When Sing-Out '66 First Came to Nashville: Day 3--January 19, 2011

Day 3 for Sing-Out '66 in Nashville (January 19, 2011) began with more performances at local colleges and universities. That included (above) at then Tennessee A&I University (now Tennessee State) where THE BANNER reported a crowd of over 6,000 students in the school's Kean's Little Garden gymnasium that resulted in:"a solid force of cheers and applause (which) erupted from the university's massive wing of ROTC cadets (seen above in the middle of audience)at the close of the one-hour MRA performance."

After the show the cast members were guests at a luncheon on campus held by A&I President, Dr. W.S. Davis, who was quoted as saying:"The principles that guide these youngsters are certainly against the burning of draft cards and those extreme groups now opposing America's efforts in Viet Nam. To the Sing-Out '66 group, thank you for coming. To its sponsor--Mr. James Stahlman thank you for bringing them."

At the luncheon, the tables were turned as A&I students presented their own talent show to Sing-Out '66 cast members. It was so impressive that, according to the BANNER, "Steve Colwell, one of the famed brothers in the MRA show observed, There's some excellent talent out at A&I. I hope we can recruit some for our Southern tour."

Indeed that did eventually happen in a way, with TSU student Melvin Turner (seen above) described that day as "an acrobatic tap dancer--who scooted about the dining room, shaking hands with the MRAers as he moved down the aisle-ways" joined Sing-Out South for its opening shows at Hillsboro High School in March, 1966, then joined Sing-Out'66 shortly thereafter for its tour of West Germany, perhaps the first SOS member to join the national cast.

Later that evening on January 19, there was a show by Sing-Out '66 for students at Fisk and Meharry Medical College attracting over 1,000 people who jammed their way into the historic Fisk Chapel (see above). Among those attending was the Catholic Bishop of Tennessee, the Most Reverend Joseph A. Durick.

According to coverage in THE BANNER, the audience at Fisk demanded and got Sing-Out's first encore of the week and afterwards Fisk students visited with cast members for over an hour. Comments after the show sounded like this (according to the the paper): "A wonderful inspiration," Their purpose is what America needs,"I never was belted with so much happiness in my life."

After three days in the city, the momentum was really building. As you can see from THE BANNER front page above, an additional show at the Fairgrounds Coliseum was being added for Sunday evening, while more Nashville media outlets also were getting involved.

WLAC Radio, 1510 AM announced it was taping the entire two-hour Sing-Out concert at the Coliseum that Saturday evening and would play it back on the air Sunday at 1:30 p.m., while WLAC-TV, Channel 5 said a filmed segment of Sing-Out, with the group performing "Up with People", would be shown in-color on the station's "Newsbeat" program on Thursday night at 6 p.m.

There was also growing interest in what comes next. So many students wanted to learn more about MRA and Sing-Out after seeing the shows, more than 200 attended a meeting with cast members and other MRA officials held Wednesday afternoon at the War Memorial Auditorium, a location made available (at no charge by Governor Frank Clement) after it was clear a hotel room reserved would not hold the crowd. A second meeting was set for Saturday at the Andrew Jackson Hotel near the Capitol.

And with the students and faculty at Tennessee A&I talking about developing a "sing-out" of their own at the school, it was obvious there was a move afoot to create a local Sing-Out cast, an effort that would gather further stream in the days ahead as you will see in our next blog posting on Thursday.

And it would all come about despite the efforts of Mother Nature which dumped one of the largest snowstorms in the city's history on Nashville in the days ahead.