Spend just a few minutes with Pepper Von and you’ll be ready to hit the ground running… or the stage dancing… or, at the very least, feel a wiggle in your toe and a quickening of your heart beat.
Born and raised in Clarksdale, Von is a world-renown dance and fitness instructor, choreographer, performer and motivational speaker. He is an author and a former national aerobics champion. He excels at inspiring and motivating others.
These are lessons he learned growing up in Clarksdale as the son of musician C.V. Veal, one of the town’s favorite sons.
“I’m just kind of living the dream and grateful for every day,” said Von, who has three daughters and a thriving dance and fitness studio in downtown Sacramento, Calif.
He was in town Saturday to accept an award recognizing his father and his many contributions to the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival.
Having grown up around musicians, Von said that music, specifically, gospel and blues, has “saved my life over and over and over again.”
“I have not only my father to thank for that, but also to all the local musicians who… it wasn’t what they did, it was who they are and who they were.”
The culture of blues and gospel in Clarksdale is “who these musicians were,” Von said, adding, “they couldn’t not be blues musicians or bluesmen or blueswomen.”
And that culture which valued respect, chivalry and hospitality has provided us and younger generations “a platform to stand on and say that’s a nucleus of who we are.”
Von dubs it “humanity sanity.”
“I believe we – those of us still standing on the shoulders of all these musicians. All these people who lived by the guitar, by the drum, by the harmonica, by the piano, by the bass. All their shoulders we’re standing on, we owe these people as far as their contribution to culture.
“Not only do we owe them, but we owe their families. Because their families shared them with us. Shared them with the city of Clarksdale. Shared them with the Delta. Shared them with Mississippi. Shared them with the world.
“These families allowed us, as a community, as a culture, as a people, the opportunity to be fed by these musicians.”
And, early on, Von was taught the importance of gratitude. He points to the metaphor, “If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he didn’t get there by himself.”
And that message stuck with him.
“When I went to Wade Walter’s barber shop to get a haircut, he was playing guitar, he was playing harmonica. When I walked down Issaqueena and I was too young to stick my head in the juke joint, but I could climb up on the little brick there and look through my window and see the bands in there practicing.
“I owe the people that when I was walking down the street and I was thinking about being a little crazy, they’d come up to me and say, ‘Not today, not on my watch. I know your momma. I know your daddy.’
“I owe my second-grade teacher. I owe the butcher in the grocery store. I owe the barber. I owe a lot of people,” Von said.
That “attitude of gratitude is really all it’s about and all we’re asked to do is pass it on and share it” with others.
He said all that equates to the pride when he comes to Clarksdale.
“I don’t care what buildings have been demolished. I don’t care what’s boarded up. I don’t care what streets are not thriving anymore. I don’t care.
“There is an energy of deep pride of what Clarksdale stood for and stands for. And our job is to make sure that the younger generation don’t forget. For us to allow them to forget is a luxury we just can’t afford.”
Michael Banks is the publisher/editor of The Clarksdale Press Register. He can be reached by phone at 662-627-2201 or email mbanks@pressregister.com.
