37 years of music and memories: A tribute to Paul Surratt
My entire spring break in 1984 was spent running around the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood taking photos for a college class. The sites were many, including the remains of a demolished commercial building, a park bench, a bus bench, alongside my apartment’s pool, an upscale home in the hills, a bar in another home far from mine and a restaurant front on Ventura Boulevard. The characters in the photos were depicted by my then-boyfriend Paul, who portrayed the dual roles of businessman and homeless man.
The assignment was straightforward enough — tell a story with slide photos and music. When I mentioned it to Paul a few weeks before spring break, he immediately suggested I “lay it down on video,” a painstaking process of transferring slides to three-quarter-inch videotape followed by laborious editing so the images would be sync with the song. Paul sold me on the video version by painting a dire picture of my presentation ending in embarrassment when either the music would run out before the slides or having to cut off the song because there were no more photos. Such potential humiliation struck a chord with this college freshman’s tender ego, so I decided to take the much-less-easy route of creating a video.
Eager to learn new skills that far exceeded the curriculum of this lower-division general education course — and perhaps wanting to please my older boyfriend who was already running his own video company — I ran the idea by my project classmate and the professor. He’d never had a group propose such an undertaking but was willing to give us the opportunity.
Just before leaving campus for spring break, each group reached into a container and picked a presentation date. Suddenly, the weight of this endeavor went from class project to dissertation as we chose the worst-possible date: the first class session after spring break.
Having spent the past few weeks figuring out how we were going to do the project, we hadn’t yet taken a single photo. I was overwhelmed. But reverting to the original class assignment was out of the question, at least in my mind. We were going to do this even if it meant skipping some shifts at the video store where I worked and getting no break from thinking about college.
How we produced this three-minute video without the luxury of pagers, cell phones and email is nearly incomprehensible but somehow Paul accompanied me to every location, dressed up as I dictated and even drove me to his friend’s multimedia lab in Orange County to do the slide transfers and video editing. The classmate tagged along until mid-week but was ultimately unwilling to put in the dozens of hours required. Needless to say, we got an “A” on the project.
What remains to this day is a VHS tape titled, “Reality: A False Perception” that only I really seem to comprehend despite having shown it to many people over the years. (Due to the copyrighted music, I can’t post it here.)
I recount this story because it speaks volumes about Paul L. Surratt Jr., who peacefully left the planet on March 14, 2020. He was the ultimate friend, willing to give practically anything to help someone he loved and never wanting repayment. He was the inventive type, willing to push creative boundaries. He was a self-made man who inspired you to be the best version of yourself.
First and foremost, Paul was a musician who dreamed of making a living writing songs, singing and playing the banjo and guitar. As a teen in Greenville, South Carolina, he played in a well-respected folk group called The Shilos. Paul and his band mates crossed paths with Gram Parsons, who joined the group, and after Paul’s high school graduation in 1965, the group took off for New York City to try to break into the folk music scene.
The Vietnam War was raging and ultimately ruined the group’s plans. Knowing that his draft number was soon to come up, Paul set aside his music plans and enlisted in the Navy in 1966, where he spent nearly four years, assigned to the USS Coral Sea aircraft carrier. After his honorable discharge in 1970, he settled in Los Angeles to make another go of his music career.
With a group called Darius, Paul recorded some songs at Capitol Records but the record company cancelled its “single deal” before anything was released. Paul was allowed to keep the 16-track tapes, which a Navy buddy of Paul’s sent me a few years ago and I will always cherish. There were different incarnations of the group and at one point, Paul even played The Troubadour, a famous music club in West Hollywood. Later, Paul helped form a group called Rockville Junction, which recorded an album with 20th Century Records in 1974 called “Lord Protect Me From My Friends.” Every budding musical artist has a day job and Paul’s was working at Bullock’s department store near UCLA, where his best friend was in film school.
Moving on from his dream of becoming the next John Phillips (who was a friend of Paul’s) he started his own video archiving business in his cluttered apartment, which eventually moved to a real office. In more recent years, his business included a massive vault containing a vast library of two-inch videotapes going back to the early days of TV, in addition to his cherished TV Guide collection. Clips from these shows were frequently used on shows like “Entertainment Tonight” as well as some documentaries that Paul produced.
He also formed a non-profit called the Archives of Music Preservation, which he’d hoped to turn into museum one day. Alas, those plans never materialized because there never seemed to be enough time to get it off the ground, due to the long hours he devoted to his company. Paul’s car, with its “Save TV” license plate and littered with empty coffee and iced tea cups, was often parked outside his office until the wee hours. As every one of his friends would attest, Paul was not a morning person.
We shared many good times together during the two and a half years we dated, followed by another 34 years of friendship. We attended each other’s weddings, went to a Ringo Starr concert together shortly after my mother died and kept in touch as best we could even when our lives went in different directions: Paul continuing to build his business and me becoming a mother and working as a newspaper reporter, then a journalism professor. He came to my son’s bar mitzvah and four years later, in 2012, was planning to attend my daughter’s bat mitzvah when he was stricken with a massive heart attack while at home. His roommate, Gandulf, found Paul and immediately summoned the paramedics. Although Paul was brought back to life, his brain was permanently damaged, leaving him unable to work again and needing constant care-giving.
Seeing Paul in those first few months was very difficult. I would hold in my tears then cry on my way home. But I vowed to stick by him because I knew he would have done the same for me. Once his voice came back, he fortunately still had his charming Southern accent and gentle ways that I believe had once helped him gain entry into the offices of so many powerful people in the TV and music industries in L.A. Although we couldn’t carry on a conversation any longer, Paul and I connected through watching music videos. During our monthly visits, I gave him the choice of artists he’d like to see that day on my laptop: The Carpenters, The Kingston Trio, The Beatles, Bread, Michael Jackson or some of the music Paul himself recorded.
After he’d choose, I’d watch in amazement as he quietly sang the words, song after song. Every now and then, a sentence or two from the “old Paul” would surface and my heart would be warmed even more. We’d end every visit with a series of selfies taken with funny filters.
On occasion, his closest friends took Paul to concerts (Paul McCartney, John Prine, The Kingston Trio, the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest and the 50th anniversary of The Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album) and the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A., followed by a meal at The Pantry, an old-school diner that Paul introduced me to in the early ’80s.
Twice we went to see elaborately carved pumpkins in October because Halloween was his favorite holiday. Richard Carpenter, who worked with Paul on a Carpenters compilation video in the mid-1980s, attended his 70th birthday party at a favorite Italian restaurant in the Valley.
Paul and the friend group attended several “Thanksgiving Fridays” at my home. When there wasn’t anything special happening, we’d all gather for an early dinner so we could see Paul and just be together. His entourage included another ex-girlfriend and the woman he was dating at the time he had the heart attack. On occasion, his two former wives visited him.
The last time my husband saw him was in late December, when we stopped by with a homemade birthday cake that turned out funky but it didn’t matter.
I will greatly miss our individual visits and the group dinners, which helped me through the devastating loss of my Dad five years ago. Being around Paul always made me feel better — before and after his heart attack. Paul had an incredible impact on my life and I know I will never have another friend like him. While I deeply grieve his passing, I am grateful we shared a lot more time together these past eight years.
Rest in peace, my dear Paul. You made the world a better place with your music and friendship.
