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William Myers oral history, 2002 July 18 Sounds and Stories

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AbstractWilliam (Bill) Myers began his musical studies in piano with Adah K. Jenkins. He then studied with Georgiana Chester at Douglass High School, at the Peabody Preparatory and Peabody Conservatory (BM 1962, MM 1968, Music Education), and at Morgan State University. Myers served with the U.S. Army Special Services in Europe in the 1960s. After returning to the U.S. and graduating from the Peabody Conservatory, Myers began teaching music and leading choirs in the Baltimore County Schools. Since the early 1990s he has served as executive director of Maryland Sings. Myers conducts workshops and choral clinics throughout the United States. Interview by Elizabeth Schaaf.
Duration:
01:19:11
Date:
created2002-07-18
Agent:
IntervieweeMyers, William
InterviewerSchaaf, Elizabeth M.
Language:
PrimaryEnglish
Format:
audio/mp3
Publisher:
Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
Rights Statement:
The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information.
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WILLIAM MYERS: -- proceeded to leave. The hearse went on and the rest of the cars had stopped. Doors opened and here come all these kids. They came running up those steps, and they were just blubbering. And I stood there and one young man put his arms around me and said you're the man who opened the doors for all of us.

And we just stood there. Just stood there and we hugged, all of us.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now before you started opening doors, who were the artists you were listening to, who were the artists that meant
-- I mean, you had people like Adah Jenkins in your life, and my goodness, and you can't get much better than that. But who were the artists whose footsteps you wanted to follow?

WILLIAM MYERS: That was hard for me. I loved the voice of Nat King Cole. I loved the voice of Harry Belafonte, Sarah Vaughan. You see where I'm going, you know. I was not schooled in opera at all at the time, but I loved the pop voices.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: And they were wonderful voices.

WILLIAM MYERS: So I knew I wanted to sing. I knew I wanted to sing. And of course my aunt wanted me to become a doctor, and she was putting money away in a trust fund for me to go to medical school,
and mama had different ideas altogether. When I started really pursuing all of this, I

noticed that my aunt withdrew the trust fund. And it was all right with mama because this is what he wants to do, and he's going to be schooled. He'll be taken care of. He'll make it.

I listened to all those pop singers. Rhythm and blues. I liked groups as well. I was so involved in listening to like the Fifth Dimension, groups like that coming along, Platters, and hearing the harmonies. I got involved in a group like that when I was in high school.

We had one job -- one job that's all we had, and that was at the Royal Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue.
That's where all of the big stuff rolled in there. And I saw Little Richard there. I saw the granddaddy of soul, James Brown. I saw him there. And that one group, we were in high school, but it was a good group. A promoter put us together and we had one job. And two of the boys left to do something else, and said forget this, that was it.

But that group thing is coming back to me now! Because I'm writing for the groups that I have, the five groups that I have. I'm writing.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Tell me what it was like walking out on the stage of the Royal Theater?

WILLIAM MYERS: Afraid to death. Knees were knocking, teeth were chattering. Scared to death. But once we got out there, and the lights hit us, you know, and the music started, bingo, bingo.
And then to walk off the stage, and to walk around the front and see big artists. We were overwhelmed. We opened, you know.

Big artists, wow, we were just up there. [Laughter] And then when I was at Dulaney High School, I had a group of about ten, and we did some country music. And went to, then Painters Mill. Had one performance there as an opening act. Yeah.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now was Tracy McCleary still the conductor when, was he the conductor when you were at the Royal, when you performed at the Royal Theater?

WILLIAM MYERS: I don't know. I didn't get beyond just walking in the door, rehearsing, and then coming out and coming back for a performance. I didn't talk to anyone. Because of mama, don't talk to a soul. Don't talk to anybody at all. You just follow, whatever his name was, the promoter,
I can't think of his name now, but yeah, I couldn't go anywhere but with him, you know, and not talk to anyone.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: What a thrilling experience that must have been. Were you ever allowed to visit any of the other clubs on Pennsylvania Avenue?

WILLIAM MYERS: No, I couldn't do that.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Sounds like your mother would have been a little upset if you had.

WILLIAM MYERS: Right. She ruled the roost. And that kind of thing was not for us, for me. Of course, mom never went to a club in all her life.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: What inspired her love of music? What do you think shaped her and her interest in music?

WILLIAM MYERS: You know that's a good question. I don't know. There was no one in her family or my dad's family that was musical.
No one. No one at all. What I said to you earlier about my life seeming to be preordained, God worked through my mom.
That's the only thing I can think. You know? Never thought about that.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Was she involved in church choirs?

WILLIAM MYERS: No, she was not.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: That is really interesting that she perceived that you had this mission and encouraged you every step of the way.

WILLIAM MYERS: Yeah. I found myself as a youngster involved in clay modeling, sculpture, some dance, some painting, voice lessons with Fannie Newton Moragne. She was my first voice teacher. Yes!

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Beautiful woman.

WILLIAM MYERS: Yes. And was tough. Yeah.
She looked very serene, you know, and very beautiful, but she was tough. I remember that, and she told me go home and take a book and put it on your stomach, lay out on the floor, on the bed, and start that breathing process, and you better see that book go up and down. And when I came to the next lesson, did it go up and down? I said yes it did. [Laughter]

Yeah, but she was wonderful. Yes.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Where did you study with her?

WILLIAM MYERS: Oh, I had a scholarship.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: At Upton, the Institute of Musical Arts at Upton?

WILLIAM MYERS: I guess. Yes, indeed it was. Was there a German professor?

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yes.

WILLIAM MYERS: How about that?

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Professor [Herman] Schwarz.

WILLIAM MYERS: Schwarz, yes. Professor Schwarz. How about that. My mama read about it in the newspaper, about the scholarships being given. And there we were. Got a taxi cab and we went on down.
How about that. Yes.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: There were some fabulous people on that faculty. Hugo Weisgall, who won the Pulitzer Prize in composition, taught theory there.

WILLIAM MYERS: Right.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: You had some good teachers.

WILLIAM MYERS: Yeah. Thank God for that!

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: How long were you with Miss Newton?

WILLIAM MYERS: Two years.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Two years. She trained a lot of good voices.

WILLIAM MYERS: Yes.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Did you know any of her other students?

WILLIAM MYERS: No I did not.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Because several of them ended up coming here to Peabody.

WILLIAM MYERS: Oh really? I know I had my lessons and then I was due back home at a certain hour. My mother's tough. You know. There was a routine that I had to follow. I'd go for my lessons, voice lessons, and then I was back home, and I had to change my clothes and do my homework, and go get the food for the dog.
You know, all these chores. You know? And then that was it, bedtime. Or practice the piano for Adah Jenkins and whatever. But it was very structured.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: And, well, what was the neighborhood like for a kid growing up back then?

WILLIAM MYERS: Wow. It was something else. I know in the very beginning we were very poor. Yes. And my mom and dad they had egg crates for tables and stools. Yeah. And then we moved to northwest Baltimore, Calhoun Street.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now where were you living before Calhoun Street?

WILLIAM MYERS: South Baltimore.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well Calhoun Street was quite a step up.

WILLIAM MYERS: It was quite a step.
And then Douglass High School was a block or so away from my house. And of course, there were temptations all around me. Belonging to the gang, you know. And I would say, my mama said that I can't leave the steps. You know. And so one smartie told me to tell my mama that I couldn't get the steps to go with me so I had to leave them. You know

this kind of thing. And I thought about that for a while, you know, but I didn't say that to her. I didn't say that to her. [Laughter]

But there were temptations. And belonging with the crowd, you know, the guys -- the jackets and all, all of that. But I didn't get involved. I was just afraid of my mama. I really was.

I took a job in a bakery to learn how to bake bread and bake rolls and sticky buns and stuff like that.
I was quite young. Really quite young. And my mama kept saying to me: isn't it against the law for you to be doing this? And of course I didn't know. And so anyhow, I would stay hours and hours, and wasn't making any money at all hardly. But still it taught me a work ethic.

And then I worked for Cloverland Dairy around trucks. Early in the morning, five o'clock in the morning I was running out there, and putting milk on the stoop. You know. Running back to the truck. And all of that was good for me.

And I'm trying to teach my children today the same kind of thing. And sometimes I win, sometimes I don't, you know, but I think I'm getting through. They walk with a foot in two worlds, but they're developing. I know my fourteen year old is developing a work ethic.
I know that. He has this little thing in the community. We live in a secluded community near Reisterstown, Glyndon, Maryland. And in that community in which we live, he has this little job. And he sits for dogs, cats, babies [laughter]. You know, waters plants or whatever. And so he's doing his thing. He's learning. He's learning.

And so, my daughter, who is, Joelle, who is older and working at a wonderful law office in Washington, has traveled and worked with Jimmy Carter in building houses and whatever all over the place. She just came back from South Africa.

And so she is a role model for my younger ones now. You know. They just love her to death.
She travels a lot and comes back and they listen to her in the family room on the floor. I never get to talk with her myself. She comes to visit and is my child too, but she's in the middle of my other children. And before I know it, she says, well, dad it's time for me to leave. Oh, yes. Nice seeing you, nice talking with you. So I have to call. I call her on the job and talk with her.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Have any of your children shown a desire to follow your footsteps into the world of music?

WILLIAM MYERS: I think my son, my fourteen year old, is playing guitar. And I just thought that he will have it. My wife, Hollie, said buy him a guitar. I said all right. He'll have it for two days and then it will be it in the closet, because my ten year old had a flute and that's in the closet, whatever. And so, lo and behold, this guy accompanied a youth choir in church.
Little ones, ages, what -- seven to twelve, something like that. And I'm sitting there on the first pew because I lead the singing, the cantor type thing, and he's accompanying this choir. My goodness.

And so I went to him after the service. I said marvelous. Now what I want you to do is to play with your teacher in church. He said, wow. So he's moving in that direction with the guitar.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: That is wonderful.

WILLIAM MYERS: When I left home today, he was sitting on his bed. He was picking away. My oldest daughter is also a model. She's done quite well. She has this job in this law office, but yet she models on the side. She's able to go back and forth.

Now, my eight year old, Sean, swears that he is the next Michael Jackson. We have to buy him everything, all the recordings and everything else. He has all the moves. And I was told by a teacher in his elementary school -- you know, I've seen a side of him that I didn't know existed. And then the music teacher said that they had to stop class one day, and he had to perform. And it broke everybody up. He sings. So I don't know where we're going with that.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, we know where he got it.

WILLIAM MYERS: My job I guess is to open doors. And pay the bills.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: I know sons don't often go to their fathers for advice,
but if this eight year old decides he has a path, or finds out he has a path like you did, and turns to you for advice, what would you tell him?

WILLIAM MYERS: Well, I think I would be able to evaluate his skills. You know, I've been out there myself for twenty years. I know enough people around the world, in Nashville, New York and in Paris that are buddies. We can talk. And I will let one of them see him do something. I'll provide that opportunity. And then let that person be the one to tell him -- yea or nay.

ELIZABETH SCHAAF: Very wise.

WILLIAM MYERS: But I will support him. I really will.
Music has just given me everything. The sensitivity that I have, the love that I have for the outdoors, for colors. I teach my kids, my local students, by using colors. By asking them to paint and imagine a canvas in front of them with their sounds. Thinking about their favorite color and thinking about the warmest color. Because it's all about color.

[END OF INTERVIEW]
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01-08-2025 00:00 - 01-08-2025 23:59