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