School and Breakdown
Ayers began playing the Double Bass during middle school. He attended the Juilliard School in New York as a double bassist, but suffered a mental breakdown during his third year and was institutionalized. Ayers was one of the few black students at Juilliard at that time.
For some years he lived with his mother in Cleveland, Ohio, where he received electroconvulsive therapy for his illness to no avail. After his mother's death in 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, thinking that his father lived there. Homeless and schizophrenic, Ayers lived and played music on the streets.
Read more about this topic: Nathaniel Ayers
Famous quotes containing the words school and/or breakdown:
“Dad, if you really want to know what happened in school, then you’ve got to know exactly who’s in the class, who rides the bus, what project they’re working on in science, and how your child felt that morning.... Without these facts at your fingertips, all you can really think to say is “So how was school today?” And you’ve got to be prepared for the inevitable answer—”Fine.” Which will probably leave you wishing that you’d never asked.”
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—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)