Ed McMichael – The Tuba Guy
November 4, 2008 by john
2 Comments »
Dammit. Ed was a gentle, kind guy. He was also a little strange. And he was a guy that I really appreciated simply for being such an unabashed supporter of Seattle sports. I’ll miss his silly dancing, strange humor, and boundless enthusiasm. I got to know Ed about ten years ago when I was writing an article on Seattle’s better-known street musicians (which is also when I became a friend of Richard Peterson). It sickens me to think he was killed for pocket change. Godspeed, friend. May your tuba echo in the heavens.
Posted in: Gallimaufrey
I met Ed back around 1974 when we both played in the UW Coomencement band. (They used a lot of freelancers-for-hire in those days.) He asked me how much my clarinet case cost(!!??) and then proceeded to tell me about the high prices of tuba cases. Odd, humorous, and all said in that deliberate, basso voice. He was a kick, and truly a humble, sweet guy once I got to know him. Terrible, terrible shame!
I could go on with stories about Ed, but one of my favorite memories of him is the time a friend and I ran into him at Seattle Center during our lunch hour. Ed and I started chatting and catching up. He was relating the experience of dealing with someone who annoyed him; in doing so he was imitating the other speaker as well as providing his own response. At one point he was recounting his part of the conversation and added “…and you can tell by the way I’m changing my voice I was being sarcastic.” Except Ed never changed his voice. Ever. And then he laughed about it.
Ed had the flattest conversational tone of anyone I’ve ever known (based on other things I know about him, I don’t think he could modulate his voice). You nailed it by describing it as “deliberate basso”. I will always think of him warmly. He had a heart of gold.