Back in early March 2020,
just before COVID shut the world down,
a group of musicians recorded the 16th CD
of a legendary Chicago pianist
but they had no idea the 84 year old musician's life
was about to fall apart.
- Okay.
- [Jay] And that within two months
he would be in a hospital psych unit.
(slow blues piano music)
- [Erwin] My name is Erwin Helfer.
I play a roots kind of piano,
blues, some boogie, and standards.
(upbeat piano music)
- [Jay] Erwin Helfer is also quite modest.
He's got a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the Chicago Jazz Institute,
a Chicago street named in his honor,
and he was among the first to bring blues musicians
from the South Side to North Side clubs and white audiences.
- You want to sit on this note?
- [Jay] He fell in love with the music when he was just 16.
(singing)
- I was a teenager and I could drive
so I drive down to the South Side
and my dad would take me to hear
Little Brother Montgomery or I'd go hear
Blind John Davis on West Madison Street.
- [Jay] Over the years, he became a trusted friend
and fellow player to many blues musicians
who came before him,
like Mama Yancey,
the widow of pioneering boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey,
and a noted blues singer in her own right.
- [Erwin] A miracle was a great deal to these people.
- [Jay] Nearly a year after
that pre COVID recording session,
Erwin Helfer was ready to talk about his trip to hell
and how he got back.
When the shutdown began, how were things for you then?
- They were all right for awhile,
but later on, it was not getting all right,
because I couldn't teach,
which is what I love doing the most,
I couldn't play which I love doing,
and I couldn't even walk into the bank and I didn't know it,
but I started going into a deep state of depression.
- [Jay] Erwin says he became consumed by fear and delusions
like obsessively worrying that his house would burn down.
- What I was doing was accepting unreality for reality.
- [Jay] Some people close to him were getting worried.
One was the owner of Erwin's record label
and a longtime friend.
- I was calling him every day and just week after week,
things seem to be going in a bad direction.
(slow blues piano music)
People were worried about him harming himself
and not being able to take care of himself.
- [Jay] So in early May, his friends intervened.
- [Erwin] They drove me to Rush Hospital
where I stayed for six weeks.
- [Jay] Drug therapy he says didn't work.
Group therapy was okay
but didn't bring back his will to live.
Erwin and his friends credit his recovery
to a treatment with a bad reputation,
electroconvulsive therapy.
(slow blues music with sax)
ECT or shock therapy as many call it
conjures terrible images.
But doctors they trusted recommended it,
and after nine treatments Erwin and his friends
could tell he was back.
- [Erwin] I knew I was getting much better
when the nurse came up to me and she said,
when was your last bowel movement?
And I said, we just met, aren't you being personal?
(laughing) And that's when I knew.
- [Jay] And when Erwin came home,
he found that his friends had thoroughly cleaned his house
and his good friend, blues singer Catherine Davis
had moved in to help,
and now about eight months later,
he says the deep despair has not returned,
and what he feels most is gratitude.
(piano chord)
- The friends I have, what they've done for me,
being able to get up in the morning and face a new day.
- [Jay] He was feeling better, but he wasn't playing music,
no gigs during those early pandemic days, of course,
but he wasn't even playing at home.
He says he was okay with that.
Some speculate it could be a side effect of the ECT.
Erwin doesn't think so.
We interviewed Erwin in a room with a piano just in case,
and he decided to give it a try.
(barrelhouse piano music)
- [Erwin] Some people have told me I was very brave
for telling the story and I don't think I was brave at all.
I think I owed it to people.
(piano music)
There were probably a lot of single, older depressed people
who are living by themselves,
and I just wanted to say,
it's possible to do something about it.
(piano music)