Sherman Ward admits to “coloring outside of the lines frequently” throughout his life.
But no one who knew Ward growing up in Seaford would believe the place he is in now. As he talks about his life at his Rehoboth Beach log cabin, posters of John Wayne and Ronald Reagan surround him. Frank Sinatra albums are piled on the floor and a Rogers and Hart songbook leans on the piano. Ella Fitzgerald sings the blues in the background.
He calls his log cabin, filled with Western memorabilia, Frontier Town.
Have we walked into the Twilight Zone? Can this be the same Sherman Ward who slapped at everything traditional, as he grew up a hard rock-and-roller in local garage bands? Can this be the same Sherman Ward who was kicked out of high school for growing long hair?
Most people in the Cape Region know Ward as a fixture on the local music scene as lead vocalist for The Funsters and the new group The Eddie Sherman Show. But, there is much more to the Sherman Ward story.
The early years
Born in 1953, Sherman grew up playing music and causing mischief in Seaford. He has been in so many bands he can’t remember all of them. He started taking lessons in third grade and became a drummer, but soon moved up to lead vocals with bands like
The Pacq and Texas while a student at Seaford High School.
He was playing in bars before he could drive a car.
Texas was a successful band that played two gigs a week every week in 1969 and 1970 – his junior year in high school.
“We were making $100 to $150 a night in the 11th grade – we thought we were Howard Hughes,” he said.
Music was a godsend and also a crutch as Ward grew up. It gave him permission to do outlandish things and live a lifestyle way left of center in his conservative hometown.
With straight blond hair down below his shoulders, wearing hip-hugging jeans and T-shirts, Ward grew up during a time of turmoil – graduating from high school in 1971.
Sherman calls his music a voice for the time. “We were living it,” he said.
He was kicked out of school during his freshman year and told not to come back until he got a haircut. He did come back with a really short cut just to aggravate the principal and cause a stir in the school. That was vintage Sherman Ward.
Although he grew up in a small town, his life was a direct reflection of the larger music business complete with the vices. Sherman and his band of friends were notorious for being able to get away with high jinks and outlandish behavior.
“And the bands were like gangs,” he said. “You couldn’t talk to somebody from another band.”
He said there were actual battles of the bands between dueling band members behind the Larrimore Dairy across from the Seaford Junior High School – except fists were used instead of instruments.
Sherman spent a lot of his childhood at his father’s place of business - a Sinclair gas station on Seaford’s main road.
His father, Granville Ward, held court at the station, which was the meeting place for males during that time.
“My dad was a great people person who was able to talk with anyone,” he said. “I learned my people interaction and performing skills from being around my dad’s gas station,” he said.
Sherman said it was like a show each and every day. “And my dad was like the emcee. You never knew what was going to happen,” he said. “My older brother, Layton, was the ringleader.”
Starting his career
After graduation, Sherman went to the University of Delaware for a year and continued to play in bands. But there wasn’t a clear direction he was headed in. He ended up playing in the band 8th Day in 1979, which turned out to be one of the top bands of the day. He also worked construction in the beach area.
(He said to put a disclaimer in the story concerning dates.)
After he broke his leg in a serious construction accident, he moved to New York to pursue a career in the music-video world.
As it turned out, he ended up at the School of TV Arts. “We were told that the odds were against us and only one person would get a job in the business,” he said.
Sherman was that one person. While still in school, he landed a part-time job at a film-to-tape transfer house and before graduation had landed a job with WBOC in Salisbury, Md.
“I realized I wanted to be in film production and not news and knew I had to be in one of the cities,” he said.
He moved to Philadelphia and lived there for the next 23 years.
Ward developed a career in film, getting involved in several movies and eventually starting his own production company.
He is owner and producer of Pictures & Words LLC, a film company in Bryn Mawr, Pa. The company does a variety of projects including promotions, advertising and television and radio spots.
His job takes him from one end of the country to the other.
But, he said his dream was to live in the Cape Region and play as much music as possible. Although he doesn’t look it, at the age of 54, he is closer to fulfilling that dream that at any time in his life. He moved to Rehoboth Beach two years ago and, thanks to technology, is able to conduct a lot of his business right in his living room. He is always connected to his cell phone.
Another of his dreams is to develop his business in this area. His job still requires him to travel – in the next two weeks, he will be shooting on location in New York and Los Angeles.
“I’m at a point in my run in this business that enough people know me that they don’t care where I am,” he said.
He said he can provide affordable and creative advertising proSherman
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duction locally for TV and radio – from someone with national experience. He said an advertising campaign he coordinated for Savannah Point has been extremely successful. Along the way, Sherman was married and has three children. Sutton, 23, lives in Los Angeles and is pursuing an acting career and Tyler, 20, and Hallie, 15, live with their mother in Philadelphia.
Sherman credits his children with turning his life around. Some of Sherman’s friends were on the same path and ended up “above ground but not living,” as he puts it. “When you have kids you can’t live as frivolously – you have to snap to,” he said. “They will straighten you out and make you responsible. You want to do well for them.”
Always the music
Although Sherman has carved out a niche for himself in the world of media communications, there is always the music.
On any given weekend, he can usually be found playing with a band, but he is usually up front on the microphone with the legendary Funsters and creating a new legend with The Eddie Sherman Show.
Rock and roll and blues wasn’t enough for Sherman; something was missing.
And he was growing tired of today’s music. “So I decided to go back, diving into the old Big Band and jazz catalogue,” he said.
He discovered how incredible the writing and talent really was. “It’s all I listen to now,” he said.
It wasn’t long before The Eddie Sherman Show, with friends Ed Shockley and Peggy Raley, was born. The band is a throwback to the standards.
“The beauty of these songs is that they are an open book for interpretation. They are great music for vocalists. They are meaningful songs and you are free to carry that meaning,” he said.
The Eddie Sherman Show will be performing at 8 p.m. Sunday, June 22, at the Rehoboth Beach Bandstand and at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 29, at the Lewes Library Park.
Although it is the music of his parents, he said it’s funny how, as we grow older, we tend to seek our roots. “Everybody has to make a departure from their parents, but when we get old enough we start to appreciate them and things around them like their music,” he said.
Sherman can even admit that his roots are so deeply entrenched in his hometown of Seaford that most of what he stands for today can be traced there.
His dad managed the old Palace Theatre in downtown Seaford where Saturday Western matinees were a way of life for many youngsters.
“It’s all about my dad’s love of Westerns and that movie character ethic about the straight shooter trying to do the right thing and saying what you mean and doing what you say,” he said.
“It may seem like a ridiculous source of inspiration, but it’s what I grew up around and how my dad operated. You can’t go wrong with that.”
And to serve as a constant reminder is Sherman’s most prized possession – a framed eight-by-10 of his dad with Roy Rogers hanging on a wall at his own Frontier Town.
All in the family: The Funsters
are a melting pot of many bands
The Funsters, recognized as one of the top bands in the region, started in New York. Keith Mack and Ed Shockley were in the original Funsters as they started to get known in Delaware.
At the same time, Sherman Ward put together a band he called The Brotherhood of Rock and Soul from remnants of the bands Jack of Diamonds and 8th Day with the likes of Greg Mack and Jon Sibert that played at “crazy bar parties” in Philadelphia.
Although stories of how The Funsters came together vary, Sherman’s version is that the two bands performed for the first time as one in 1993 at a University of Pennsylvania black-tie fundraiser at Liberty Place in Philadelphia.
Sherman said the organizer wanted to back out since the new Funsters were unknown. “I promised him that if we didn’t deliver – if one person didn’t like us – that he didn’t have to pay us,” he said.
Of course, he didn’t tell members of the band until they were ready to go on stage.
“We were a huge power – a monster band,” he said. “That really pulled us together and the band started to book itself. It was way too much fun – and still is.”
Most of those original band members are still with The Funsters. And it’s true – they don’t rehearse.
“We don’t grow tired of playing because it’s a family thing for all us. We have so much history together,” he said. “This band was the final meltdown of all our years of playing, of all of these guys coming together to have fun.”
Contact Ron MacArthur at ronm@capegazette.com
