Memories (#436)
This past Sunday, February 22, marked the anniversary of two Southern Gospel events.
First,
it would have been the 79th birthday of George Younce. George, who
passed away April 11, 2005, was, as you already know, the master emcee
and bass singer of the Cathedrals - not to mention the time he spent
with the Blue Ridge Quartet, the Weatherfords, the Florida Boys (he was
there about six months), etc.
Secondly, February 22 marked the
3rd anniversary of the death of Anthony Burger. Another master of his
craft, Anthony is best remembered for his work with the Kingsmen,
Gaither, and, of course, his solo performances.
During
interviews, I'm often asked to share memories of various people and two
of the names that come up quite a bit are, naturally, George and
Anthony. And each time, I struggle to find a good starting point
because there are just so many.
But in a nutshell, I go back
to when I was working at a radio station in my early teens and had to
interview the great George Younce, who at that time, was
more
than at the top of his game (if you can imagine anyone being that
good!). I was so nervous that I could barely say my own name, but
George spent about an hour with me, patiently answering the same
questions he must have answered every night for years. But he did it in
such a way that you would have thought he'd only have one interview in
his life and he was going to make it count.
The thing I remember
most about Anthony, though, took place the Friday evening before he
suffered the fatal heart attack the following week. We were standing in
the lobby of a massive church in Lakeland, Fla., where he had just
performed at the Booth Brothers' homecoming. We had been working on a
"Conversation" feature for the magazine and I had a copy of the layout
for him to view. He read through it and said, "I love it!" It had been
a while since Anthony had had a feature in the magazine and he was
thrilled to see it.
Many subscribers received that issue of the
magazine the same day Anthony gave his last performance. I can never
tell you how stunned I was when I got the call from Claude Hopper that
Wednesday night, telling me about what had happened to Anthony.
And
that brings me to my point. There are many young artists (and industry
people) coming along these days who missed out on knowing George,
Anthony and dozens more. If I were to loose everything I own, no one
could ever take away those special memories of Glen, Rex, Brock, J.D.,
George, Anthony, Foxy, Roger, Hamill...and the list goes on.
But
those same young people still have the opportunity to get to know and
learn from a whole other generation of leaders. Take the time to
develop those relationships. Don't be afraid to ask for advice. Be wise
enough to learn from their success stories and their tales of mistakes.
Store those memories that will influence you for years to come.
Let me close with this. For those of you who enjoy trivia, here's a tidbit for you:
In
the late 1980s, Singing News produced trading cards that featured many
of the major Southern Gospel artists. (Several people still have the
complete collection of cards and you can sometimes find discussions
about them on various Internet forums.) Along with the basic
biographical information, each card contained the line "Person I Most
Admire."
Anthony wrote "George Younce."