IN MEMORY
HAROLD “BIG POPPA BEACH” ALVERSON
It took me a while. I still struggle almost daily, to wrap my mind around this great feeling of loss and of love, and of deep gratitude that overwhelms me when I think of my buddy – Big Poppa Beach. I’m sure this will be a continuing story.
Can you explain MAGIC?...that phenomenon where something suddenly exists, seemingly out of thin air? Well, I can’t either, though I’ve experienced it.
Big Poppa Beach, my friend, my cohort, my confidant. Musically, sometimes, it was as if we were one.
It went something like this:
“Is this Harold?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Joe Chambers. Ed and I are putting the band back together and we wanted to know if you’d be interested in playing a little music. This time we’re only gonna play Beach. We want to have a strong emphasis on our own stuff. You interested?”
“Yeah. When you getting together?”
“Been doing it on Tuesdays at Hammer’s on Painter Road, but we’re pretty flexible. Our sister, Squirrel, is singing with us and LeeAnn Fant, too. We really want to have a strong vocal group.”
“What time?”
“Around 7-7:30.”
“I’ll be there.”
The rest, so they say, is history. Over the next 4-5 years, we wrote, sang, laughed, and played, and yes, it was MAGIC. I may or may not write the so many stories of it all, but I have been blessed by the experience.
Big Pop, Ed, and I wrote many songs together and it was sometimes spooky the way we were always on the same page. We’d write a song and start putting in fills and back-up and it seemed every one knew what the others were thinking. Magic? I don’t know, but it was close.
I did and always will love this man. He was more that the music and then again, he was the music. I guess the Good Lord needed a great keyboard player, so he called Big Pop up. Forgetting Big Pop is out of the question. I’m gonna always remember him.
