When Sing-Out First Came To Nashville--Day 4--January 20, 1966

After playing before an estimated 12,000 people during their first three days in Nashville, the cast of Sing-Out'66 took a brief break to play tourists on Thursday morning, January 20,1966 (see photo above). They took a tour the Hermitage, the historic home of President Andrew Jackson, and then were honored with a special luncheon at the nearby "Cabin-By-The-Spring" hosted by NASHVILLE BANNER Publisher, James G. Stahlman. At the luncheon, according to the BANNER, the cast was also welcomed by a representative of the Ladies Hermitage Association who said: "Could General Jackson be here today, I am sure he would take extreme pleasure in greeting each of you. You espouse the very ideals for which he fought and by which he lived."

Some 27 high school cast members of Sing-Out '66 also took time that week to visit Nashville's new Ben West Library downtown (see photo above) . They did it to study as a part of the traveling Sing-Out High School. THE BANNER had an article (January 19) saying the school was in session in three separate rooms in the Nashville library with a full staff of 10 teachers-tutors also on site.

By the way, the paper reported as well that the high schoolers had just completed a lesson concerning Andrew Jackson right before coming to Nashville.

No doubt there were a lot of young Nashville high school students who read the news coverage about Sing-Out High School. Little did some of them realize that they too would be a part of these classes in just a few months (in the fall of 1966), after first joining Sing-Out South later in the winter, and then a national Up With People cast that summer.

But it wasn't long before Sing-Out '66 was back on stage in Nashville (see above). According to THE BANNER coverage, Thursday evening at the Fairgrounds Coliseum:" A wildly cheering crowd of about 5,000 senior parochial and Metro high school students gave Sing-Out '66 five standing ovations...as the musical troupe presented a snappy two-hour show. The area youngsters continued to cry for more even after the MRA cast had run through three encores."

Actually, this was the first time entire cast had been together on stage in Nashville to present its full show. The previous Nashville performances had been only one hour in length and involved a smaller "strike force" of cast members.

Regardless, audience response continued to be electric.Among the comments reported by THE BANNER from the audience: "This show is beyond words. I have never been so impressed in my life." Said another student: "If we can get the spirit of it going across the country, it'll be great. We've needed something like this for a long time." And one of the young people responding went right to the point and voiced the hope that, "we can a Sing-Out started in this area as soon as possible. This show is great."

With more shows scheduled for Friday and the weekend ahead, spirits were high over the Sing-Out visit to Nashville and the possible creation of a local sing-out here. But that would be challenged in coming days as Mother Nature stood poised to hit the city with a a series of signficant snowstorms.

More on that Friday in our next blog posting here.