Earl Grant's album Just for a Thrill - 1964
(Courtesy of Chet Wallace)
(Note to reader: Here is part three of a three-part series blog that I wrote on the African American musician Earl Grant.)
It seems that in the last years of Earl Grant's life, he was coming into his prime and was well-established as a popular and talented performer. Even though he didn’t “come out” during his lifetime, it is believed that Earl Grant was a homosexual, which was “a career destroyer” due to its non-acceptance of the time. Possibly this tendency toward homosexuality is true because there is no mention of Grant marrying or having children. Not that this was a stereotype of homosexual men during this time, but Earl Grant did like to dress stylishly and show off the clothing he wore. He was frequently photographed with a fedora during a time period when men were wearing hats of this sort less and less. Many of Earl Grant's album covers featured him wearing a fedora.
Grant continued to be in the spotlight and in 1968 he gave an interview to promote his album “In Motion”, which came out “about two weeks” before the interview. He described in the interview how he designed some of the clothing he wore, including the one he wears during the interview. His outfit was made of cashmere wool, and he was wearing a hat. He described how he liked clothing and that it added “personality” to the wearer. He also mentioned how, in Kansas City, he first taught chemistry in high school and how he transferred to teaching music for two years. He mentioned admiring the American composer, George Gershwin, who was a big influence on many different musicians during this time, as well as the present. He explained how “education is the answer” when asked about the path that young people should be taking concerning the arts.
Even his statement of being raised in Kansas City brings up the idea of how Grant might have been influenced by the sounds of Kansas City jazz. This style of jazz helped to transition the sounds of big band to the be-bop era. Kansas City jazz was popular in the 1920s and 1930s when Grant was a young boy. Considering that other musicians were born in his birth town of Idabel, Oklahoma, this style of jazz no doubt helped to shape his style of playing as well as the other local musicians born in the area. Chuck Haddix, director of the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri-Kansas City said in a recent article “During the ‘20s and ‘30s, more world-class players made Kansas City their home than anywhere else.” Mary Ellen Farney, past president of the Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors, said that Kansas City jazz is “a blues-based, swing style of jazz.” Considering the fact that many African American musicians were heavily influenced by blues and swing music throughout American history, it is no doubt that Earl Grant carried some of this style into his performances.
In 1969, the last full year of his life, Grant appeared in the television series It Takes a Thief, a crime/detective show that ran for a couple of seasons in the late 1960s that starred Robert Wagner. The episode Grant is in is called “Boom at the Top” and aired on February 25, 1969. This would be one of the last performances on a television show that Grant was featured in.
On June 10, 1970, Earl Grant was driving his 1969 Silver Shadow Rolls Royce from Los Angeles to an appearance at the La Fiesta nightclub in Juarez, Mexico. Accompanying him was his seventeen-year-old second cousin, Roosevelt Woods III. They were both killed instantly when the Rolls Royce swerved off of a sharp curve and rolled as they were driving at night. Both died of severe head and chest injuries. The accident occurred near Lordsburg, New Mexico off Interstate 10. Grant was 39 years old.
At the time of Grant’s death, he had 50 albums credited to his name. Grant is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles, California. In May of 1971 Mrs. Catherine Cooper, Grant’s mother, filed a lawsuit against two firms, Rolls Royce and Bristol-Myers Company in the wrongful death of her son. The suit was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court. She claimed that the Rolls Royce that Grant was driving had a defective steering mechanism and brakes. Mrs. Cooper also claimed that medication that Grant had taken to keep him awake while driving did not work. The Bristol-Myers Company advertised that the tablets that Grant took were supposed to keep the driver awake “while driving under monotonous conditions.”
This was not the end of Earl Grant's story though. On June 1, 2008, Earl Grant's music was one of many performers who lost their master recordings that were destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire in Hollywood, California. It is believed that a workman using a blowtorch accidently set fire to a nearby roof which spread around one of the backlots of the studio. As well as damaging many building facades and thrill rides, the fire also damaged a nearby film and audio vault housing many master recordings, some complete catalogs and some partial ones, of artists from all different genres of music including jazz vocalist Billie Holiday, Rock and Roll musician Buddy Holly and Earl Grant.
For an artist who was so prolific, there is very little written on Grant and his accomplishments. Earl Grant and his music has stood the test of time due to the many albums that he recorded and his unique style of singing and piano technique. He was one of the most diverse musicians during his era. He was a stylish musician who was talented at performing many different aspects of music. After all, he was a wonderful singer, pianist and organist and performed well on the drums and the trumpet.
His unfortunate death in a car accident in 1970 cut his career short when, most likely, he had many good years left. It is a wonder how Grant would have sustained his career if he lived longer but it is a gift to the music world that we do have his talented recordings for everyone to listen to today.
This work on Grant’s life contributes to the literature of other prominent black musicians and pianists of the era by describing the ground-breaking career of Earl Grant and his legacy. Like many African American musicians of his time, he broke the barriers of race by extending his talent to all audiences through the mediums of television, movies and audio recordings. His music and life are a showcase of one of many talents in the history of African American music in the United States and the world.
Columnist Lucy Merkel wrote “All great American music is grounded in Black people and culture, though it goes unrecognized and underrepresented within the music industry. It contributes and sustains the inequity that exists in our country that is based on racism through the capitalization of Black culture.” Earl Grant was one of many African American musicians who contributed to the musical experience of our country.
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