The Bandshell

The Bandshell in Centennial Park is the site of some of Sing-Out South's most memorable shows, particularly in August of 1967 and again in 1968 before the cast went off later in the month to the World Sing-Out Festival held both years on David's Island at Ft. Slocum near New Rochelle, New York and just outside New York City.

While we never charged admission for our shows, both concerts at the Bandshell were fund raising efforts to generate some of the money we needed to take up to 45 SOS members to the Festival. We also did a 100-hour marathon car wash, but that's another blog posting for the future. Overall, we needed between $3,000 to $5,000 (the newspaper clips give different numbers), which was quite a bit of change back in those days.

We raised the money with the assistance of some political clout that included getting Governor Buford Ellington (above) to bring local members of the SOS cast to his office to proclaim the night of the show in 1967 (August 5) to be the beginning of Sing-Out South Week in Nashville. From the left in the photo are Glenn Nave, Jackie Dodson, Gene Nolan, The Governor, Jerry Baker, Pat Nolan (me) and SOS Cast Director Jill Walters.

We even got the previous Governor Frank Clement (seen above) to be the master of ceremonies for the Bandshell show in 1967, as well as getting an article placed in THE TENNESSEAN about the event. Given how strongly THE NASHVILLE BANNER covered us on a regular basis such an article in the morning paper was almost unheard of.

Also beyond belief was the tremendous speech given by former Governor Clement during the intermission of our show. There was an overflow crowd that evening stretching all the way from the Bandshell to Watauga Lake. It was as least as large as the 2,000people estimated to have been there the previous summer when one of the national casts of Up With People performed. The audience's response to the speech of Governor Clement was overwhelming, filling to overflowing the little blue SOS buckets we always circulated around to raise money at our shows. And so we were soon on our way to New York City....

I have never forgotten those shows at the Bandshell. Playing there was a real coup, since this was the venue where for so many years (beginning back in 1937) the long-standing Sunday afternoon summer concerts sponsored by THE TENNESSEAN were held.

So many well-known artists such as Minnie Pearl, Roger Miller, Tex Ritter, Chet Atkins, Brenda Lee, the Everly Brothers, Bill Monroe, Ray Stevens, Eddy Arnold, among others performed there. Even Nashville's Pat Boone (who was later the emcee of one of UWP's national TV specials) got an early break by performing here. And so did we of Sing-Out South helping to raise some of the money we needed to go to two of our national conferences.Here's one of the songs we performed at the Bandshell,"The Ride of Paul Revere," as done by the national cast of Up With People...

Free music - The Ride Of Paul Revere

A wonderful song performed on some nights over 40 years ago that still contain some great memories.

Fort Campbell

It can never be forgotten that our time in Sing-Out South (1966-1971)was also the period during which our nation was at war in Vietnam. Many songs in our show were strongly patriotic (such as WE ARE WITH YOU, MR. WASHINGTON) and that often put us in the midst of criticism and controversy for supporting an increasingly unpopular war. The idea of supporting the troops, even if you had questions about the war itself, was not a well-known or popular concept in those days.

Not surprisingly, the casts of Up With People and Sing-Out South were frequently asked to perform at military bases around the country. For SOS that meant traveling up to Ft. Campbell, an army installation that is located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennesse border.

Ft. Campbell was a very busy place in those days. In July, 1965 the 1st Brigade of the resident 101st Airborne Division was sent for duty in Vietnam, and as hostilities increased, the rest of the division was deployed. Meantime, on May 2, 1966, a Basic Combat Training Center (for draftees) was established at Fort Campbell. By July 11 of that year it already had a full complement of 1,100 trainees. It was these soliders in training that we in Sing Out South entertained from time to time. The Training Center was deactivated in April of 1972....

This photo (which is of me) probably only made the troops laugh.

This was taken right before my last show in Sing-Out South in the fall of 1969. I came up to do the performance at Ft. Campbell right before I started my classes in college. Our run of the show that day (and the reason for me wearing that uniform)included a song that always got a great reception from the troops. It was "THE FIGHTIN' NINTH INFANTRY" as performed here by Frank Fields and Up With People....

Free music - The Fighting Ninth

As much as I always thought that song got a great reception, especially at Ft. Campbell, what really got the trainees all stirred up is a plain as the picture below....

Our SOS cast (and all the national casts of Up With People) were always full of many attractive young ladies. These new troops had probably not seen any women at all during their entire time of training. So, not surprisingly, they were the stars of our show. Did the troops even hear our songs and our message? I think so, but they still liked seeing the ladies better, I am sure.

Any former SOS or UWP female cast members please feel free to leave your thoughts and memories below from touring and performing at bases like Fort Campbell.

An SOS Quartet For The Hall Of Fame

When the Up With People Alumni Association held its recent annual 45th Reunion festivities in Arizona, one of the new events was the creation of an Up With People Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Not surprisingly, and most appropriately, the initial class of inductees includes the Colwell Brothers and Herb Allen, the true driving musical forces behind, first, Sing Out, and then the Up With People Show, as it swept across America and throughout the world in the mid-to-late 1960s....

As the Up With People Songwriters Hall of Fame continues to expand each year, I'd like to nominate a quartet of gentlemen to be inducted. All of them have strong ties to the original cast of Sing-Out South, and provided many memorable songs to both SOS and the national casts...

It begins with Bill Cates, who began his work with Sing-Out South by writing and producing many songs for our original premiere shows at Hillsboro High School in late March, 1966. That included several signature songs for the cast including "We Volunteer" and "Sing-Out South." Other pieces he created and (in some cases)performed for those early shows include "Get Up & Go", "We Refuse To Go To The Dogs" and "Let Our Voices Be Heard." Perhaps the most lasting work he wrote for SOS was a song later included in the Baptist Hymnal "Do You Really Care", performed so beautifully by the late Donna Dowthitt....

When Bill joined the national cast of Sing-Out, then Up With People, his creative talents continue to grow. He is credited with at least a dozen songs in a review of Up With People sheet music on line. Those songs include "Dawn Of The Morning Of Time," "The Wonder Of It All" (with his wife Linda Blackmore Cates), "John David Sebastian Smith", "A Memorable Tune" and many others, including one of my favorites, which we also performed in Sing-Out South, "Gee I'm Looking Forward To The Future"....

Free music - Gee, I'm Looking Forward To The Future

The other three former Sing-Out South members I would like to nominate to the Up With People Songwriters Hall of Fame can be seen from the photo above. They are The Volunteers from Cast C of Up With People in the late 1960s. They are, beginning second from the left, Ken Ashby, Dick Smith and Cabot Wade (George Brown is the other member of The Volunteers and he is first on the left in the photo).

Both Ken Ashby and Dick Smith were members of the Tennessee Tech Quartet in Sing-Out South, performing as you can see below (with Lee Piepmeier and Joe Capers) from one of our original shows....

Free music - Walk On Through

Both Dick Smith and Cabot Wade have now once again become active with Up With People. That includes their work together as the WADE-SMITH band which provided the musical background for an alumni-based show (including the Colwells and Herb Allen) called "A Song For the World" which was performed in the summer of 2009 in Branson, MO. and may soon be taken on tour including a possible trip to Jamaica...

Dick Smith today

Dick Smith is credited with writing and creating a number of songs for Up With People. In addition to "Walk On Through" with Ken Ashby, he was also involved in either the lyrics or music of "It's Happening!", "How I Feel!", "I Get A Kick Out Of Life," "You Are What You Do," "Thinking About The Days Ahead," "A Thing To Do," and a song he wrote and we performed in Sing-Out South, "Let The Rafters Ring"....

Free music - Let The Rafters Ring

Cabot Wade today

Cabot Wade was a member of the original trio in Sing-Out South called the Hickory Valley Trio.Here he is below in the center of the photo along with Eddie Lunn on the left and Ted Overman on the right (on bass). This photo was taken in June, 1966 on the evening when SOS was leaving for the national Sing-Out conference in Estes Park, CO...

After he joined the national cast of Sing-Out '66 and Up With People, Cabot wrote the lyrics for or provided the music for several songs. We've talked before about his song "Ashes" for example. His other songs include "Song Of The Soul" and Live It Live!"( both with Ken Ashby), along with two songs we did in Sing-Out South "Is There A Reason Why" and "The World Is Your Hometown".....

Free music - Is There A Reason Why?

Free music - The World Is Your Hometown

So that's a little taste of the musical talents of this quartet of Sing-Out South song writers. While I know there are others who deserve to be enshined as well in the new Up With People Songwriters Hall of Fame, I believe each of these guys do as well. Since some of their songs date from a period after many of the readers of this blog had moved on from active participation in Up With People, I will take some opportunities to provide some more samples here of their work in the future.

We've Lost Rachel Steele

Rachel Steele, a noted Nashville attorney, and a member of Sing-Out South back in 1966-67, has passed away. She died on August 7.

Her death notice appeared in the Wednesday edition (August 11)of THE TENNESSEAN. She was 58. No cause of death was listed.

A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday, August 12 at 11:00 a.m. in the Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church, 4815 Franklin Road in Nashville. Memorials are requested to be made in Rachel's name to the William Cain Revolving Loan Fund for the benefit of the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program, 200 4th Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37219 or to the charity of your choice.

Rachel was a graduate of Harpeth Hall, where she was a three-time state diving champion. She took her studies very seriously, finishing third in her high school class. In fact, the reason she ultimately left the SOS cast was to concentrate more on her classes. She then earned her undergraduate degree and law degree from Duke University.

She worked with distinction for several years in the State Attorney General's office and once sought to be elected to a judgeship. She was active in her church (Downtown Presybyterian) where she served as an elder and clerk of the session.

Rachel stayed in touch with several of her Sing-Out friends, including hosting a small gathering in her home last February when Beverly Barry was visiting in town.I think she also attended both of our SOS Reunions in 1989 and 2006.

She will be missed. Rest in peace, Rachel.

If you have any thoughts or condelences to share, please feel free to leave them below.

Is It SOS Reunion Time Again?

Just a few weeks ago, The UP WITH PEOPLE Alumni Association held its annual Reunion weekend in Arizona, with a special emphasis on the 45th anniversary for those who were members of the first five years of the cast (1965-1970). By my count from the UWP Alumni web page close to 100 former Sing-Out and Up With People cast members from that era were present, including those with ties to Sing-Out South and Tennessee such as Cabot Wade, Ken Smith, Lindy Short and the current UWP Alumni President Vickie Henthorn Law, who is a University of Tennessee-Knoxville graduate.

From what I can see and tell from the photos and comments posted on Facebook, it looks like everyone had a great time, and from the photo above you can see it had a bit of a Tennessee flavor with Cabot (center) and Ken (left) performing with their band (Smith-Wade Band) during the event.
So now the question is: Is it time for another SOS Reunion? Our founding was in late January,1966 and our premiere shows were in March of that same year, so we will hit 45 years old ourself next year in 2011.

This is a large part of the group that joined us for Reunion Weekend in Nashville for our 40th Anniversary back in 2006. We had a Friday night reception at the Holiday Inn-Vanderbilt, followed by a Sing-Out Retrospective at the Metro Archives the next afternoon, followed by a dinner at Belmont University (where the cast held its first practices). We closed out the weekend with a brunch at a local Shoney's which was one of our favorite cast hangouts back in the day.

At the time, the consensus was we wanted to get together before we hit the big 50 in 2016. The only other time we had organized an official reunion was back in late December, 1989.

Here's a photo from that evening when we had close to 100 cast members returning for a night together at Nashville's Millenium Maxwell House.

By the way on the groups photos, just click on them for a larger view and it will help you see who was with us in 2006 as well as 1989.

So how about it? Who is ready to help us organize a 45th Reunion? Who can help us find lost alums? By the way, I have contact information now for close to 75 former members. With Facebook, e-mail, this blog and rest of the internet, finding folks and getting people excited and informed ought to be easier than in years past.

We also need your help with ideas and suggestions about when to hold the Reunion and what to do. We will also need help in helping us line up the logistics of whatever we decide to do. That includes any ideas about us getting together to practice and have some kind of SOS Reunion show. The national cast did one several years ago, along with the new show Cabot Wade organized in Branson next year which now may be going to Jamaica soon.

We probably won't get nearly that ambitious.

Let me know what you think, either by leaving your thoughts and ideas below or by contacting me by e-mail, pat.nolan@dvl.com. It's already late summer. If we want to have a good event in 2011, we need to start planning! Thanks for your help!