Music as a Major Part of my High School years at FBC Bellflower

The picture is of Jester Hairston who intersected my life as described below.

Throughout my teen years, the church was the center of my life; social, emotional and spiritual. But, the center of the life at the church was music; singing. I mentioned in an earlier post that we had moved around a lot. I was quite shy. The abandonment by my father left me with very little confidence. It was my success in music that provided the confidence and social contacts that made high school a good experience for me. Once I started back to the Lord -- moving out of the Belly of the Whale -- that music again came to my rescue and gave me a place to start serving the Lord.

Sometime in my Sophomore year, a group began to gather on Saturday mornings to sing, with a view to performing in church. There weren't more than five or six who came. I don't know whether some of us decided to do this or that it was an "official" meeting. I do remember the piano player; Anita (Tex) -- a pretty blond girl who had a beautiful voice -- and played the piano. She and I gravitated toward one another and began to sing together. I was pretty shy and she seemed to like me. I really don't know how it happened, but she became my girl friend off and on during my high school years -- but that is another story. I think that the only real time that some of us from the group sang together was on a Sunday Night (an informal, youth oriented service) We formed a trio; Anita, Frankie (if you read this Frankie -- was it you or Barbara -- or do you remember this at all?) and me. It didn't go particularly well. As I remember it, we got kind of tickled in the middle of the song and couldn't stop laughing. This was not an auspicious start. It did get me involved in more singing however because the Adult Choir director heard me and invited me to become a part of the Adult Choir. I really enjoyed this because we actually rehearsed and sang in four or more parts. This was really the start of my singing "career." The director began to ask me to sing solos when they came up. I was (and still am) a baritone, bass who really wanted to be a tenor.

At some point around my Junior year Stan Owens began a Youth Choir. I believe that he had just returned from the service -- he was a Korean War vet. His parents were already part of the church -- and I think that Stan had grown up in the church. He was a talent somewhat like my friend Kevin Cope (no, he wasn't a virtuoso pianist)  who had perfect pitch and could hear all of the chords as they should be in his head. He was also really anointed in working with the kids. Now, I should mention that during this time, FBC Bellflower became THE CHURCH for high school kids in the town. We had a large youth group, around 50-75 young people depending on times and seasons. There were approximately 50 in the choir. We had bright red choir robes with a white stole. We sang contemporary music (contemporary in the early 50's). We liked to sing some of the contemporary arrangements of Negro Spirituals. One of the leading black composers of the day who made some of these arrangements was Jester Hairston. He actually came to the church a couple of times and directed us in as we sang his arrangements -- we also learned to clap in rhythm. We also learned to sway -- but I was not very good at it.  I just finished reading Jester Hairston's  bio in Wikipedia -- I am greatly impressed that he actually came to our church and directed our Youth Choir -- I was impressed at the time, but I didn't realize the whole story.

Then there was our quartet! Stan started a quartet and chose Jerry Babylon (Bass), Henry (Sonny) Sellers (Baritone) and me (2nd Tenor -- Lead). Stan sang the first tenor part. Actually we were quite good. We sang mainly Barbershop arrangements and Gospel Quartet. I was the only high school person. Jerry and Sonny were attending California Baptist College (associated with Cal Baptist Seminary.) We had already been singing at several neighboring churches when were invited to go along with some of the informational and fund raising events with Cal Baptist Officials. This led to our selection to be the Cal Baptist Quartet. I attended a number of classes out there while still in HS -- we were preparing for the next event. The officials wanted me to attend the school, but I had my heart set on UCLA (good choice.) We also sang a few times on local TV. This was heady stuff for me, but looking back, we were really small town singers. Yet, it was kind of neat to come into Biology Class and have the teacher say that they saw me on TV last night. We broke up when I started UCLA and Jerry transferred to the Redlands University.

There was a lot more about my life at First Baptist during my high school years, but music played a defining role in who I was and set the stage for my return to the Lord in the 70's.