This is the day that he introduces them to Bazooka, the “funky monkey” that lives inside his drum, the hero, in 30 minute adventure in a narrative that allows Davidson to work in a number of children’s standards like “B-I-N-G-O” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
And with the exception of the little boy who was dying to tell Mister Pete that he had a guitar just like that at home, the children sit in rapt attention, acting out the monkey parts along with him and singing nice and loud, even if they weren’t sure of all the words.
His ongoing tour of Head Start centers across Butler County comes courtesy of the Fitton Center for Creative Arts’ Arts In Common program, whose mission is to bring creative arts of all genres to people who normally wouldn’t think to step into an arts center for a class.
“Mister Pete has become a persona, a character,” he said later over a large ice tea and a lunch from Wendy’s value menu. “I mean, it’s me, but when I’m in a store and hear ‘Hey, Mister Pete,’ I know it’s one of my Head Start kids.”
Although he played in many rock bands through the years, Davidson said he’s never felt the kind of satisfaction he gets being a rock star for preschoolers because it gives him a chance to change lives.
“My theme song is ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ” he said. “I start almost every session with it.
“Last October, I said to a kid across the carpet, ‘You are my what?’ and went around the circle like that. I got to this one little girl and she buried her head in the teacher’s shoulder and whispered, ‘Sunshine.’
“The teacher told me later that child had some bad separation anxiety and clung to her mother and cried every day. Her first words in class came out of that song.
“I feel like this is my thing,” he said. “I like being on the stage and this feeds my ego, but it’s a little deeper than playing in a wedding band. There’s more goodness to this. “
“This,” Mister Pete said, “is my calling.”
Bringing the arts to the masses
When the Fitton Center for Creative Arts opened its doors in 1992, the founders set the elusive goal of providing the arts to everyone in the area, no matter what their social or economic status.
Knowing that many people would lack the money for classes and transportation, or would be intimidated by walking into a fancy arts center, they decided to start an arts outreach program to go out to the community.
That impulse turned into Arts In Common, funded through a partnership with local government, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, according to Henry Cepluch, a retired public school teacher who has been running the program since around 1999.
“Those government funds aren’t available to us anymore, so we have to rely on private contributions,” he said, “and for the past three years, it’s mostly been the Carruthers family keeping the program alive.”
But precarious funding hasn’t kept Cepluch and his stable of artist/educators from blanketing Butler County with art and music.
Presently, Arts In Common has a presence at all 18 Head Start classrooms in Butler County, after-school art classes at the Central YMCA., 25-cent art lessons at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton and three different Sojourner Home recovery facilities and a smattering of other locations.
“(We’re) looking to find places to hold classes in other parts of the city,” Cepluch said, “like Lindenwald, the area around Adams School, the North End.”
Who has the chops
Shortly after Cepluch came aboard, he reached out to Pete Davidson, a drummer and drum teacher who played in many area bands and came close to a major label recording contract with the band Uncle Six before it disintegrated.
“I knew he was a musician, but after a couple of weeks I went to check in on him and saw how wonderful he was with the kids,” Cepluch said. “So I sent him to some teenagers and he was wonderful with them. No matter who you threw at him, he was wonderful.”
Davidson said his first gigs for the Fitton Center was doing drum circles and music camps.
“Then I had the idea to do children’s music, not just drumming but performing and educating and went to Henry with it,” he said.
After a year of a “mommy and me” style class at the Fitton Center that never really took off, Cepluch and Davidson reached out to Head Start.
“We offered them, ‘The Mister Pete Show’ for free, All they had to do was let me come in,” he said.
His work there has a dual purpose, he said. First, to help the Head Start teachers with whatever lessons they’re working on, whether it’s simply getting the children acclimated to being in a classroom environment or learning their colors.
Secondly, “I try to get them ready to play music, to help them gain control of their bodies so that they can begin to learn a musical instrument,” he said.
So in the spring, he begins bringing in percussion instruments and simple melody makers like xylophones and see who has chops.
“It’s chaos, but I see light bulbs going off,” he said. “Kids get an understanding of music, but also self-control, body control and awareness.
“That spark of creativity is my bottom line.
“I know they’re not all going to be musicians, but they can all appreciate music and the arts. So my lesson plans have to be balanced, to bring out a child’s natural ability but not leave behind those who can’t perform so well.”
“The Bean Bag Rumba”
The program out-grew Davidson’s time, so he recruited Larry Slocum, who started out as an elementary school teacher but spent much of his earning career in the insurance business. But after selling that a few years ago, he wanted to devote himself again to music.
“My goal when I was 19 years old was to use music to help teachers teach things like math, reading and colors, and that’s exactly what I do here,” Slocum said.
He’s also using the opportunity to try out his own compositions, such as “The Bean Bag Rumba,” which helps the children learn their body parts with physical activity mixed with song.
“When you wake up in the morning and clap your hands, excited to start the day, I know I’m exactly where I need to be, doing what I need to do,” Slocum said.
For older children, Arts In Common sends Allen Ray to the Central YMCA for after-school art classes and long-time Fitton Center painting instructor Aimee Edwards to the Boys and Girls Clubs’ two Hamilton locations.
One of her favorite aspects of that, Edwards said, is allowing her students to create oil paintings on big canvases, all the way from preliminary sketches up to a finished work.
“Kids don’t usually get a chance to do that,” she said.
But art is the beginning of all learning, Edwards theorizes.
“We learn the alphabet by singing it and we learn to write letters alongside drawings, so it’s very important and gives the kids great confidence,” she said. “I never wanted to be a teacher, but it’s become the most important part of my work. I still love to paint, but turning kids on to art is amazing.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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