His music won’t go silent
Friends recall a homeless guitarist who died when his tent was set afire
Even after years spent bouncing in and out of apartments and back into homelessness, Dwayne Fields always found solace in his six-string, friends said.
The beloved musician and mentor could often be seen with an acoustic or electric guitar in hand near 6th and San Pedro streets in downtown Los Angeles’ skid row, strumming blues riffs that one friend swore sounded identical to those of Fields’ idol, Jimi Hendrix.
“Through arts and culture, through his music making, through his guitar playing, he was bringing the community together,” said Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, a skid row advocacy group.
The skid row community has spent this week mourning the loss of its soundtrack, however, after police say Fields became the victim of a grisly crime late Monday night.
Fields, 62, was in his tent about 11:30 p.m. when, prosecutors allege, another man set his living quarters ablaze. Responding officers found Fields walking down 6th street, his body still burning, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case candidly.
The officers tried to extinguish the f lames, but Fields died of his injuries Tuesday morning.
“Our community has lost a great spirit, a great individual,” said General Jeff Page, an activist and fixture in the skid row community.
Jonathan Early, 38, was charged Wednesday with capital murder in connection with Fields’ death. Investigators have not offered a motive in the slaying or explained how the fire was set. It remains unclear whether Early and Fields knew each other, but one law enforcement official said Early was also homeless.
Early did not enter a plea during a brief court appearance Wednesday, and his public defender declined to comment. During the appearance, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joy Roberts said Early was captured at the scene Monday night and identified by eyewitnesses as the man who set the blaze.
About three dozen people clutching purple balloons and purple roses — in memory of their friend’s love of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” — gathered Wednesday night to remember Fields.
Angela James, deputy director of finance and operations at Los Angeles Community Action Network, said she met Fields when she started working with the organization about a year and a half ago. Since then, she had seen him almost every day.
James never learned much of Fields’ life story — she knew he was from Flint, Mich., and had played with bands in L.A. and Las Vegas — but she grew to look forward to hearing him play his guitar every Thursday at the farmers market hosted by the action network.
The group of mourners walked from Los Angeles Community Action Network a few blocks to the southeast corner of 6th and San Pedro streets, where Fields had lived with his longtime partner Valarie Wertlow. What two nights earlier had been a crime scene became a living memorial to Fields.
Alongside Wertlow’s belongings were three pictures of her companion of two decades. Paper printouts of Fields’ smiling face were attached with paper clips to the chain-link fence that backstopped her home.
Speakers were set up. A keyboard was plugged in. And Fields’ friends sang “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Amazing Grace.” Wertlow led the group in singing “Lean On Me.”
Wertlow said Fields’ kindness kept them together.
“If you needed anything ... he had it,” she said. “He had you.”