Of memories
I got my new copy of the Singing News today.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Quartet Convention, there are some special articles and recollections...including a nice sketch of the current NQC board by regular contributor Roy Pauley.
Pauley's opinion piece this month, by the way, is a thoughtful piece on current gospel quartets, including a short commentary on Ernie Haase and SSQ, in which his eventual conclusions about them echo mine(good quartet, the stage antics are a possible distraction but if one listens past them, one can hear why SSQ is so successful...and Pauley is quick to concede that they ARE successful).
There is also a nice piece on a California quartet that my co-host on our radio program enjoys very much(they are friends of hers), the Revised Standard Version.
But this is NOT a review of this month's issue...just some thoughts on what I saw there.
I was taken in particular by some reminiscing about the Blackwood Brothers, who were the principal movers behind the NQC(in particular bass singer JD Sumner). The looks back were from the children of Sumner, James Blackwood, RW Blackwood, and Cecil Blackwood. I was touched by the charming look back at these dedicated men from the memories of their children.
It was nice to hear what Mark Blackwood had to say about his father, Cecil(who has been so villified by many, and not completely without justification)...Mark speaks fondly of Cecil's kind nature, which I personally experienced often in the three or four times I saw him face to face. Cecil was always friendly and kind to me.
As was Sumner...who I met only a half dozen times, when he was still with the Masters V and later with the revitalized Stamps. Sumner was always warm and solicitous with me...I could tell that he was a genuine and humble man, in spite of his onstage schtick. I remember when I saw him with the Stamps in 1989, and he took Don Smith, me, and my mother on a tour of his bus. Sumner was one of my gospel heroes, and he lived up to everything I thought him to be in the times I met him.
Then there was James Blackwood...what a man! I must have seen James a grand total of a dozen times in my life, the first in 1975 when he joined the Blackwood Brothers for a homecoming for Don Smith's Gospelaires in Fresno. I bought his autobiography and he signed it for me, and spent several minutes in conversation with me, giving this 17-year old gospel music enthusiast(and new Christian)all the attention I could want, in spite of the fact that scores of people crowded around him all the while.
I didn't see James again for seven years. By that time I was living in Southern California, and he was again with the Blackwood Brothers at El Camino College. I was utterly amazed when he saw me...he greeted me with a friendly, "Hi, John...how have you been?"
My jaw had to be picked up off the floor of that auditorium. James Blackwood must have met over a milllion people in his lifetime by that point....but somehow, he remembered the name of a guy from Fresno he hadn't seen in seven years! If I needed any reason to be a fan of James for life(and I didn't), he gave me one! I would see James several more times between then and his passing, and he never forgot me or my name! You never replace people like James Blackwood, JD Sumner, London Parris, or the many other gospel singers I met and befriended...they come along but once, and they must be cherished while they're here...and afterward.
Posted on Aug 24, 2007 - 11:10 PM | [0]
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