Thank You and Farewell to John Trexler

If you were never at the Carolina Renaissance Festival, you might not know John. Even if you were at the festival, chances are good you didn't know him, and if you did, maybe you didn't know him well. John was That Guy Who's Always There.

If I ever made a list of every musician on the Renfair circuit, and if I were morbid enough to put them in order of most to least likely to die next, I don't know who would have been first - but I know who would have been last. John Trexler had the most stable life I have ever known in a musician outside of a state symphony. I just can't resolve the fact that something catastrophic could ever pierce the gentle routine that made up his life. I seem to recall he created a tech company way back in the day that turned out to be extremely valuable to some larger tech company, and he'd eventually sold it and retired sometime in his forties. It allowed him the purchase of a nice house in a decent neighborhood that he never left, and something few musicians get: the time and money to pursue music very nearly to the degree that he wanted. That, and developing a vast collection of the worst puns in the business - and a penchant for snapping off new ones at every new turn of conversation - are the gifts he shared with us every day.

He was at Carolina every year, and every day of the season, including kid's days. He didn't have a big show or a big stage. In fact there's a good chance even if you were at Carolina you didn't see him the first time. But the second time, or third, you heard him, and if you heard him, you probably stopped. Everyone stopped for John at least once. John's specialty was the widest selection of unusual period and international instruments I've ever seen played at a Faire.

John wasn't a flashy guy. He wore black with a white shirt most of the time for his fair costume, and a period black felt hat. He hauled a large wicker basket out of the back of his hatchback every morning crammed with flutes, piccolos, bombard, recorders, oud, crumhorn, French bagpipes (gaida), Scottish pipes. Other things, stuff I don't even know he knew the names of. And, of course, the hurdy-gurdy. The only thing more amazing than the number of instruments he brought every day was the fact that he knew how to play every one of them. He wasn't a flashy guy, he just did amazing things.



You know what I mean. When you sat at the stage, the one in the woods walk that everyone passes, he gestured to the stage, on which were parked his cornucopia of sounds, and asked what you wanted to hear. Or what country you'd like to hear music from. And he played, and people all over stopped to look at what he had in his hands. John often didn't get his crowd from seats, he got them from people standing at the side of his stage, waiting for him to get done so they could ask him what that thing was called. And not all of them stayed, that time. But they would come back later, and like as not he was playing something new. Or finishing up a tune with some terrible, groan-worthy pun that would make his partner's eyes roll. He always turned over the stage to us with a graceful flourish and a few words of introduction, regardless if the audience was packed in or non-existent.



And he was always there. He played at everything, he played bagpipe at the front gate while the rest of us played opening music at the Minstrel's Roost, and when he was done he came and played with us: we'd be playing a tune and suddenly a bright flute would speak behind us, and there he'd be, John's graceful ornamentation floating above the tune, or playing right along. Then he went on and played for the Royal Court morning dance, on his way to his first set. When the Faire was over on Sundays, John encouraged us all to head to Ri-Ra down in Charlotte, and play Irish music together for the people there. And we were tired and sore, and sometimes cold and wet, but we all knew we were going anyway. A lot of times he didn't bother changing out of his black and white faire costume, he just stood in the back with his long wooden flute and augmented whatever Monty was whipping out of his mando, or Singleton sawed brilliantly on his fiddle. Bars always inhibited me, but John always made sure to ask if I wanted a drink, and got new people and stragglers to play by gently stepping off the stage and getting them to trade places with him. Shy people couldn't turn him down, so they'd end up on stage, caught up in the powerful river of music, whipping out the tunes with the rest of us, daring to experiment, flying by the seat of their pants in front of an audience, terrified and joyful.



I don't know anything about John's personal life. Like a lot of people who pursue music as an avocation, John's musical and personal lives didn't have a lot to do with each other. I do know he had a lot of friends in local musical communities, and more than most. John moved in the academic, Irish, and folk music circles of Charlotte for a long time, and I doubt there was anyone who hadn't at least seen him, an unassuming man in late middle age, in a neatly trimmed beard and an Oxford shirt. Every other year he threw a session at his home, too large to be an annual event in John's quiet life. Every group of musicians that he knew was invited, and it always looked like everyone came.

I still have last year's photos. I don't know what's going to happen to that house, or John's instruments, and I guess it doesn't matter. John's music, John's jokes, and John's joyful, puckish spirit are what leaves the hole, and so we'll do what we always do. We'll fill it with a space just for him, a space made up of good memories and old tunes and funny stories. Because no one leaves a hole in your heart when they leave, not unless they're doing something right.

Thanks, John.