It Was 44 Years Ago Today....

It was 44 years ago today (March 26, 1966) that Sing-Out South completed its premiere shows which were held in the auditorium of Hillsboro High School. The first show was Friday evening, March 25 at 8:00 p.m. followed by a matinee performance on Saturday at 2 p.m. and another evening performance that night.

The late Ralph Martin (above) is getting made up before the big show. While (below) the top brass from Sing-Out (soon to be Up With People), including J. Blanton Belk, attend our Green Room before our first night's show. That's Mike Rourke of SOS to the left in the photo.

Showtime for the Hickory Valley Trio, Cabot Wade, Eddie Lunn and Ted Overman!

And this was the reaction!

The response from those attending was remarkable with standing room only crowds at all three shows. By the way, the photo above from the Friday night show features my mother, my aunt Maggie and my youngest sister Jeanna.

The crowds at the all shows gave several standing ovations during the performances. According to news reports, on opening night they even gave a 20-minute standing O at the conclusion of the evening as the cast performed several encores.

That weekend SOS attracted people to the shows from as far away as Arkansas as a bus load of cast members from Sing-Out Little Rock came over for the weekend. Even Nashville Mayor Beverly Briley changed his plans and left an out-of-town mayor's conference early in order to be on stage to introduce the cast.

Equally remarkable was the coverage of our premiere weekend by THE NASHVILLE BANNER. SOS literally dominated the March 25th edition of the paper as seen above and in the lead story on the front page below. The reporter, Jacque Stubbel, was literally the Sing-Out South beat reporter in those days.

Inside the paper there were numerous pictures, including a full-page spread of photos, and a separate full color shot of the entire cast on stage. The paper also ran in that same edition, a complete listing, by the schools they attended, of all 190 SOS cast members. There was even a photo of the stage crew (seen below) taking a break after a lot of hard work.

By the way, a good bit of money was raised at each show as the audience brought lots of Sing-Out and Moral Rearmament related materials. I know, I was among those selling these items. As they left, the audience also filled donation buckets as cast members stood by the exits with small blue buckets appropriately marked SOS.

On March 25, 2006, a number of members of that original Sing-Out South cast and others (above) who performed with SOS between 1966 and 1971 came together at Belmont University to celebrate our 40th anniversary. Believe it or not, next year marks our 45th anniversary, a time when a number of us said we needed to get together again.

So who is ready to help organize our third SOS Reunion (the first was in 1989)? We only have about 12 months to get our act together! And that's not a whole lot of time to find our lost cast members and organize our activities.

If you are interested in being involved, leave your thoughts and ideas below as well as your contact information or just e-mail it to me (pat.nolan@dvl.com).