In my memory, there are two dads: the Richard before mental illness \u2014 and the one after. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Richard before<\/span> never seemed very rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.<\/span> He was just another workaholic father, keeping his brick of an early mobile phone close, even on vacations, and coming home late from the family business, the Great American Tent Company.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The one after … well, I try not to dwell on him as much.<\/span> But there was a third Richard I knew nothing about until after he was gone.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n One day when I was 26, just months after my dad\u2019s death from congestive heart failure, I visited to check on my mom. I found her at the kitchen table<\/span> with a pile of well-worn manila folders fanned out in front of her, an ashtray nearby with a half-smoked joint still smouldering. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mom was an old eBay queen from the \u201990s \u2014 she bought and sold Beanie Babies for profit back when that was possible \u2014 and I could tell she\u2019d hunted up something good. I looked closer. Each file had a famous name written on it in my father\u2019s neat print: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lionel Richie, Allman Brothers, Santana. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat <\/span>is<\/span><\/em> this?\u201d I took a seat across from Mom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYour father\u2019s rock files,\u201d she said, toking on the joint. \u201cHe kept everything from his days running Peace Concerts.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cTake a look!\u201d I could tell she was high on more than just pot. She opened a folder and produced a yellowed letter that read, \u201c<\/span>The Birmingham Hyatt House will not be able to accept any further rock group reservations. This directive is a result of many bad situations with these groups staying in the hotel and especially the malicious destruction caused by Lynyrd Skynyrd staying here over July 4th, 1975.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The letter said the damages amounted to $500.<\/span> I looked up at Mom, eyes wide, and we laughed. My soft-spoken dad had dealt with these musical madmen? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRichard said they were the nicest boys,\u201d Mom said, \u201cwhen they weren\u2019t drunk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou knew about this?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNot this,\u201d she said, taking back the letter and handing me the joint.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhy would Dad save this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEh, he was a hoarder. But also probably for tax purposes.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I dragged on the joint and ruminated with the smoke. That was Dad, always business-minded. However, I suspected there was more to the story. He\u2019d always loved music, filled his days with it from the radio or cassette player, or his voice, smooth as Southern syrup, or his acoustic guitars, which he left me. He loved music until depression struck him down.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy Of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> In addition to his heart issues, my father spent the last dozen years of his life numbed by mental illness and antidepressants. Years ago, when he began to slip mentally, he paced our house at night, thought my mother was poisoning him, and believed my siblings and I were starving (even though we were all chunky). <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve never been a big fan of Valentine\u2019s Day. Maybe that\u2019s because on that day in 2001, I came home from school, sensed something was off, and asked, \u201cWhere\u2019s Dad?\u201d My mom told me that she and my older cousin had taken him to the hospital, that he\u2019d tried to jump out of the car on the way, that he was now admitted to a psychiatric ward. I was on the cusp of turning 14, my mother 44.<\/span> Over the next dozen years, as I meandered through adolescence and early adulthood, I grew to resent this man, his apathy toward his family and even his own life, as he deteriorated mentally and physically. His nails grew long and yellow, his hair dreadlocked into a mat of grey wire. And after years of an all-fast food diet and not taking care of himself, his heart finally gave. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But here was my father, an energetic young promoter, in folder after folder of rare rock memorabilia: a contract signed by the legendary guitarist Duane Allman, another by Glenn Fry of the Eagles, a promotional flyer featuring a 20-something Lionel Richie in some of the first concerts the Commodores ever did \u2014 all shows my dad booked. He was a pioneer in carving out a new Deep South concert scene, billing these rock shows as \u201cdances\u201d because, as Mom explained, going to concerts back then wasn\u2019t yet accepted in the buttoned-down Bible Belt. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> Not once did Dad talk about this to me. I wondered if he was secretly ashamed that his dreams had deflated into owning a company that supplied concerts with tents, tables and chairs instead of attention-grabbing talent \u2014 a company that started from the leftovers of those rosy rock days, with an old red-and-yellow tent top Richard put up over the stage for his acts.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhere did you find this?\u201d I asked Mom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She waved me down the grungy, carpeted stairs to the basement, where a battered tank of a file cabinet stood tucked away in a nook. As a kid, I\u2019d overlooked it a million times, more captivated by the toys and board games surrounding the 1940s-era metal tower. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Opening a squeaking drawer, I saw it fully packed with documents, an extremely thorough paper archive focusing on Dad\u2019s time as a concert promoter from 1968 to 1976. He\u2019d saved it all: contracts, guest passes, flyers and posters, ledgers, photos, receipts (sometimes scrawled on a bar napkin).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bathed in the sickly, fluorescent basement lights, I was overwhelmed by the gravity of these artefacts.<\/span> What to do with all this?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> Back upstairs, Mom and I discussed selling some of<\/span> the hoard. Dad had saved many copies. But I was hesitant. \u201cSome items should be off-limits,\u201d I said. Out of respect for Dad, for his story, for this side of him I didn\u2019t know. Mom agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n So we went through each document of Dad\u2019s old music promotion business, Peace Concerts. I read the print too tiny for Mom\u2019s eyes and wrote descriptions while she priced and categorised. For an eye-catcher, we chose a silvery, vintage poster of a bare-chested Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham when they were still a duo.<\/span> My dad had booked the last concerts they did before joining Fleetwood Mac and made a bundle on those few shows. <\/span>The pair were treated so well that Nicks later said in an interview: \u201cWe could join Fleetwood Mac or we could move to Birmingham, Alabama.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mom and I decided we would not part with the poster. However, we did make glossy reproductions and sell them for $20 a pop. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> On a too-bright<\/span> spring day about a year after Richard\u2019s passing, I packed my mom\u2019s car with the rock files and<\/span> drove us to our first record show at a modern, red-bricked convention centre. Set up in a large room by plate glass windows, we sold \u201cretro musical mementos\u201d mostly to old rock \u2018n\u2019 rollers and longhaired hippie-looking characters, all grizzled or grey now, some with a limp or cane. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yet when they browsed the faded posters and dog-eared flyers, a smile would break across their faces as they remembered that packed after-party my dad threw for Stevie and Lindsey<\/span> for their sold-out show at the Alabama Theatre, the last concert they played before merging with Fleetwood Mac <\/span>\u2014 <\/strong>or how everyone\u2019s ears were ringing after that raucous Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at Rickwood Field in \u201974, the first time that group performed \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n For this generation, music was a spiritual experience, and my dad was at the centre of it. Well, centre backstage. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I fidgeted in my chair as I nodded along, jealous that it seemed like these strangers knew my father better than I did. Occasionally, one would squint at me<\/span> and say, \u201cYou look just like him.\u201d It\u2019s true. I have my dad\u2019s red-brown curls and intense blue eyes. Although I always thought his shade of eggshell blue was far prettier.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Music was another thing we had in common. Dad possessed a sweeter voice, but I was the better guitarist. I didn\u2019t start learning until I was 16, so he never played music with me nor expressed an interest after the depression sank deep inside him.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Years into his isolation, I visited to perform for him. I must\u2019ve been 20 and studying classical guitar, eager to show off my new finger-style skills. But after I finished my first piece, a difficult and delicate arpeggiated prelude by a Paraguayan composer named Barrios, he snapped at me, \u201cThat\u2019s good, and<\/span> I won\u2019t even count those two mistakes you made.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n My throat clenched <\/span>\u2014 <\/strong>my voice evaporated. His ear was still so sensitive. It wasn\u2019t a spotless performance, as he\u2019d demanded of his local bands back in the Peace Concert days \u2014 he\u2019d told my mother how he kept detailed, sometimes harsh, performance notes from his spot in the back row.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I wanted to snap all my guitar strings. Instead, I never played for him again. For years, a feeling of shame flooded over me when I flashed back to that memory \u2014 and I carried my resentment around inside like a balled-up mass of old strings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy Of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> So it went at the record shows: After selling for several hours, Mom and I would gingerly repackage everything back into her car, and I\u2019d drive us back home. We\u2019d split the cash, and I\u2019d roll us a joint. \u201cFor Richard,\u201d we\u2019d toast as thick blue smoke unfurled<\/span> around our heads.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDid he hang out with the acts other than just working with them?\u201d I asked. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mom bit her lip and thought about it. Long ago, Richard told my mom some of Peace Concerts\u2019 history \u2014 how he saved money from his job at the telephone company to book his first acts, and how promoting was like gambling and he lost it all on a bad run of concerts where the ticket sales didn\u2019t materialise. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNot really,\u201d Mom said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t in it for that. He liked making money \u2014 and he did it for the thrill.\u201d The thrill of the risk, or of creating an event that would reverberate in people\u2019s minds for decades? She said she didn\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n My mom, Shari, met my dad when she was 22. A theatre major and techie, she\u2019d just blown out of college from Michigan State, headed 700 miles south before landing in Birmingham and met him just three days later, introduced through a mutual friend. By then, he\u2019d lost everything to concert promotion. Their first \u201cdate\u201d was him grilling steaks on his patio, The Marshall Tucker Band\u2019s \u201cCan\u2019t You See\u201d playing loud on the turntable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I asked Mom when she learned about Dad\u2019s rock days. She had to think on it \u2014 her hair gray and down to her back now, unlike the dark bob she\u2019d sported most of my life. \u201cAfter just a few days together,\u201d she said. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019ll tell you my story, but only one time.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhoa, it was like that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She said he hated old concertgoers wanting to wax nostalgic with him about the glory days.<\/span> I figured Dad, like me,<\/span> always had big dreams hounding him down.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Time spins like a vinyl, and after doing a few of these record shows and hearing every tale Mom knew, I began reaching out to Dad\u2019s<\/span> old friends and work associates from his promoting prime. Yet I heard the same thing I already knew: Dad was a \u201cworkaholic.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnd how exactly did he fall out of promoting?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n About this I\u2019d heard different stories. Mom had always said he\u2019d lost it all on a bad concert run with Joe Cocker, and that he was distracted chasing a woman nicknamed \u201cLittle Red\u201d who never reciprocated my father\u2019s interest.<\/span> But I\u2019d heard more than one old associate say that Dad had also been outgunned by a hotshot New York promoter named<\/span> Tony Ruffino who today gets the credit for putting Birmingham on the map for big rock bands. One old rock buddy who used to hang up flyers and do other promotional work even said that Richard tried to go rogue and represent Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks on his own, and for this the record biz blacklisted him. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBut what was he like as a person?\u201d I\u2019d ask these strangers who knew \u201cthe old Richard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That was always harder for them to answer. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe was a private guy,\u201d was the best answer I got from a man named Wendell, a partner in an early booking agency my dad founded and later sold. \u201cHe didn\u2019t talk much about what was going on in his head.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I became desperate, looking to our family albums and VHS tapes for answers. But here, too, Dad was the invisible promoter, so frequently on the other side of the camera capturing\/directing holidays and trips instead of being in them. A backstage man, even in his personal life. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wendell suggested I visit the iconic 2121 high-rise in downtown Birmingham to see my father\u2019s old office, where he built his Peace Concerts empire nearly six decades ago in what was then called \u201cthe penthouse,\u201d room 1727. When I told Mom about the idea, she smiled and said Richard used to point out the 2121 building in their earlier days, telling her he worked at the top in an office with a view. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n So I drove a half-hour into town to see for myself, uncertain what Wendell thought I would find<\/span> so clarifying there. Riding the elevator up, my reflection rippled in the scratched, stainless steel doors in front of me, looking like a leaner, taller ghost of my father. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo Courtesy of Shari Graye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> On the top floor, I saw only three suite numbers: 1700, 1710, and 1720. I rang the bell at 1700, where a woman with greying blonde hair and sleepy eyes answered. I explained I was writing something about my relationship with my father and trying to hunt down his old office. Albeit bemused, she was nice enough to let me in and give me a quick tour. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She explained that this suite connected to 1720 but there was no room #1727, not even 27 separate offices on that floor. The place had clearly been redesigned since my dad last stepped foot there. It was hard to believe that any rock concerts were ever planned in this now drowsy, overly air-conditioned space.<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But what I did see, everywhere I looked, were plate glass windows waist-high to ceiling. It was the kind of<\/span> ![\"The](\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/684991101700002f9cbcde66.jpg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp\"\/)
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