When the Music Fades

Things were going so well for me in many ways back in the late 1950s. I have been writing about music and I still have one more story. It started in late 1958 or early 1959. I was a senior at UCLA but was home in order to sing at a special banquet for the youth at FBC Bellflower. The guest speaker was an evangelist, Ken Poure. Some of you may have experienced a week at Hume Lake -- Ken for many years was the director of that conference -- but that was far in the future. Ken brought his music man, George, with him. After I sang, Ken and George said that they would like me to be a part of a group that they were forming. That sounded good to me.

The group was called the Accenters. There were eight of us, four women and four men. Most were students at Biola. At this time, Biola had no campus and met at "The Church of the Open Door" in downtown LA. The group was to be available to sing at Ken's evangelistic campaigns (as a group, small sub-groups, or soloists.) Ken was also starting a half-hour radio show, Accent on Youth, and we were to be the music for this show. George was a little more ambitious, so we also became involved with Youth for Christ which was very active throughout the Southern California area at that time. We mostly sang on Saturdays in Orange County, but we also performed in LA and San Diego. We became a regular group, doing our own music as well as providing back up for visiting musicians. In addition to the Youth for Christ circuit, we performed at churches, festivals and competitions. This was a real neat experience, the group was good! But underneath I was falling apart.

I never lost my faith. I don't ever remember doubting Jesus. I loved him, but somehow he didn't seem real or relevant to my life. I was desperate to fit in with whatever group I was with. If I was with the church crowd, I was religious, with the drunks, I was drunk. One of the funny things was that people saw me as a leader -- but all I saw was this attempt to make people like me. It was at this point that I became so hypocritical and really jaundiced with the music scene -- I could be drunk on Friday and then appear at Youth for Christ on Saturday and proclaim the power of the Lord in my life! I was a fake. I might also say the I was disappointed in much of the Christian Music crowd. We were with a lot of "names" at the time. There were two types; Wonderful Christian people who really loved the Lord and lived it -- and those who couldn't make it in the "real" music world and began to sing Christian music. I guess at this time I was in the second group. I will also add that I had recently been unceremoniously dumped by a girl that I really loved. I was a mess.

Then came the icing on the cake. George, the leader, was an older man (probably 30, but remember I was only in my early 20s) and was married with 5 children. In early 1960, his wife became pregnant and George got a roving eye. Our piano player was a very cute, very talented 17 year old. George liked her but there was no way that he could date her. Well, even though I was much older than her, her parents thought that the sun rose and set in me. So I began to date her -- or so they thought. I was just picking her up for George. This went on for a couple of months and then I got a call from the Lynwood, CA police department. They wanted me to come and talk with them. It was there that I had a very strained meeting with her parents (who no longer thought that the sun rose and set in me). I spent a lovely evening being grilled by the police who were trying to pin a statutory rape charge on George. I was devastated. What had I done? This isn't the kind of person I am! It was after this that I had to face Ken Poure -- he was so disappointed in me. But the hardest person at all for me to face was myself. My mother never knew this. I don't think that any of the people at the church did either, but the fun of music was gone.

I didn't leave for the Navy until October of 1960. I continued to be involved with the young people at FBC. I also continued to sing, but my heart wasn't in it. Then when I entered the military, the song came to an end. I didn't sing again until 1967 when I came to FBC Chula Vista. As for my violin. . . The music was over. I no longer had a song to sing. I was rapidly entering the Belly of the Whale.