Stories From The East Side of Riverside 1940-1960 - Looking Back With Ed Bereal

Stories From the Eastside 1940’s-60’s

Looking back with Ed Bereal Jr.

“Born in Los Angeles in 1937 and raised in Riverside, California, Bereal was a child who grew up in the shadow of World War II and the segregation and racism that afflicted his immediate community. In the face of this, he was accepted into the renowned illustration program at Chouinard Art Institute and went on to make significant contributions to the arts of assemblage and performance burgeoning in Los Angeles in the 1960s. A shift in his work came in the summer of 1965 during the Watts Rebellion when Bereal was confronted by 10 National Guardsmen, including one pointing a machine gun at him. This profound experience prompted Bereal to step away from making commercially and critically successful artworks and move toward engaging members of his community in social justice work through guerrilla-style street performance.” 

Excerpt from: WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace a Retrospective look at his art presented at the Whatcom Museum

WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace Curated by Amy Chaloupka, Curator of Art

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The following comments are a composite of comments made by Ed Bereal, taken from three interviews:

Oral History Interview with Ed Bereal, conducted by Hunter Drohojowska, Archives for American Art, July 2016

Ed Bereal Speaks – Text  by Benjamin Lord Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, July 2016  

Conversation About the Eastside with Ed Bereal and Buddy Jones, text by Andre James, August 2020

Ed Bereal - I was born on the 4th of July in 1937, Riverside California.  Riverside was a very interesting place.  It was outside of the rest of the country.  We did not have to deal with what was happening.  I was growing up during the second world war.  Edmond Bereal Sr., my father was from Waco, Texas area.   His father, my grandfather was a magic man. He cooked.  He could plumb a house.   He taught his seven sons to play an instrument and put together a washboard band. 

In the late 1920’s they came to California.  Because they were a family band, they caught the eye and ear of some people in radio.  They were doing radio shots and entertaining a little bit, and then they were doing whatever else they needed to supplement their income. And they were not entirely all black, we have a heavy streak of Mexican.  My last name is really Villarreal. V-I-L-L-A-R-R-E-A-L.  And that blood—and a lot of Indian, that blood was a hell of a mixture.  We got family stories that talk about all of that.

My mom, Juanita Allen was a contralto.  She sang.  You know, she was into Handel and Bach and that kind of thing.  She recorded for musicals and black spirituals. So the house was full of music.  Right.  My father came from grassroots people.  My mother came from kind of middle class, black, upward mobile folks. That union was very interesting.

They met on a soundstage in Hollywood.  She was singing.  She was singing in a set for soundtracks—for slave movies.  You know, Steven Foster songs. "Old Black Joe." All that shit, you know. So they hooked up, and you know, I was the firstborn, and everybody moved to Riverside. 

Riverside was very kind of exceptional.  Boy, I love this because there are some things I'm going to tell you that are really, really a part of my life that maybe someone should document.

Riverside California was the triad, three races.  White, black, brown.  And because of the segregation.  Now, it was soft segregation.  Hard if you crossed the line, but there weren't people there always reinforcing certain things.  Blacks and browns were forced together in a barrio ghetto.   So my next-door neighbor on one side would be Mexican, and my friend Warren lived across the street was black.  Riverside, on the black side, was founded by six families.  And one of those six families were my mother's family.  Okay? 

Because we were so close, black and brown, there were some real interesting exchanges that would go on.   It was a very, very close and a very sympathetic relationship between browns and blacks. Whites were on the outside, and I didn't see white people in Riverside until I went to high school.

It was the spring 1952- 53, before I started high school when I started my acting career.  My drama teacher needed to appeal to black culture.  So she directe a show where I starred as a black worker, just two clicks above being a slave.  I think it was based on a song or poem about John Henry, the steel driving man

At 15, I was skinny as the devil.  The big question about playing John Henry was,  could I raise the hammer.  I was all of 120 pounds.  Later on, after the Watts riots I created my acting troupe, the Bodacious Buggerilla.  

Ed Bereal: Wanted For Disturbing The Peace 

My other grandfather was a hunter, a heavy drinker—he didn't get drunk, he just drank.  And he was a musician.  Every Sunday we'd drive from Riverside to L.A. to his home.  My father's brothers would show up, grab an instrument, and we would have these Tex-Mex jam sessions.

Because my grandfather was a great cook, he'd cook these huge dinners, 300 tomales. And people in the neighborhood would hear the music (he left the door open) and they'd come stand in the front yard. And he'd say, "Well, come on in, and grab a bite to eat." You know, and they'd be playing, and people would eat, and it would just go on and on.   Other musicians from the neighborhood would hear it. They'd grab their little guitars, banjos, and whatever. They'd come over, and it would turn into this whole thing.

My dad continued to play music in and around San Bernardino, Riverside, Fontana.  He'd find gigs as far as Beaumont, Banning, Idyllwild—oh! San Bernardino Mountains.  He played with various groups. He even played with Dave Brubeck.

When Central Avenue Swung

During this period when he hit Los Angeles, there was a jazz renaissance along Central Avenue.  Yeah.  Where musicians, black musicians from across the country would come.  They would meet on Central Avenue at the various clubs and everybody played together.

So even though dad was working this job at the Mission Inn, he carried on his music career.  And a lot of those musicians would come to our house in Riverside.  So I would be at the house, when Count Basie would come by.  Billy Eckstine. Jack McVeigh. Curtis Counce.  They'd would come over and have Saturday and Sunday jams at our house.

I think Count Basie kind of had a real thing…  He really liked my mom a lot.

He was cool. My father was dangerous, and he wouldn't abuse anybody, but he kind of had a heartthrob for mom.  The Count was cool.  They'd all sit and talk.   When mom and dad went to see him playing, Count Basie would show them a great time.

A very important person who you don't hear about a lot was a guy by the name of Meade Lux Lewis. He was a piano player, and he was acknowledged as the father of Boogie Woogie.  The remarkable thing, I can remember being a kid sitting right by the piano.  I was knocked out by him. There was a song called "Mr. Five By Five." Five feet tall and five feet wide.  Because he didn't have very long fingers, but he had wide palms, and he could reach like almost two octaves on the piano.  But he could play faster than anybody else in the world.  Anyway, he'd come, and anytime he'd come in, everybody would turn up. My father played the bass at that point in time, and my mother played the piano.

Buster Jones School of Auto Repair and Philosophy

Officially I worked at the shop.  But I was actually going to school.  In the early 1950’s, working in Buster’s shop was like going to school.  He made it possible to continue at art school.  Buster always paid me.  As an art student at Chouinard in LA, when I ran out of money I could go to his shop and work. 

When I went to art school, I found that east coast artist had no ideas how to use their hands.  At the Buster’s shop I was always working with metal and tools.  I learned to use my hands to work methods and materials.  Looking back 68 years, I realize a lot of my understanding of methods and materials came from that period.

Working with iron.   In the arts I employed this knowledge. Assemblage.  I developed skills at using materials.  Knowing at what point something breaks or melts.  Not a sophisticated set of skills, but at that age… necessity was the mother invention and skills, the mother of information. 

In my art, I wanted certain things to be bolted together.  In Buster’s shop I learned how to build a car. 

Buster’s Philosophy Class 101 - Borrowing Tools.  I don’t want to leave out the fact that in my 30’s I began to teach art.  I began to realize how much of Buster Jones philosophy I was teaching.  It was not the technical skills learned in the shop.  He had a way to teach you. I lived four blocks from his shop.  When I was building a hot rod I would drop by the shop to borrow tools.  Riverside summer heat ranges from 96 to 105.  One hot day I dropped by to borrow tools.  I asked, “Can I borrow these tools?  I only needed them for a minute.”

Buster was eating.  He nodded yes. 

Now the garage is at the back of his property a good 50 to 60-foot walk in the heat.  Just as I get to the edge of the lot I here, “Bereal, come here!” So I walk all the way back to see what Buster wants.  “That was more than a minute.  More like 3 or 4 minutes.” 

I said, “But Mr. Jones, you know what I meant.”

“What you meant?  That is not what you said.  A man says what he means.” 

Buster was kind of everyone’s father.  There were many guys, guys from broken families he looked out for.  And at times he straightened them out.  One time a group of us guys wanted to go up to Altadena to see the cute girls in the neighborhood.   We asked Buster if we could borrow his truck.   

“I will not lend you my truck.  But, there are enough parts on my lot that you guys can use to build a truck.”

Ed Bereal teaching art at University of California Irvine 

Throughout my teaching career at several universities,  when I teach I am always using Buster’s philosophy.  Now Western Washington University is set in a very conservative community.  Just like our Eastside had a culture underneath of the south,  there is a Scandinavian culture underneath the state of Washington.   Very uptight.  The university is very provincial.  Realizing most students had never visited museums to see real art, I initiated field trips to NY to San Francisco and Los Angeles.  No one at the university had ever taken art students around the country. 

Buster method.  One trip I had raised enough to rent a motorhome.  We piled in 12 students and headed south.  I gave clear instructions that everyone needed to stay organized.  Keep things straight.  One morning I wake up to find a bra on my pillow, underwear and shoes all over the floor.  “Straighten out!”  This time they got organized.  The next day we arrive on Venice Beach.  Now these young guys from Washington had never seen so many beautiful young women.  They were stunned.  Almost vibrating.  So, they all rush out to check out the scene.

Back at the motorhome, once again it was a mess.  So, I got a garbage bag filled it up and took it to the dumpster.  Our next stop is a museum in Pasadena.  As I am driving I start hearing shouts, “Has anyone seen my shorts?”   “My sweater, where’s my sweater?”  “Where are our clothes?” 

Acting surprised I said, “Oh, did you want those clothes?  I assumed since they were not put away that you did not want them?  Oh my god.  I am sorry.”  After howling like cats, I agreed to go back to see if we could find the dumpster.  After searching the wrong one I found the dumpster.  “Stop.  Before you get your clothes, let’s get things clear.  Are we all together on keeping things straight?  Anyone have a problem?”  Everyone agreed. 

And the rest of trip was marvelous.  Just another lesson from Buster in keeping your word. 

I was considered a good teacher.  Buster was my teacher.  And my mentor.  It was not official.  At that time in my life I was not on good terms with my dad.  I needed an older man.  And that man was Buster Jones. 

Celebration of Ed Bereal – Disturbing The Peace

To Learn more about Ed Bereal:

WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace Curated by Amy Chaloupka, Curator of Art

 Ed Bereal Brings Edgy to Bellingham Washington New York Times By Alex V. Cipolle Oct. 23, 2019

Local Heroes - Eastside Riverside, California 1940's -50's

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