Terry loved trucks (especially his, that he bought himself after winning big at a casino), gambling, getting manicures and pedicures, witchcraft, God, pagan festivals, scary movies, photography, watching WWF and cooking. He loved meeting people and could talk to anyone about anything. His greatest passion was playing the drums. His favorite drummer was probably Buddy Rich. He loved the opera and new age spiritual music and jazz. He played with hundreds of musicians over his lifetime. He had his own band called "Terry & The Pirates." He played in jam bands, blues bands, country, folk and rock bands, and had performed in just about every venue in the Greater Boston area and beyond. He was a regular at the many blues jams in the Cambridge, Somerville and Boston area. He worked in a variety of positions - taxi cab driver, cook, gardener, tow truck driver, nanny, and parking lot attendant to name just a few, and his last job was working for the parks department in the town of Hull, Ma, a position he told me really loved.
He was very close to his mother and was very sad by her death. I met Terry a couple of years after she passed away.
He often said to me "I have a memory like an elephant."
Though I didn't get to spend much time with Terry in the last ten years before his death, I did talk on the phone with him a lot. The last five years, he was living in a nursing home in Cohassatte, Ma. I started taking notes in the last year and a half of his life while he shared bits of his story.
Terry was born on June 25, 1955 , and died on May 8, 2019, at age 64.
INTERVIEW NOTES ON SOME OF THE HISTORY OF TERRY SURLES :
Terry's mother was Madeline Ruth Pervise (spelling?)
She was born in 1925 and died in 1988 at age 63. (Pancreatic cancer.)
She was raised in North Carolina and married 5 times.
First married John Surles. John was an accomplished banjo player and, though an alcoholic, basically a decent guy.
Madeline and John had three children.
The first child was Philip Surles. Philip was shot down and killed while spraying Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.
Their second child was Phyllis Rae Surles. Phyllis was murdered on Statton Island at the age of 26. The case was never solved.
Their third child was Terrence (Terry Hughes) Surles. (Born June 25, 1952.)
Not long before Terry was born, Madeline divorced John Surles and soon married Russell Hugh Hughes, who was in the Marine Core.
The new couple and 3 children moved to Manhattan and Ruth started studying for a nursing degree at Duke University.
She eventually got her nursing degree and started working for Catholic Charities. Madeline was a devout Catholic, attending church every Sunday.
At some point, Terry's father, John Surles, died from alcoholism (probably.)
Terry lived with his family in Manhattan from 1960 to 1967. He fondly remembers spending time with his step-Fathers parents (his step-Grandparents) Sam & Lillian Pigarelli.
Terry recalls sitting on a fire escape or in a small bathroom with Sam as they listened to Dodgers games on a transistor radio. He also remembers that one year Sam gave him a gift of a child's tool kit, and that Lillian was upset when she came home to a young Terry banging holes in the walls with his new tools. They were very loving to him.
Though Terry's step-father Russell was not an alcoholic, he began physically abusing his wife and her children. Madeline divorced him and moved away from NYC.
(Not sure where she moved to from there and if the two older children were with her, too. At some point later, Russell Hugh Hughes died from a heart attack.)
She next married a man named Leo Fayhee. Leo got in a fight in a bar one night and got thrown through a big window. He drowned in a pool of his own blood.
Husband number 4's name has yet to be re-called.
Last, Madeline married a Mr. McCarthy.
Madeline is buried in a plot at Woodlawn Cemetary in Malden, Ma next to her last husband, McCarthy.
Not sure if he died before her or after her.
(Second Interview)
In 1974, Terry was working in a restaurant in Boston. One day, some musicians came in. These guys had a band called "The Walnut Band," and they were planning on heading to Austin, Texas to play. They recruited Terry on the drums. Terry withdrew the $200 he had in his bank account and put it towards gas. They drove out to Austin in November of that year.
They all got jobs at Handy Andy's, a labor service, and rented a house on Zinnia Street (?) They would go food shopping at a local health food store. Nobody in the band drank very much, but they did smoke a lot of weed and did a lot of acid. The band played mostly covers from The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers and Bob Scaggs. The guitar player was from North Carolina and his name was Chuck Harris. Terry rented a storage bin and they rehearsed there. They got gigs in bars as well as block parties at Handy Andy's.
In Austin, Terry went to a bar called The One Night to see Johnny Winter perform with his band. After the show, Terry talked with Johnny for a while. He was hoping to get hired as his drummer, but he never got the gig.
At some point, the band made a recording of one original song and had it pressed into a 45. Terry says that it was in the juke box at The Plough & Stars in Cambridge, Ma.
Eventually, the band got kicked out of their rented home because of noise complaints from the neighbors. Terry said that he went outside in front of the house one night and played his trumpet really loudly, and that's kind of why they got the boot. Terry made friends with a woman at the health food store who was a concert pianist. He asked her if he could stay with her for a night or two until.. and she said sure. And he said, well, there are 7 of us. They stayed there for a little while, but eventually had to leave again. After almost a year, they all headed back to Boston.
During that time, Terry's mother Madeline was living in Boston and married to Leo Fahee (a heavy drinker.) Her last husband, McCarthy, also drank heavily. Madeline didn't drink or smoke ever.
(Third Interview)
When Terry was about 20 or 21 years old (about 1972) he was seeing a girl named Robin Thaultier (?spelling), who lived with her parents in Bedford, Ma. Terry would hitch hike out to see her from Boston.
Many times, as he set off to hitch hike back to the city, the same girl would pick him up at the same spot. He doesn't recall her name, but he does remember that she drove a Bel Air. She had a mattress in the back of her car, and they would drive to a private place by a pond and fool around.
Terry was always looking for work. One day he was walking in the town of Lexington, Ma on Peacock Farm Road. He saw a woman, who was about 45, standing in the doorway of her giant barn. Terry greeted her, and the two got to talking. Her name was Tonie Packard, and she was a wealthy divorcee. He eventually mentioned that he was out looking for work, and asked if she needed any help. She hired him as her "houseboy." He washed windows, swept the floors, made food and pulled stumps out of the ground with her tractor. In exchange, she gave him a small salary and a room. One night, the two of them were sitting in front of a fire in the fire place, cracking nuts and throwing the shells into the fire. Tonie turned to him at one point and asked him if he'd like to "join her in the boudoir." They had intimate relations several times before he moved on. He also fooled around in the giant swimming pool at the farm with another local girl who was also a live in nanny. While he was working for Tonie, he also worked for about a year at Mr. Flander's Nursery in Littleton, Ma. He really enjoyed that job. He also was able to set up his drum kit in Tonie Packard's barn and practice there.
After about a year staying at Tonie's, he moved on. He says that Tonie went "bat-shit crazy" after a few years.
(End of interviews) -------------
While Terry was working his last job at the Hull Parks Dept., he was living with a woman named Pam.
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