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. 

More on Music as a Source of both Spiritual and Social Development in my Life

I expect this to be the first of two posts about music in my life before returning to a discussion of my spiritual development at FBC Bellflower. My continued growth in music continues both at Bellflower and at UCLA and they are really intertwined. A key to this whole issue was the hiring of a new Choir Director at the church. His name was Ralph Freese (sp). He was not the youth choir director, he was the Adult Choir Director. He was also a voice teacher. My mom and I thought that it would be good to start voice lessons from him. I am not sure whether this was in my senior year at Bellflower High School or my freshman year at UCLA. I could continue lessons because I didn't live on campus my freshman year, but commuted.

Mr. Freese started me doing some serious singing. When I say serious, I just mean that I was learning to sing correctly and use my voice effectively. Was it all opera? No, although I did some opera. I sang serious church songs, Broadway, German Lieder and some pop songs. Basically, I just learned to sing. I loved it! He also helped me at UCLA. In my freshman year I was lost. UCLA was so large! I don't think I would have made it if it hadn't been for my friend John -- he was not shy and there were no strangers to him. I was a tag-along. That year we commuted and I was still very involved at the church -- weekends and even some evenings. But, I was really lost when we moved up to school in my sophomore year. I wanted to do some music. I went to the auditions for the A Capella Choir but quickly backed out after watching someone else audition. The director was Roger Wagner (who was also director of a rather famous group at the time -- the Roger Wagner Chorale). He started yelling at the person auditioning because they missed a b flat while sight reading a musical score. I said to myself, "I can't do that. Let's get out of here." I did.

In my sophomore year, I did become a member of the Men's Glee Club. This was a lot of fun. Our big event was when we were a part of the program for the Sport's Illustrated Athlete of the Year Presentation. Rafer Johnson, who was President of the UCLA student body was the athlete. He won the decathlon at the Olympics that year. I remember that Danny Thomas was the Master of Ceremonies. Those of us in the Glee Club got to mix in with the celebrities -- really neat. Most were athletes, but some were also movie stars. I was quite taken with Esther Williams (you have to be real old to remember her -- beautiful -- a swimmer -- and a star.) That was the first time that I ever ate Filet Mignon. This was a big event (for me.) This was my only musical involvement until my Junior year.

Then, in my Junior year, I received an invitation to attend a "rush" party for some fraternity (Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia) at a home in Beverly Hills. I had no idea what this was, but it sounded good, so I borrowed the MG from one of my room mates and went to the party. To make a long story short, I was asked to pledge the fraternity and later that year became a full member. It was a professional, music honorary fraternity. I looked it up on Wikipedia a few minutes ago, lots of famous people were and are members -- I began to wonder how I had been picked for this group -- all of the others in my chapter were music majors! Then I remembered Mr. Freese -- he was a friend of the academic sponsor of the group.

Membership in the fraternity opened many doors for using and developing my music even though I was a premed rather that music major. I sang in a number of groups, played in string quartets -- and performed in many venues. One of the neatest events was the UCLA Spring Sing that year. This was an event for fraternity's, sorority's and other clubs to put together a musical performance as a competition. We held the event at the Hollywood Bowl. That year we one the sweepstakes award as the best group in the competition. We performed along with our sister sorority, Mu Phi Epsilon (for any Chula Vista people, Becky Schoultz was a Mu Phi Epsilon.)

One other thing that helped me in my music was that I became a Wedding Singer. FBC Bellflower was THE church for weddings at that time. My mom was the wedding coordinator. She would always ask who they had to sing. If they had no one, she would give them my name. At first, I was always unsure of myself when asked, "How much do you charge?" Mom said if I sold myself too cheaply that no one would want me. I finally began to feel comfortable asking for $50. Guess what, the word got around and I began to get invited to sing at other venues also. By the way, $50 was the tuition for a semester at UCLA (and included football tickets -- even the Rose Bowl), gas was $0.18-0.21 per gallon and as a union worker at the Ford Automotive Assembly Plant (in the summer), I made $2.10 an hour. What I am saying is the $50 was a goodly sum of money in those days. But, this is how I earned a significant part of my money for school.

Everything about music seemed so positive. Certainly there was no movement toward the Belly of the Whale in this. This saved me and gave me a social life outside of the Bellflower church. But, in my next post, my activity in music starts me on the long slide into the abyss -- the Belly of the Whale.

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.