Robert Lee Watt
June 29, 2017
Makeisha Madden Toby
ROBERT LEE WATT didn’t allow racial stereotypes and the low expectations of others to hold him back. From the beginning, the classical musician used that negativity as his fuel to excel.
In The Black Horn: The Story of Classical French Hornist Robert Lee Watt, he has narrated his fascinating journey. The
fourth of seven children, Watt grew up in poverty in New Jersey and
became the first black French hornist hired by a major US Symphony,
spending 37 years with the LA Philharmonic.
Watt, 69, first heard the French horn as a kid, in the William Tell
Overture — and knew that he’d found his calling. Although he came from a
musical family — Watt’s father played the trumpet, his mother piano —
he did not have much support. The senior Watt didn’t approve or
understand his son’s interest in the French horn. “It’s an instrument
for thin-lipped white boys,” Watt remembers his father saying. “Your
lips are too thick for that narrow mouthpiece.”
That didn’t deter him. His musical passion eventually gave Watt access to a world of possibilities: he’s traveled the globe, learned to pilot a plane … and he isn’t shy about revealing his sportsman-like dalliances with myriad
women — sections which could have benefited from stricter editing. He
also shares stories of his friendship with jazz trumpet great Miles
Davis.
The Black Horn is candid and often humorous. Watt’s stories of transcending racial and class discrimination are especially edifying. In chapter 24, for instance, he details
an encounter with the dean of the New England Conservatory of Music,
who had just learned that the LA Phil wanted to hire Watt. “[He] looked
at me with that typical surprised, wide-eyed and trembling lips look that older white people typically give a black person when said black person significantly exceeds their expectations,” he writes.
I caught up with Watt at a Starbucks not far
from his home in Baldwin Hills to talk about how he made it through
despite the pushback, his tempestuous relationship with his father, and
the future of African Americans in classical music.
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MEKEISHA MADDEN TOBY: Yours was an unlikely path for a black kid in the ’60s, but in the book you talk about all of these people in your life who helped you — your guardian angels, including your high school assistant superintendent, who’s like a character out of Dickens’s Great Expectations.
ROBERT LEE WATT: Donald Smith — that
was his name. He believed in me. He’s still there in the area. Maybe
I’ll see if I can find him when I go back at the end of the month. I
think he’s still alive. It’s worth a check.
I’m still in touch with Bledsoe [a childhood friend who encouraged
him]. He went into the Merchant Marines. He’s my sandbox buddy from the
old days. I studied French horn with Harry Shapiro [the Boston
Symphony’s principal hornist] at the New England Conservatory, and
he was very paternal to me, and lived to the age of 100. There were a
lot of people looking out for me.
Still, you had to overcome a lot of racism and racist remarks, which you capture very well in the book — like finding out you were being called “Boston Blackie” behind your back not long after you arrived in Los Angeles. Were those moments cathartic to write about?
It was cathartic, and it was a good writing exercise. I had to show the reader why something was racist without using the word racist. Show it, don’t tell it. Those were my big writing lessons.
The things people would say to your face were equally appalling, like, “Your lips are too thick to play the French horn.” Do you cringe when you think about those remarks?
It’s what they believed — and it wasn’t just white people.
My father said it to me first. They had these old ideas and, in his
defense, he didn’t know any black French horn players. These ideas were
stuck in their heads and they dumped them on their kids.
Then I went to high school, and the white band director said the same
thing — he had also taught my father in high school. But he ended up
being the guy who helped me the most. He bought a new instrument for me
through the high school, so I could really play. But eventually, I had
to get my own.
I took my instrument home every day and there were these privileged
white kids who lived across the lake from the school and got to ride the
bus, and they didn’t bother to take their instruments home — when the band director found that out, he let them have it.
Like me, most of the black kids had to walk a mile to school, or get
there however they could, from the west side. So many kids had to do
that and worse. It’s so important for young people to hear these stories
and know they can persevere. It doesn’t matter where you start off.
It’s where you end up if you really want it.
Going back to your dad: Did he see you as a rival?
A lot of people say black men of that generation had a hard time
complimenting their kids, and he was always very critical of us. He had a
very condescending posture and, in a way, he resented my strength and
independence as much as he admired it.
Growing up, he was denied so much, so there was a quasi-envy, and
when he missed my Boston Pops performance, it made me bitter at him for a
long time. But he lived until he was 82 and, before he died, I forgave
him. He served a purpose. I had a father.
In chapter 42, you share a fond memory of your father and brothers saving your life during a fishing trip. So he wasn’t a complete monster.
He had his moments. I think he wanted to support me, but I took this
gift away from him. He ran out of his audition at Juilliard because he
got frustrated — he wasn’t classically trained and didn’t know
what the technical terms meant. When I became an adult, we played music
together.
In contrast, you depict your mom as a saint — a woman who put
newspaper in her shoes to walk through the snow to send you a money
order while you were away at school. How much of a role did she play in
the man you became?
She worried about me and wanted to make sure I never went hungry.
They say when your mother dies you get over it but that connection never
dies. It’s so powerful.
My mother used to feed the little kids next door — and we barely had enough — but she shared with those kids. A few summers ago, I saw a homeless woman without shoes and I could hear my mother saying: Poor thing. Give her your shoes. You have plenty others.
I gave her the old Crocs I was wearing. That’s what my mom wanted me to
do. She was so generous and my father was so selfish. I hope I have
more of my mother’s genes.
Your self-description is equally fascinating. In one part of
the book, you describe yourself as a “poor, nobody kid from a cold-water
flat on Springwood Avenue.” How have you overcome that image?
That was my self-image, but I don’t feel that way anymore. There were
people who made me feel that way to keep me in my place. There has
always been a part of me that felt like: How do you like me now? I’m playing at Carnegie Hall. My
mother was proof that class doesn’t come from money. She was so poised
and carried herself in a way that commanded respect. That’s where I got
my class.
You talk a lot about your sexual conquests, but the teenage
romance between you and Leslie is one of the best parts of the book. She
was your first love and someone who inspired you to be a better student
and person. Have you stayed in touch with her?
She was my high school sweetheart — but I changed her name
in the book. She’s in Maitland, Florida. She never married, and went
into mental health. We met up in New York 10 or 12 years ago. She looks
the most like I remember than anybody else I knew in high school.
Why do you think you never got married or had children of your own? Were you having too much fun?
That’s part of it. I also grew up as one of seven kids, so I’ve
always valued my space. I like kids and they like me, but for some
reason I never ended up with any. I look around and there are so many
people who should’ve just left [marriage and children] alone because
they make a mess of people’s lives. It’s beautiful, and if it would’ve
happened I would have been totally immersed.
