Healing Through Homage

It’s strange how things work out sometimes. How the seemingly smallest moments in time can end up having the biggest impact on our lives.

Charles Hedgepath ’99 can say that about so many different moments of his life. His decision to play music venues in downtown Greenville whenever possible as a young Furman student is among them. His seemingly random meeting of a young musician named Matt Reynolds at a music shop in Greenville is one. And the unlikely meeting of a young Marcus King while hosting a music series at Smiley’s Acoustic Café in the mid-2010s is another.

But it’s a series of moments in 2017 that come to mind more regularly for Hedgepath these days. Like hearing Reynold’s original songs when he and King happened by a tent where Reynolds was playing at the Wanee Music Festival. Or he and Reynolds watching a 21-year-old King play with Widespread Panic for the first time. Or the shocking day in June 2017, when he learned that Reynolds, affectionately known as “Curfew,” had taken his own life.

Those moments pop into his mind a lot right now. Not only because he misses his friend or because he longs for the “good ol’ days,” but because they serve as inspiration for the initiative he and King have begun that will honor Reynolds while offering other performers the help that Reynolds, himself, didn’t have a chance to seek out.

Marcus King, right, gathers backstage with members of his band, regional musicians, and friends and family before performing at the Marcus King Family Reunion at the CCNB Amphitheatre at Heritage Park on Sunday, August 25, 2024. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University

How It Started

When Hedgepath was a student at Furman University in the mid-1990s, Greenville looked a lot different than it does today. The bustling downtown we know now wasn’t nearly as vast, wasn’t nearly as tourist-driven and definitely wasn’t as popular. But you could easily call it hip, fun and filled with character, especially in the music scene. And that’s where Hedgepath fit in – among the bluegrass jams at The Handlebar or the late-night shows at Smiley’s Acoustic Cafe. From the start of his sophomore year, in between classes and his shifts at Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria, Hedgepath could be found strumming a guitar alongside anyone who was willing to go on stage with him.

“I always wanted to get downtown and get on the stage,” he says. “I couldn’t get anyone to go with me from school, but I just kept going and started playing with more people and by the time I graduated, I had built a pretty impressive group of musicians to hang out with.”

Rather than using his Furman degree for the straightforward purpose of getting a specific job in a specific industry, Hedgepath, who majored in political science, devoted his talents and energy to being a full-time musician. He backed up singer/songwriters who were cutting demos for labels, he worked with regional bands like R.E.M., Widespread Panic and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and he started a jam band called The Work that played all over the Southeast.

It was around that time that he met a young musician by the name of Matt Reynolds.

The Origin of ‘Curfew’

Hedgepath originally met Reynolds at Palmetto Music in Greenville. The two bonded quickly and easily over a love of writing music and playing wherever the pluck of a guitar string took them. Their paths would cross in different ways during that time, but the two lost touch for a bit in the early 2000s. But like anything in the music world, things have a way of coming back around.

Charles Hedgepath, middle right, talks with members of Marcus King’s management team backstage of the CCNB Amphitheatre at Heritage Park during the Marcus King Family Reunion on August 25, 2024. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University

Hedgepath was working with famed drummer Jeff Sipe after an introduction by Furman Adjunct Instructor of Music Keith Davis. Sipe also worked with Bruce Hampton as a founding member of Aquarium Rescue Unit, and it just so happened that Hampton recently hired a young fellow to be his new tour manager: Reynolds, who was also known as “Curfew.”

“It was some kind of jam session I was in on and there was Matt,” Hedgepath says. “But everyone was calling him ‘Curfew’ by then. And from that day forward we kept in touch. He would book things and call me in to accompany and invited me into Dark Star Jubilee. Whenever he wasn’t on the road, we were working on stuff.”

That stuff would include gigs in and around Greenville where an even younger musician was making a name for himself. At that time, he was mostly recognized as the son of Marvin King who played all over South Carolina in the Marvin King Revue. He was also known as a teenage musical prodigy who was sitting in on sets all over town. These days, he is known by everyone as Marcus King.

Furman alum Charles Hedgepath, left, and musician Marcus King, who began his career in the Upstate, have started The Curfew Fellowship to help provide mental health services for musicians. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University

The Marcus King Connection

Hedgepath has known King since he was a 13-year-old playing shows with his father. It was Hedgepath’s Orange amp that King played on in Chicora Alley in the late 2000s when he wasn’t old enough to drive himself to gigs. And it would be Hedgepath who would introduce King to Reynolds and the three would form a friendship that lasted a lifetime.

“Matt was just in that scene with us in Greenville and he would come and go out of it for a long time,” Hedgepath says. “Marcus came up with him around and it was around 2017 that they connected again.”

King and Hedgepath were at the Wanee Music Festival in April 2017 where King would play with Widespread Panic for the first time. After rehearsing with the band, the two ran into Reynolds and couldn’t believe the coincidence of finding each other in that moment. It would also be one of the last times they saw him.

Matt “Curfew” Reynolds would die by suicide on June 5, 2017. It hit Hedgepath, King and the music community hard. As Hedgepath recalls, Reynolds was the kind of guy that everyone knew and everyone loved. His talent as a singer/songwriter was renowned and his ability to command a stage was unparalleled. But what wasn’t so obvious were the internal struggles that took over.

The Curfew Fellowship Fund

All these stories – these chance meetings and impromptu jams and festival reunions – are what brought Hedgepath and King to this point: The creation of the Curfew Fellowship Fund.

Furman alum Charles Hedgepath talks with Eileen Shell, an employee of Mental Health America of South Carolina, during The Marcus King Family Reunion at CCNB Amphitheatre at Heritage Park on Sunday, August 25, 2024. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University

In the summer of 2024, almost seven years to the day of Reynolds’s death, King announced the creation of a foundation that would be dedicated to raising money and resources for a support system specifically for musicians and entertainers who are battling the challenges of mental health and addiction. His partner in the endeavor? Charles Hedgepath. And the inspiration for it all? Matt Reynolds.

“We talked about all this around 2019,” Hedgepath says. “Marcus has always been so open about his struggles with addiction and mental health, but it was something I was not as comfortable with. But talking about this foundation and facing my own experiences with depression and panic attacks and all of that, it helped me so much.”

Now, the pair want to give others the chance to face their own challenges. Performers in all walks of life tend to put on masks for the stage, Hedgepath says, but it’s when they get backstage and that mask comes off that they need the most help.

“This idea came to us after the death of multiple peers and friends within the music community and a feeling that something needed to change,” King said in an interview with Billboard Magazine in June 2024. “I’m very excited to be part of the change and part of the community and team working to get the message out and to help those in need.”

Since June 2024, Hedgepath has been seeking out partners in the Curfew Fellowship Fund to create a support system that will be available to anyone struggling with mental health or addiction issues. The funds for those efforts have come from King himself, direct donations and Live Nation, King’s tour promotors, who donated $1 of every ticket sold during his Mood Swings The World Tour. King and Hedgepath also teamed up with Stand Together and the 1 Million Strong impact initiative to prioritize mental health and change the way people think and talk about addiction and recovery.

In time, Hedgepath says, the fund will grow to include other areas of need in the creative community like supporting fine arts programs, providing instruments and funding to music programs in underserved schools and emphasizing the importance of community.

“Matt would do anything to help anybody, you know?” Hedgepath says. “He was such a loving and giving person and I think this fund will represent that.”