Russell: This musical odyssey stretches from NYC to the Chitlin Circuit to Mansfield

Last week I talked about some smoking live music I’d seen at the City News cigar store, including a funky Christmas shindig with local guys S’yVelt.

What I didn’t mention was their special guest that evening, sax player Donald “Dohn” Nunley, recently arrived in town from Washington, D.C.

I’d seen Dohn once or twice at the library but I didn’t know his name, and when I saw him in the crowd at Suzy’s I figured he was there for the show like the rest of us. I was taken completely by surprise when he jumped up and and joined the band.

He was blowing up a storm with that horn of his. It was crowd-pleasing, thrilling stuff, and in the days that followed I kept playing the scene over in my mind. I had a feeling this guy, whoever he was, had a story to tell, so I made a couple of phone calls and tracked him down.

On a relaxed afternoon over a few cups of coffee, Dohn talked me through his adventures and explained how he came to end up in Mansfield – although it turns out that was the familiar part of the story.

“Yep, I married a girl from Mansfield!” laughed Dohn.

“Another one!” I replied.

“It’s always the women that bring us here.”

“Yeah, this is a recent move, though” said Dohn. “We were both living and working in Washington, D.C. for many years. I was with the Department of Rehabilitation, and I’m a therapist, a marriage and family therapist. It’s all about helping people relieve themselves of pain.”

Does that apply to your music, too, I asked?

“Well, yes – that’s exactly how I think about it. Helping your fellow man.”

Are you originally from D.C.?

“No no, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama,” said Dohn, explaining that he had experienced the growing civil rights movement first-hand.

“I know about it – I participated in it – but it’s not something I wear on my sleeve.”

At the age of 12 or 13 Dohn was already starting to get a taste for live music, as he and his buddies would gatecrash some of the local venues.

“We’d sneak into a place called the Downbeat Club,” he told me. “You have to understand, this is the kind of place that made our mothers and fathers say: if I catch you there, I’ll kill you. I will kill you!

“I mean it was something just to see the crowd outside, but we knew we had to find a way to get in the back. We’d walk in carrying Coca-Cola crates and then hide behind them. Never did get caught,” Dohn said.

“And you couldn’t help noticing, these musicians coming in: they looked clean, they had girls around them, they seemed to have money.”

These musicians that Dohn saw as a teenager made a big impression at the time, “although I can’t remember all their names now,” Dohn said, “too long ago. They would come to me if you gave me time. People like (jazz trumpeter) Lee Morgan.”

In 1961 Dohn left Alabama to study music at the Tennessee State University in Nashville, on a scholarship to play in the Tennessee State Marching Band.

“The Tennessee State Marching Band was famous in the south,” Dohn told me, “and they were very selective. At the interview I told them I played saxophone, and they said ‘well, we don’t need you. We have plenty of sax players.’

“‘Well, hang on,’ I said. ‘I also play flute.’ And that’s what got me in.”

“In those days,” Dohn continued, “bands were very important in the black community. If you played in an orchestra, you were really something.”

And it didn’t stop at the Marching Band, as Dohn was soon involved in the local music scene, too.

“Now Nashville, that was the place to be. You got exposed to a lot of the professional guys. People like Hank Crawford,” said Dohn.

Crawford was a jazz saxophonist from Memphis who had also studied at TSU before carving out a successful recording career.

“You had all these local clubs up and down Jefferson Street,” Dohn told me. “And you had the New Era Club – and I’ll tell you, you really had to be able to play to get on that stage.”

If you want a taste of the time and place Dohn is talking about, track down an album called “Etta James Rocks the House,” recorded live at the New Era Club in 1963. The power of the performance is undimmed and the excitement of the crowd is electric.

“You had all these musicians coming through town, and they hired local players like me to be in their band. Oh, you want names again – Jerry Butler, people like that,” said Dohn, referring to the soul singer who performed with the Impressions.

So what happened after you graduated?

“I didn’t graduate,” said Dohn, “at least not then. After two years I had to take off to New York.”

Why?

“Because I knew that’s where you had to go as a young musician. To be legitimate, you had to be in New York.”

And Dohn was determined to do whatever he had to do to make that happen.

“I even lived on the streets for a while,” he explained. “I had no money. I had a bench by Katz’s restaurant on the lower east side and the prostitutes would take care of me. It was quite an experience.

“I did it,” said Dohn, “because I knew I had to be a part of that scene, but it was very difficult to get to play. As a ‘southern boy,’ you really had to get acclimated to where you were before you could even make a start.

“The thing is, even though I was on the street, I did have some relatives in New York. But I couldn’t live with them. They couldn’t relate to me at all, to what I was doing. I had to go my own way.”

Eventually Dohn started to work his way into the New York scene.

“After a while I was hanging around with people like James Baldwin, (sax player) Zoot Sims … I got to meet a lot of people, mainly the old jazz guys, you know.

“Now, In New York you have to take whatever gigs come your way, and it turned out I was very good at Rhythm & Blues,” said Dohn. “I latched onto a road band called the Untouchables, and we played the chitlin’ circuit. We played the Apollo. I ended up playing up and down the East Coast for five years.

“And I recorded in the studio with King Curtis.”

“Come on, Dohn!” I said, banging the table. “King Curtis?”

If you don’t know the name, I’ve got another recommendation for you: ‘King Curtis Live at Fillmore West,’ recorded in 1971. It’s been one of my favorite albums for years, and the opening rendition of ‘White Shade of Pale’ is one of the sweetest sounds you’ll ever hear.

“And you know,” said Dohn, “his song ‘Blast-off,’ that was one of mine. Not that I got the credit. I mean that one didn’t really do much anyway, but still … you never got the credit with those guys. That’s not how it worked.”

King Curtis was killed in New York, stabbed after getting caught up in argument between two drug dealers. Dohn was living in Boston in the 1970s, unhappy with what he calls the heaviness of the music scene.

“I had a 9-piece band there for a while, but the music scene was scarce. Eventually I looked around, and my friends were dying or dead. I thought, this is no way to make a living. I had family to support.

“Then a friend said to me, ‘why don’t you finish your degree?’ At first I wasn’t interested, but eventually I enrolled at a college in New Hampshire.”

This time, Dohn took a different route from music.

“I majored in Human Services,” he told me. “I took courses in social psychology. This was the beginning of my academic career, and my whole life changed after New Hampshire. I became an activist and ended up in Washington.”

At the Department of Rehabilitation?

“Well, I did a number of things. Actually, it’s a funny story how I ended up there.

“I was teaching résumé writing to kids, at-risk kids, and they were just not interested,” Dohn said. “They didn’t want to talk about themselves.

“So I said, look, let’s work on MY résumé. Make it about me, ask me questions and find out what I’m about.

“And as part of this exercise we actually sent the résumé to the Department of Rehabilitation Services. And I got a call from one of their employment reps offering me a job.

“At first I just used this as part of the class. I told them, you see what can happen with an effective résumé?

“But the guy kept calling me. The class was over, the kids had moved on, and the place I was working for was getting downsized. So I took the job, and that’s how I got into government.”

O.K., now let’s go back a bit, I said. Back to the early 1970s, before New Hampshire and D.C. Tell me about the Mansfield girl.

“I first met her in Ohio,” said Dohn, “at a concert in Cleveland. Then, I met this young lady only briefly, really just enough to see her and that was it. She was beautiful.”

They were not to get together until happening to meet again in Boston, where they were eventually married.

“I knew I had to become a productive member of society,” he said. “I had to look at my music in a different way. I’d met Miles Davis, you know, and a lot of the greats, but for myself, I was on the edge of things – not noticeable. Really, that was enough for me. That scene was too heavy. All that dope – no way.”

Dohn explained how his wife became a grounding influence.

“She was the best thing that ever happened. Even when I would get on the radio or TV, she wasn’t interested in that – ‘yeah great – now did you take out the garbage?’ And she’s one of the smartest women I know.”

But despite his other career, Dohn has never stopped playing music, and he wasn’t long in Mansfield before he hooked up with some local musicians via a friend of his wife’s family.

“He asked if I wanted to play with some guys at the Amvets and I said sure, you know. Well, I was sitting on my porch and he came by and said you’re playing tonight. I was already done for the day!

“But I went out and played with Jeff Boyd, Britt Reed and a couple of other guys. We had a ball. The audience loved it. We bonded. And after that I played where they played, at other venues like the Red Fox.

“And I thought, hey – there’s something here in Mansfield. I really like it. What’s going on, it’s a small town, but it’s valuable, you know. And the people here are so appreciative, and kind.

“I think there’s a market for dynamic entertainment,” said Dohn. “You’ve got to entertain people! I would love to form my own band here.”

Man, I hope he does. Look out for him. He’s the real deal.