With a life immersed in music, art and poetry, Don Lehman is a true Renaissance man. And though he left Plant City as a teenager, he returned last spring and has continued to pursue all three of his passions in town.
Lehman began honing his skills as a guitarist as a young child. When he was 16 years old, he packed a duffel bag and headed to New York City, where he didn’t know a soul.
“I’ve been doing exactly what I want to do, basically forever,” Lehman said. “Once I got away from an educational institution and emancipated myself, nobody could tell me what to do.”
After starting out as a roadie for a band in New York, Lehman journeyed all over the country in various fields and interesting jobs. He gave tours as a registered historian in Charleston, bartended on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and worked on a gambling boat in Port Richey, to name a few. But no matter where he went or what he did to make ends meet, music was still his top priority.
One of Lehman’s fondest memories was when he played with a band at an outdoor music festival in Churubusco, New York. An audience of 60,000 had its eyes on him.
“We went on early in the morning, and I remember just the haze off of the field and the fog, and people just went off the horizon. That was kind of the biggest rush,” Lehman said.
But, for Lehman, the quality of the audience is more important that the quantity.
“It’s not really the numbers that count — it’s the enthusiasm of the audience,” Lehman said. “If I’m playing for two or 2,000, it doesn’t really matter, if the spirit’s there.”
Lehman eventually found himself in Georgia, playing private parties for celebrities on Saint Simon’s Island. But, he had begun building renown with his art, as well. Though he has never had a drawing lesson, he creates bright, bold paintings of animals and people, as well as sculptures.
At one of his art shows at a restaurant in Georgia, a viewer took a painting off of the wall and flung it across the room into a utility closet. The manager of the restaurant was crying and apologizing to Lehman, but he wasn’t upset.
“I said, ‘Wait — you don’t understand. I’ve just been censored. I’ve been validated,’” Lehman said. “When someone feels that strong about your work, to want to hurt it really badly, that puts you in that pantheon of serious artists.”
Last March, Lehman moved back to Plant City to live with his aunt.
“I’ve come full circle, which I think is the interesting part of it, after being born here and moving away from here, and now I’m back here,” Lehman said.
He still paints, though he says it does not bring him joy.
“I can’t stand (painting),” Lehman said. “But every time that I finish one and say, ‘no more — I will never do another painting’ … then I find myself coming back from Lowe’s with painter’s floor cloth, two-by-twos and a gallon of white primer.”
And, he has been focusing on his writing recently.
“The surrealist poetry is really what I’m heavily involved in now,” Lehman said.
But, of course, Lehman has stuck with his music since his return to Plant City. He has been focusing on his songwriting and would like to record some of his new material within the next few months. He’s been seen around town playing live blues, as well.
Lehman will play at Top Shelf Friday, Dec. 19, starting at 7 p.m.
— Catherine Sinclair