band.”
But it was not smooth sailing in the Naval School of Music.
“I flunked my first 4 lessons, and I was getting ready to be kicked out of the school, ” he said, “and if I’d done that, they would have put me in some other MOS [Military Occupational Specialty]. But I had a friend who helped me and I started passing my lessons.”
When he got back to the band he received a promotion to E5, equivalent to Sergeant. But a month later he got his orders for Vietnam. He spent a year there, initially with the 1st Infantry Division until they pulled out in 1970, and then the 25th division.
“Every division had a band,” Salt said. “We used to travel in Deuce and a half trucks–open back trucks–and we would go out to the villages, and play for the villagers. That was one of our duties. Also we would play for military ceremonies. We were close to Saigon so we’d go down and give concerts there. Then we would go out into the field and entertain the troops. That was our duty: to win the hearts and minds of people. Actually we’d go with the intelligence team, medical team, and dental team–we’d all go out in a convoy. We’d be playing while the doctors and dentists were trying to treat people and the intelligence people were trying to get as much information as they could.”
When he came back from Vietnam, Salt said he decided to put the drums on hold and get his education, first at Lenoir Community College and then East Carolina University, earning a degree in accounting. He worked for the family business, but would practice and jam occasionally.
In 1989 he moved from Cove City to Greenville and joined the Tar River Community Band, which was playing very similar music to what he had played in the army. In 1995 he answered an ad in the paper for drum lessons and began taking them from a 19-year-old.
Salt explained: “He knew a very famous drum instructor by the name of Jim Chapin [Harry Chapin’s father]. I took some lessons under Jim Chapin. Jim would drive all over the country and he was just as nice a person as you could ever meet. He was open. He would show you whatever you wanted to learn. His method was called the Moeller Method, which is still in existence.”
In the early 2000s Salt and some friends teamed up with Larry Siegler and Phil Flowers to form the Tupelo Blues Band. He and his brother Alger formed another band in Durham called Rock Salt. Through the years, he has played in a number of others, such as Live Wire, Seaside Band, Good Times, Category Five, and Park Avenue South.
Presently Salt plays with three diverse groups. Deep State plays R&B, soul and 70s rock; Jazz and More is a piano trio–a continuation of Park Avenue South–that plays jazz standards, R&B and dance music. They perform at Nino’s Cucina Italiana in Greenville every other Wednesday. He plays in a band with his brother and several others in Durham called Nineteen Miles from Davis.
Even as Gary Salt holds down the fort in his day job as proprietor of Salt Wood Products in Greenville, he never stops working on his music. He attends an intense yearly jazz camp in Rochester, NY, and recently participated in a 3 day, 6-hours per day conga drum lesson.
“When I took my lessons, the first day Johnny said, ‘You play Congas like a drummer.’ That was not a compliment. I’m still trying to play. It’s heel toe, heel toe, heel toe. . . ” Salt demonstrated on a set of congas conveniently located in his business office.
Salt added: “My keyboard player [from Park Avenue South], Ron McCrea, and I were really good friends for 10 years. He used to say something like ‘Music can be the handmaiden to misery.’ There’s as much disappointment in music as there is reward. I’m not a person who could make a living just playing music. There are plenty of drummers that are a lot better than me that are still struggling.”
But at age 75 Salt said he still wants to further his knowledge of drumming and percussion and was clear about his direction: “I can’t stop.”
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Gary Salt drumming with the Steve Creech Jazz All-stars.
Originally published in the Daily Reflector June 8, 2024.
