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Posted: Dec 11th, 2005 at 02:12 pm
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RE: All God's Children on: Aug 9th, 2005, 7:08 pm
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The names of the kids in All God's Children at the time I joined with them were:
Kathy, Maryann, Angel, Suzie, Heather, Mark B., Don (who was my first semester roommate in college as well), Doug, Jane, Dennis, my sister Deb and myself. I believe the group had existed for a couple years prior to my joining and there were one or two different singers who came in for awhile while I was with the group...a couple roadies as well...one was Bill Mudge, who later would be a housemate at college with me. I believe Bill became a minister and has a church in Westernville or some place outside of Rome. If anyone associated with AGC should stumble on this, please post or email me. I'd love to catch up with you all.
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All God's Children on: Aug 9th, 2005, 6:51 pm
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During my Junior year, I had a class with a girl named Angel Brown who had also moved to Rome from Maine. Her father was in the Air Force at Griffiss. Her family attended a Nazarene Church that my mother occassionally attended and so Angel and I became good friends.
Her church brought a gospel rock group in for a service and Angel was invited to joinas a Soprano. Later that Spring a tenor in the group was leaving. Angel told me about it and thought I should give a listen to the group because I might be interested. There were weekend rehearsels and lots of travelling involved.
I was a bit skeptical about it all, especially since my mother thought it was a great idea. She used her usual argument about honoring the source of my talent with my talents, and that I would also get solid experience from seasoned musicians. I agreed to go to a rehearsel and at least check it out.
The director was "Chan" Mason from Oneida and the rehearsel was at his church. There were 3 guys and 4 girls in the group, a sound guy and a couple roadies. The group used pre-recorded instrumental music, much like karaoke is done today. The group had a bit of choreography and Chan coached the kids on stage presence, singing techniques, how to hold the mikes, all that stage stuff. I auditioned as a lead tenor with a couple hymns, Chan liked me, asked me to step in with the group (being able to read music was a big plus for me) and I started learning the songs.
"AGC" was my first taste of life on the road. It was gruelling at times. We had engagements sometimes every weekend and all school holidays were devoted to the group as well. All my weekends were in rehearsels, travelling in vans, building up, tearing down, singing in Churches and in front of huge groups of people for special "crusades". Of course, it was the American Bi-Centennial, so we also performed at alot civic functions, doing patriotic songs as well. We performed at the Lincoln Center in DC, (this was the second time I had performed in the nation's capital within 2 years). We performed in huge cathedrals in Quebec, on the Navy Pier in Chicago, in small churches, on college campuses, military bases, town squares, shopping malls... and in between the shows, we were learning new songs and recording them, doing spots for Christian radio.
I missed being a teenager hanging out and cruising in my best friends Camero cranking out the tunes back home and looked forward to time off from the group.
Don't get me wrong, this group of kids whose ages ranged from 16 to 18 were no angels. No, we had our moments of typical teenage shinanigans. For the most part, though it was all good clean fun..for the most part. When I got home, back to my regular gang, I had lots of wild oats to sow. And we did. Phil, Tim, Gwen, Tom and I hit the clubs and saw lots of bands. We'd go into Sylvan Beach, Syracuse, Saratoga, Albany, Utica, out to Rochester, down to the Fingerlakes regions. The other grup of kids I hung with from drama clubs, school band/orchestra/choir would get together and have parties, cruise the streets, go camping. So I managed to be pretty active that summer.
On top of that, I had a month long stint at New York's Boys State during the end of July through August. I wrote about that in my bio section.
My Senior year of Academy, I had finished up my Regents classes and took some college courses to get a jump ahead from SUNY Syracuse.
The demands on my time were so great, I had to start picking and chosing what I wanted to do. I was president of the drama club and was learning to drive. The teacher who was our sponsor, Mrs. Cole was young and had a bit of wild streak in her. She's write us notes to get out of study halls and we'd go to her husband's fish resturant and hang out
« Last Edited by
Mark
Jun 21st, 2009 at 09:16 pm »
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Posted: Dec 11th, 2005 at 02:16 pm
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We did radio plays and were busy chosing the Senior play. I opted not to audition for the play as my time was eaten up with All God's Children and with studies and my part time job at the Rome Hospital.
My life was filled with so much; I was still playing in band and writing, but had so little time for myself, by the middle of my last semester, I withdrew from it all. I had a great friend, Ralph Erskine who grounded me and brought some sanity and quiet, contemplative moments into my life. His family was from Maine as well, his mom was my trig teacher...so we bonded quickly. He played 3rd seat French Horn next to me in band. I owe so much to that friendship. Ralph was diagnosed with juvenille diabetes, so there was a lot of lessons for me with him. I started backing off the teen age partying life style and spent more time hiking, biking, camping, as I was getting prepared for college.
A couple of the kids from AGC had applied to Hought where we had performed a couple times. Houghton was one of several colleges I was accepted. Ralph came out with me for orientation and in August, I did my last gig with AGC and moved on to college.
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All God's Children - (Read 472 Times)
