Roy Eaton, an inspiring life


By Sharon McDaniel  

Palm Beach Post Music Writer

Sunday, February 26, 2006

A near-death experience decided the direction of Roy Eaton's career.

"It was a tragedy on the surface that really turned out to be a catalyst to
self-discovery," says the soft-spoken concert pianist from his home in New
York.

The 75-year-old recording artist will make his Kravis Center debut Monday
night. But his program, and his highly personal approach to it, had their
origins nearly 50 years ago in Utah. 

He describes the 1957 chain of events simply, in a typically low-key tone.

"It was a camping trip across country with my wife and another couple. It
was Sunday morning, and we drove off a cliff - but we didn't know it at the
time," he says, with the faintest hint of irony.

"The driver was killed, my first wife, too. I was presumed dead for a couple
of hours."

He lay unattended on a gurney in the corridor of an out-of-the-way Utah
hospital. "Then someone noticed my big toe wiggling," he says.

In 1957, Eaton was far better known as an award-winning composer of jingles
than as an emerging classical pianist. 

Remember this catchy, fun-loving jingle sung by an eager chorus of kids?

We're having Beef-A-Roni!

It's made with macaroni!

Beef-A-Roni's fun to eat;

Beef-A-Roni's really neat...

That was Eaton's work. Not what you'd expect from the serious young artist
who had recently made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in
Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor.

But his day job in advertising saved his life.

His employers at renowned advertising firm Young and Rubicam were notified
of the accident because a New York Times reporter recognized Eaton's name.
The company followed up, requesting that its top performer receive the best
medical care possible, regardless of cost.

"But this was 1957, right? I don't have to go much further, do I?" he says
calmly, his tone still gentle. "They had me out in the hall waiting for me
to die because I was black."

The telegram from the international company changed a dying nobody into a
valuable somebody.

"All of a sudden, specialists were flown in from Salt Lake City - a heart
surgeon, an orthopedist - and everybody began working on me," he says.

Eaton spent the next six days in a coma. But he recalls feeling like he was
underwater, floating comfortably in a substance like amniotic fluid.

"Then I felt a giant hand underneath me, bringing me up through the water,"
he says. "As I broke through the surface of this water, I opened my eyes,
and I was awake - and awake in another state of being.

"I came out of a six-day coma with a sense of exhilaration - that's the only
way I can put it - and a non-differentiated awareness. In other words, it
was like I could hear through my eyes and see through my fingers," Eaton
says. "Since that time, I have just looked at my music differently and
worked at it differently."

For one thing, he believes so strongly in the healing power of music that he
lectures on the subject. And his playing is full of messages, urging
listeners to let the music lead them into their own tranquil and unburdened
inner space.

He emerged from the coma knowing what he needed to do,: "God wanted me to
take a message to the world with my hands." And despite physical trauma that
would require months of recovery, Eaton's hands were never injured.

Broke color barrier

He finally returned to the concert stage in 1986, after a prestigious
30-year career in advertising for which he is still celebrated and credited
as the person who broke the "color barrier" in the field. By then, the
55-year-old had earned enough money to start his own production company and
return to his first love, even while putting three boys through Ivy League
schools. 

His oldest son, David Roy Eaton, age 44, runs an estate-planning firm in
Boca Raton. David, who travels a lot on business, hears his father perform
at least once a year, mostly in New York. But to attend Monday's concert, it
will be the first time David has been able to just drive from home. 

David considered it great growing up in a household where he and his
brothers heard everything from Chopin to commercial jingles. "All three (of
Eaton's grown sons) are musically inclined," says David, who studied voice,
piano and trumpet. "So it certainly inspired us. He was a great role model
for overachievers!"

To support the family, Eaton worked decades, not only at Young and Rubicam,
but later as the vice president and music director of Benton & Bowles. That
meant little time for piano practice.

"We always went to sleep with him practicing; he practiced every single
day," says David. "My dad loves the piano - he had no intentions of going
into advertising, didn't even know about it. But he had an opportunity that
came along, and he made money doing it, which allowed him to send three kids
to the best colleges in America."

David, a Princeton University grad, rattles off the other schools:
Georgetown University and Harvard Law School for the middle son, Franklin
and Marshall College for the youngest. 

"He paid some real money in tuition - no financial aid!" laughs David. "I go
by my whole name - David Roy Eaton - because I'm proud of my father. And I
like it when people say, 'Hey! Do you know Roy Eaton?' I get that a lot
because he's pretty well-known in advertising circles."

Alice Tully Hall debut

In the late 1980s, the advertiser-turned-artist was far more motivated to
get the messages out than to promote himself as messenger.

"I was just reading today the review of a young pianist here in New York,
one of the Russian fire-breathers!" he chuckles. "That maybe was my attitude
when I was in my 20s. But I returned (to the piano) with a different
mind-set."

A radical mind-set, really. He followed his 1986 Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln
Center) debut with his first and still his most popular recording, The
Meditative Chopin (1987). Here, Eaton goes beyond the merely meticulous
playing that wins competitions.

And in true advertising fashion, he was ahead of a record-industry trend:
the one-size-fits-all compilations with catch-all "Mozart for Mood
Swings"-style titles.

"It was really sort of a daring idea at the time to call it The Meditative
Chopin. But I felt that title really summarized what I was getting from the
music and what wanted to share," he says.

An international seller - even more atypically, a moneymaker - Meditative
Chopin is often a music lover's first contact with Eaton's work. The
"calling card" has led to concert engagements, from guest appearances with
orchestras to solo recitals like his Kravis date.

"People hear something in the music they haven't heard before," explains
Eaton. "It's a stress releaser."

After the Meditative Chopin (Volume I in 1987, and II in 1989), came another
popular CD, The Joyful Joplin (1992), continuing Eaton's
music-with-a-message approach.

"You might say I'm on a crusade to put (1920s ragtime composer Scott) Joplin
back to where he wanted to be: in the classical canon!" says Eaton, who
started looking deeper into the so-called light-entertainment music about 10
years ago. "Despite the fact that Joplin's compositions had been largely
denigrated - actually, rag is almost a dirty word - this is music of a great
spiritual content."

At Sony label's Legacy Series, one artist becomes the "point person" for a
specific area of the repertoire. Eaton is Mister Joplin.

Gershwin also on program

Monday night, he plays six of Joplin's most famous turn-of-the-20th-century
classics, including The Entertainer, Maple Leaf Rag and Chrysanthemum. He
also returns to his favorite, Chopin, for a "prelude" program that weaves
six by Chopin into a similar number by African-American romanticist William
Grant Still, plus Bach.

Eaton also plays seven George Gershwin preludes, including four discovered
just a decade ago. He wonders aloud whether this might not be the regional
premiere of the complete set, which he also recorded on his newest CD,
24/7+7: The Complete Preludes of Chopin, Gershwin, Still (Summit Records,
2001).

As always, Eaton will comment on the music during the concert, giving his
impressions as well as facts about the composers.

But at 75, Eaton is in the midst of major new plans. Actually, he's well
into a third career - daddy, again, this time to 3-year-old twin boys with
his second wife, a nurse.

"And thank God - again! I didn't anticipate this as the blessing that it
is," he laughs. "But because of (the twins), I've just completed another
recording - all children's music."

The CD includes "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" (as Mozart's 12 Variations
in C on "Ah, vous dirai-je maman," K. 265/300e), Debussy's Children's Corner
Suite, Schumann's Scenes from Childhood and an Eaton original, A Child's
Christmas.

But try to imagine practicing when this one wants grape juice and that one
wants water - no, orange juice. No! Lemonade!

"I've managed to make my practicing a lot more efficient!" Eaton laughs.

He's having great fun in what he calls his own "second childhood," walking
the boys to nursery school, reading stories to them when he tucks them into
bed each night.

The youngsters are just reinforcing what Eaton has already experienced, he
says: "My message is, look at adversity for what it's worth, not the
temporary pain. Think steppingstone rather than stumbling block."