Article published Jun 11, 2006
Milford music fan dances to his own tune
By STEPHANIE HOOPER, Telegraph Staffshooper@nashuatelegraph.com
MILFORD – It’s Friday afternoon, and James Cassidy is sitting in his studio apartment, flipping through a photo album.
“That’s the Opposites Attract,” says Cassidy, 63, pointing to an old picture of the rock ’n’ roll duo as they performed at the now defunct White Horse Inn.
Cassidy’s hands move quickly as he continues to flip through the album, causing the silver ID bracelet on his left wrist to jangle about.
Engraved on the bracelet are the words “Major Motion,” a cherished nickname given to Cassidy, who is developmentally disabled, long ago by the members of another band – and the name he is most known by.
“And here is me with Savoy Truffle,” he says, flipping to another old snapshot.
In the photo, Cassidy, a white electric guitar slung over his shoulder, beams as he stands on a small stage among the four members of the Seacoast band known these days simply as Truffle.
Although he never learned to play it, Cassidy still has the guitar that the band’s members gave to him that night at the White Horse, a birthday gift acknowledging his status as a special Milford musician.
Truffle is easily Cassidy’s favorite among the several local bands and musicians with whom he has been known to get up and sing a blues standard or two in the last 20 years.
In fact, it’s a rare day when you can go to see Truffle playing anywhere in Greater Nashua without “The Major” turning up at the microphone or hamming it up on the dance floor with one of his signature moves, such as “the Buzzsaw.”
The band, which will play at the Nashua Garden on Friday night, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, about 18 years of which Cassidy has been a celebrated local guest singer.
“I’m not that bad,” said Cassidy, describing his singing as a mixture of Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley.
The over-the-top description is tempered with Cassidy’s self-deprecating sense of humor, according to those who know him and have heard him sing.
For Truffle bassist David Bailey, Cassidy’s singing style is best described as “indescribable.”
“The audiences who appreciate his particular brand of art the most are the ones who are willing to suspend preconceived notions and meet him on his own terms,” Bailey said.
Hometown crowds have traditionally been the best for that, according to the band’s members.
“He is somewhat of a legend,” Truffle guitarist and frontman Dave Gerard said, echoing the words of many Milford area folks who know the man called “Major.”
“He is certainly one of a kind.”
But for most of his friends, it isn’t the singing that’s so endearing about Cassidy, but rather his “heart of gold” and his sincere desire to be liked.Long journey Typically decked out in a sport coat and tie, fingers dripping with his collection of silver and gold rings, Cassidy can often be found hanging with friends and drinking sodas at weekend music venues such as the Pasta Loft in Milford, where he’s an ambassador of sorts.
“He comes in, talks to people, shakes hands,” owner Terry Connor said. “We take care of him. He just wants to hang out and be part of the crowd.”
And while his rendition of “Kansas City” may be a bit loud and off key sometimes, if there’s anything James Cassidy loves to do, it’s sing. And if there’s anything he knows, it’s the blues.
For, despite all the friends he has made joking around with local bands and their fans, there was a time when Cassidy had few friends and very little to laugh at.
Born in the 1940s with schizophrenia, compounding his disability, Cassidy learned early on that life could sometimes be anything but fair.
While his five brothers would lead “normal” lives, all attending Milford High School and most going on to start families, Cassidy’s condition, and the limited knowledge of it at the time, sent his life on a very different, often difficult and lonely path.
“He wasn’t treated very well when he was young because people didn’t understand, they just thought he was a problem child,” said Larry Cassidy of Lyndeborough, one of Cassidy’s older brothers.
“Today, there is much more compassion and interest in people who have sicknesses like that. They understand a lot better, and they also know there are things that can be done about it.”A life of his own On a wall ledge behind the twin bed where James Cassidy sits, an army of about 35 wrestling figures stands poised for action. James, an avid wrestling fan, said he began the collection about 15 years ago, just about the time his life was changing.
Bowling trophies line another wall, and across the room, on yet another wall, a poster, made by Larry Cassidy’s daughter, Lisa Cassidy, provides instructions for the week.
Each day starts with the reminder to “Take pills,” before further instructions to “Do laundry” or “Take a shower.”
Thursday starts with an encouraging “You’re over the hump!” and at the end of the week, the message, “We all love you.”
“He is doing great today compared to 20 years ago,” Larry said.
Cassidy credits the work of James’ Nashua psychiatrist, Dr. Hisham Hafez – locally renowned for his work in the study and treatment of mental illness – for vastly improving his brother’s life.
Through Hafez and others, James was able to get the right combination of medicines and other treatment that allow him to have a more active and meaningful life, Larry said. James has been very involved in his own treatment, too.
“He is very aware. He doesn’t miss any of his medication,” Larry said. “He lines it all up for the week, and he knows what he is taking and what it is for.”
Larry and his daughter, a nurse, have been James’ main caregivers in the last 10 years and especially since 2003, when James and Larry’s mother, Irene, died at age 90.
“She got me this place, right, Larry?” James asked his brother when the subject of his mother came up.
“Yes, she did,” Larry replied.
Irene Cassidy had noticed something different about her fourth son early on, Larry said, and had been the one to take him for the tests that confirmed his mental condition.
After she retired at age 78, Larry said his mother, together with his daughter, worked to get James into senior housing, something he thinks helped their mother let go when it was time.
“I remember her saying once that just like it was her responsibility to bring Jim into the world, it was her responsibility to take care of him as long as she could,” Larry said.
Up until that time, James had lived with her at her home in Mont Vernon.
“She took care of him all the time, even when nobody else understood,” Larry said. “And I can remember a note that she left us to please be kind to Jim. She just wanted to make sure that everybody understood, and she wanted to make sure that people treated Jim properly.”
But there was nothing Irene Cassidy could do to help James during the first 20 years of his adult life, when the lack of good treatment for his condition led him to be institutionalized, incarcerated and so drugged up, all he could do was sleep.
“I was out of it, I didn’t know where I was for a few years,” James said of the time.
James spent the first eight of his adult years locked away and heavily sedated in the state mental hospital in Concord, a place his brother described as a human warehouse.
“It was like a scene out of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ in there, it really was,” Larry Cassidy said.
“Nowadays, there are only real hard cases there, but when Jim was there, the place was full.”
Shortly after his release from the hospital in the late 1960s, James’ untreated condition landed him in the state prison for about two years, an experience he described as terrifying and depressing.
“They got murderers up there and bank robbers,” James said. “I was scared. . . . I prayed a lot.”
Eventually, James was released to live with his mother, but by then it was the early 1970s, and he was in his 30s.
Even then, James’ agreeable personality had rubbed off on those around him.
“I remember the day I went to pick him up, all the guards shook his hand,” Larry Cassidy said. “They all liked him. It wasn’t just one or two.”
Once home, James – still without good treatment – lived in a sedated fog for the next eight years, sleeping what he and his brother estimated to be more than 15 hours a day.
“I was depressed,” James said.
In the early 1980s, Hafez’s treatment would still be more than a decade away, and James, although grateful to be with family, was living a lonely existence as he coped with his illness at his mother’s home.
As he slept, James could never have dreamed that a chance meeting he would soon have with a local musician on a Wilton street corner would help to transform him from a recluse into a social butterfly.Born to rock “He’s a natural-born rock ‘n’ roller,” said Tom Hurley of Francistown, lead guitarist of the Wilton-based Rockabilly Brothers.
It was Hurley who, while selling tickets for an upcoming performance, bumped into Cassidy on the street in Wilton that day and asked him to come see the show.
The band, which performs only sporadically these days, was a regular act in the Souhegan Valley music scene in the 1980s.
“He said, ‘Sounds good. I’ll be there,’ and he was, for the next 10 years,” Hurley said.
Cassidy showed up at every gig, working himself into a frenzy on the dance floor, prompting Hurley to borrow from a Nissan commercial of the time and name him Major Motion.
“I gave him that name because he had such a unique dancing style,” Hurley said, referring to Cassidy’s intense grooving method.
And it wasn’t long afterward that James was up on the stage, as well.
Cassidy said he never gave singing a thought until Hurley and the other members of the band asked him to give it a try.
“I said, ‘I can’t sing.’ They said, ‘You’re on next,’ ” Cassidy said, explaining how he proceeded to get up and belt out the chorus to “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”
“They all said I was good,” Cassidy said.
Eventually, Hurley began giving Cassidy rides to the band’s gigs, picking him up at his mother’s home in Mont Vernon.
Even then, Cassidy would dress up for the gigs, Hurley said, always wearing a suit, his fingers covered in his trademark rings.
“It gave him a lift, it was something for him,” Hurley said. “His life was really kind of dull at that time.”
Cassidy’s relationship with the band led him to the White Horse Inn, where soon he would begin singing with other bands, including Truffle.
Eventually, White Horse owners Larry and Maryann Miller noticed him and asked him if he wanted a weekend job as a dishwasher.
Cassidy said yes, and was soon washing dishes with 17-year-old Scott Smith, who in time would become good friends with his curious co-worker.
“He was already ‘The Major’ at that time,” said Smith, now 36 and an attorney in Florida.
“He was like a mini-celebrity. I thought he was a little crazy at first, but also very nice.”
Smith described how Cassidy would rush off from the dishes on a Friday night to dress up and go mix with the crowd on the other side of the kitchen.
The club scene and all its hip-ness was the highlight of his week, Smith said.
“Even though a lot of people didn’t view him as the coolest person in the world, he would keep trying,” Smith said.
“Some bands were afraid to let him sing, because they were worried how people would react, but eventually, the crowd would start asking for him,” Smith said. “They liked him, and that was something he did on his own.”
John Magoon of Amherst, guitarist for the former Bat Magoon Band, met Cassidy at the White Horse, as well.
“He immediately asked me if he could sing,” Magoon said, adding that Cassidy soon muscled his version of “Shake, Rattle and Roll” into his set, as well.
“It is kind of a band’s fate,” Magoon joked. “If you don’t let him sing, he doesn’t like your band.”
Most nights, though, Cassidy was on the floor, giving his all, Magoon said, sometimes to the point of passing out.
“He would be out there doing the Curly Shuffle,” Magoon said with a laugh. “They would have to get him a chair, tell him to calm down.”
Cassidy would often goof around with a fake guitar while singing with bands, Smith said, leading to the members of Truffle giving him a real one for his birthday.
“We put a Truffle sticker on it, and it looked pretty cool,” Truffle guitarist Ned Chase recalled.
After presenting the guitar to him on the stage, Chase said the members of the band pondered whether to plug it in to an amplifier.
“Major didn’t play guitar,” Chase explained. “Never even tried, as far as I know.
“But in the spirit of fun, we plugged the thing in and turn the amp up loud.”
For the next song, Chase said Cassidy danced and sang with the guitar strapped around his neck, using it as a prop, but never attempting to play it.
“Then at some point, somebody says, ‘Major, play that thing,’ and suddenly this amazing, gut-bucket electrified Delta blues sound comes screaming out of the amp,” Chase said. “The guys in the band are all freaking out, as Major seems to be channeling John Lee Hooker and Hound Dog Taylor, and of course the crowd goes nuts.”
Such funny stories are what each of James’ friends and family share, because humor has always been a major part of The Major.
“You are laughing at him, but you are also laughing with him,” Magoon said. “It doesn’t matter, he is having fun.”Social circle Since the 1980s, James has only grown closer to the hearts of the friends he has made through local music.
Since then, he has served hamburgers at Truffle’s yearly barbecue, has watched Boston Red Sox baseball with Magoon, bowls regularly – always in a suit and tie – and is a regular dinner guest of Sheila Asselin, Smith’s mother, who uses his favorite dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes to check up on him.
As Asselin and others can attest, James never forgets a birthday and sends cards for even the smallest of holidays.
His friends return his sentiments by adding to his enormous keychain, a building collection of trinkets and other souvenir keychains given to him by friends who have thought of him on their travels.
“He is just so happy,” said his niece Lisa Cassidy, 40, of Milford. “It’s like he has come full circle.”
With time, so has his supply of dancing partners, said Magoon, who sometimes runs into him at the Pasta Loft.
“I will usually find him sitting at some table surrounded by pretty women,” he said. “They like to dance with him.”
The Major doesn’t argue the point.
“I am the greatest. I rule the floor,” he jokes.
“When I go up and ask someone to dance and they say, ‘I can’t dance,’ I say, ‘That’s what I am here for, I’ll make you good. But don’t even try to do what I do, ’cause I got the moves.’ ”
As Truffle’s biggest fan, James has traveled as far as Vermont and Rhode Island to see them play. This week, he will pay the $25 cab fare to see them play at the Nashua Garden on Main Street, and, like many occasions, will probably hitch a ride back to Milford with Truffle drummer Mike Gendron.
And as long as he can make it to the occasional Truffle gig, Cassidy doesn’t see his singing career changing in the future, either.
“A lot of people like to see me perform, and I am not going to deny them,” he said.
Stephanie Hooper can be reached at 594-6413 or shooper@nashuatelegraph.com.
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