Hanover
The lanky guy with the fetching smile, the one who coaxed magic from a mandolin he made himself — occasionally hitting harmonic rapture on jigs and reels with Randy Miller on fiddle, Roger Kahle on guitar, and Tim Traver on button accordion — won’t be there anymore.
Charley Conquest, the Upper Valley’s Mister Music, founder of Hanover Strings on Main Street — one of Hanover’s oldest small businesses — died Oct. 11, 2016, from complications of a cerebral hemorrhage at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Chas, as his family and close friends often called him, or “Ye Ye” to his grandchildren, was a robust looking 62-year-old who drove a black Honda Shadow motorcycle to work most days from his Etna home.
His usual morning routine: Take-out coffee from Dirt Cowboy, then back to the shop, loping, almost bouncing, across Main Street, head cocked slightly to the left, flashing a distinctive grin and greeting just about everyone in sight. The cordial demeanor bespoke a generous spirit known to people throughout the community.
At noon, he would be off to the nearby Dartmouth gym to play squash, another of his passions that included woodworking, teaching or turning people on to various musical instruments, an accomplished “fixer-upper,” on just about anything, according to his wife of 35 years, Wendy Burns Conquest.
“He made that white fence out there,” she said, showing a visitor around the house, well-stocked with photos of friends and family, including son Will, who lives in California, and two grandchildren. “He built cabinets, repaired furniture, learned by doing…,” especially in the high-class workroom just off the kitchen.
Charley enjoyed poker, sharpening knives and chisels to perfection with the best Arkansas whetstones, was a “master luthier,” as his friend and retired Dartmouth music professor Larry Polanski put it. A luthier builds and repairs stringed musical instruments. The story of Charley’s meticulous craftsmanship in restoring Polanski’s Martin guitar is best told in the following link: http://chasconquest.com/martin/index.html.
Then there was Charley’s spiritual side, a calling that connected him with a Vershire Buddhist community where he was an active member.
But it was music that touched him most, releasing an innate creativity and independence from early age.
“When Charley and I were around 4 to 6, growing up in Baltimore, we would sing together a lot, put on musical performances,” recalled his older sister Julie Aylward, who has taught theater for the last 20 years in the Windsor schools. “Charley was the director, even built and painted the sets. He knew how to work with his hands. He was very funny, an adept comic performer with impeccable timing.”
It was “a natural gift,” she said, perhaps inspired by their father, a “very, very good singer who also loved poetry.”
Growing up in the tumultuous, counter-cultural late 1960s was a trying time for many young Americans. For a creative, free spirited teenager like Charley Conquest, the strict college preparatory school he attended in Baltimore, the Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, may not have been the best environment. He skipped college, did some reporting for a Baltimore newspaper, then a brief stint with a theater company in London –— the James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theater — before landing in tiny Ashland, N.H.
There he found inspiration with local musicians and a mentor of sorts, David Colburn, founder and owner of Vintage Fret Shop, which still specializes in vintage musical instrument sales and repairs.
“Ashland had a great underground community in those days (mid-1970s), ” Colburn recalled. “Lots of creative people seeking refuge from the urban scene… musicians like Cormac McCarthy, Don Ransom. Bonnie Raitt was there.
“Charley arrived one day …must have been 1974 or 75…in a faded dark blue Peugeot he called ‘The Blue Clam.’ He took a small apartment above a pizza restaurant and got right into the scene. His father stayed with him for a while … had an unusual name, Pleasanton (Conquest).”
Colburn remembers Charley being fascinated with repairing and building guitars and other instruments and starting his own music group. And also that he had a great sense of humor.
“There were four guys, they called themselves ‘The Nananda Band,’ ” Colburn said. “I asked Charley once about the group’s music genre. He said, ‘We make our own music, it’s called mondo bizzaro…’ ”
After Ashland, Charley moved to Hanover to start his own business, Hanover Strings. A good friend, Joseph Stallsmith, now a counselor at Hanover High, remembers it well.
“I moved to the Upper Valley to open 5 Olde Nugget Alley in ‘79 and got to know Charley quite well,” Stallsmith said via email. “I bought my music gear from him. When we opened Joseph’s Waterworks in ‘84 (on Route 5 in Norwich), Charley became our ticket agency (and) sound consultant for many concerts.”
Stallsmith said he did a high school program last year called “Mind Your Own Business,” talking to entrepreneurs around the Upper Valley, and Conquest was a featured speaker.
“His individual story and life spent earning a living while pursuing his passion was refreshingly compelling to a group of high school kids,” he said.
Generosity was a trait that many remembered.
Thetford resident Ed Eastridge, a guitarist who teaches at Hanover Strings, said, “I met Charley in 1989 and we hit it off right away, I suppose because we were both from Baltimore and spoke the language….’Bal-mer’ or ‘snay-tars’ (snow tires) or ‘race’ (roast) beef.
“I rented a small space in the shop for lessons and agreed to pay Charley monthly with automatic withdrawals from my account. About a year or so after that, I looked at my account and realized nothing was coming out to pay Charley. He never said a word…I was embarrassed, told him I would pay him in full, and he just waved me away.”
Dartmouth squash coach Hansi Wiens, who gave lessons to Conquest, said he played a key role in helping when Wiens’ fiancée Valeria had problems returning to Hanover from Canada in 2007.
“We ran into problems with Homeland Security over her visa. They actually put her in jail. When Charley found out, he immediately mobilized the squash group and others, even set up a web site and hired an attorney,” Wiens said. “They saved us.”
Conquest also was a big help to Dartmouth musicians, according to Hafiz Shabazz, master drummer and adjunct professor in the Dartmouth music department.
“Charley and his team did a lot of business with the music department. Musicians performing at the Hop would go to his shop for repairs or just to hang out. We had a great relationship and he never charged full price for the stuff we bought,” he said.
On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon this fall, the Vershire hills resplendent, more than 100 of Charley’s friends and family gathered in the shrine room of the Buddhist study and practice center — Pema Osel Do Ngak Choling — to pay respects. His son Will talked about lessons his father taught. Rebecca Henry, the center director, mentioned receiving three harmonicas from Charley after she had told him of her interest.
“He had no agenda, just gave without expecting anything in return,” she said.
Eastridge and Ted Mortimer, front man for the Dr. Burma band, performed, as did the guys from Salt hill, cheering things up with one of Conquest’s Irish special jigs, I Was Born for Sport.
And his sister, Julie, sang one of Charley’s favorites, a Yeats poem committed to music by Judy Collins and Dave Van Ronk — The Song of Wandering Aengus.
It was a fitting tribute to a generous troubadour.
Tom Blinkhorn can be reached at tblinkhorn@gmail.com.