The powerful moment Eddie Vedder heard his father’s music for the first time
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder grew up believing a lie about the identity of his true father. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he discovered the man he grew up believing to be his father wasn’t a biological relation, a realisation that turned his world upside down.
Vedder was told the truth following the breakdown of his mother’s marriage. Still, sadly, it proved to be too late for him to form a relationship with his father, Edward Louis Severson, who had recently passed away after a battle with multiple sclerosis. Therefore, there’s always been an unresolved part of his life that the presence of his father would have filled.
For many decades, Vedder wondered who his father was and the activities he enjoyed during his time on this planet. However, in an unexpected turn of events, the Pearl Jam frontman was provided vital information courtesy of a friendship with a former Major League Baseball player.
During a conversation with Bruce Springsteen about his solo album, Earthling, Vedder explained how his father’s voice ended up being part of the record. Firstly, he revealed: “It turned out when I was informed about who my dad was, it turned out I’d met him about three or four times as like a friend of a family. It makes me think, modern day, he’d have likely demanded to be part of my life, but back in the late ’60s, he respected their wishes.”
While Vedder says the decision by his mother and stepfather was made with “positive” intentions that successfully made him feel closer to his siblings, it also stopped him from forming a relationship with his father.
The singer said of his biological father: “He was a junior and played music, but I never heard him until it was a crazy thing, I was at a Cubs camp playing baseball with some old-timers, and one of the old-timers is an incredibly talented trumpet player and stayed in the music business for the whole time.”
The individual in question is Carmen Fanzone, who played in Major League Baseball during the early 1970s. However, he was only a utility player who failed to break into any first teams. Thankfully, Fanzone found more success in the music industry, where he established links with Vedder’s father.
The Pearl Jam frontman revealed: “I’d go see him at this little jazz club, and the keyboard player in this little jazz combo in Arizona turned out to be one of my dad’s best friends. Two years later, he brought back a set of pictures of him with my father, and then two years later, he brought me a CD of five songs of my dad singing.”
After fortuitously stumbling upon these records, Vedder produced a collage of his father’s vocals, which he implemented towards the end of Earthling, which saw his father collaborate beyond the grave with musical icons such as Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Ringo Starr. While he wasn’t alive to witness the occasion, it’s a touching tribute from Vedder nonetheless.
