Kinston musician Dick Knight has toured with some of the biggest names in soul, jazz and R&B – James Brown, Patti Labelle, Dionne Warwick. Today, at 81 years old, he’s still performing.
Wearing a white captain’s outfit and light-up sneakers, Knight took the stage Thursday night at the Kinston-Lenoir Public Library for a free, community concert. The room was filled with fans of music from the '50s and '60s, eager to hear Knight cover some of their favorite tunes. On the set list are some of the biggest hits from the artists he toured with: "Autumn Leaves" by Miles Davis; "Please, Please, Please" by James Brown; "Easy (Like Sunday Morning)" by Commodores and Lionel Richie; and "(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding.
Knight played first trumpet for the James Brown Band in his early 20s. At the concert Thursday, he switched seamlessly between solo trumpet [trumpet audio] and saxophone [saxophone audio]. He also played keyboard and sang vocals.
Travel Noel rushed from choir practice to attend the concert.
“I came to hear him. I enjoy him. I came to hear him sing and I love James Brown," Noel said. "It was very nice hearing oldies that they made back in 1956. That was wild.”
Born in 1943 in Georgia to a father who sang the blues and a mother who played organ at church, Dick Knight ended up in Kinston by chance. After graduating from Florida A&M with a degree in music education, the college helped secure him a position as band director at Savannah High School in Grifton. In between songs, Knight told stories from his past, including meeting Nat Jones, Maceo Parker and Melvin Parker.
Knight hadn’t heard of Kinston before arriving, but when he arrived the city was booming cultural capital. Some of the nation’s leading jazz and soul artists called the city home.
Here, he briefly overlapped with Nat Jones, a saxophonist hired to direct the James Brown Band. Jones needed someone to fill a spot and called Knight.
"He said 'Dick Knight do you want to be a trumpet player for the James Brown Band? Well meet me at the Apollo Theater Friday evening,'" Knight said, adding the call came on a Wednesday and he had no cash to make it to New York. "I can't get there. I can't walk. He said 'I'll get you a ticket.'"
Over the next few years, Knight toured the U.S. and Europe, playing for artists like Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. Eventually he returned home to Kinston and settled in as a band director for Lenoir County Schools. Some of his students were in the crowd last week, like Joe Askew.
“I met him in High School when he was at Savannah High School. Nat Jones was the band director and I played in clubs with him, and Dick was playing everywhere," Askew said. "I wanted to learn how to phrase my music for jazz and rock and stuff like that, and so he taught me.”
Today, at 81 years old, Knight is still performing. Mostly at clubs and hotels along the coast. I spoke to him after the concert about why he still performs.
"Because it's all I love," he said. "I don't like no water. I don't like no whiskey. I don't like women too much no more. I love music."
