Musical ancestors, continued

It's Saturday, I'm at a coffeehouse, just having imbibed a capuccino. Having left you, dear reader, with a cliffhanger during my last blog entry, it seems the least I could do would be to relieve the anticipation, and tell you why my parents hid the musical history of my family from me.

But first, a little more about that family. As I mentioned, Joe Verges was a songwriter. He couldn't read music, but by all accounts he could play the piano well, and, at first, wrote lyrics too. Later he collaborated with lyricists, and had to use the services of musical arrangers and transcriptionists, who, according to Al Rose (the man who started me on this topic), would often write themselves in as co-composers, and grab some of the royalties.

Perhaps the most famous of Joe's songs is Don't Leave me Daddy. It was published in New Orleans as early as 1916, and was a local hit. In 1943, the forces behind the movie For Me and My Gal chose this song to include in a vaudeville number at the beginning of the movie. Load that link below to see Judy Garland singing the chorus to the song, sandwiched between choruses of "Oh You Beautiful Doll":

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iabVthq4JcA

 Joe wrote many songs, and according to my mother, he was "riding high" when this song was made famous all over again. But by this time he would have been 63 or so, and his music would have been really out of style. None of my relatives ever had a good thing to say about him, and here's why: Joe scandalized the family by abandoning his wife and infant son. 

Joe didn't leave his wife and son for another woman, but so that he could continue his career unhindered by them.

The repercussions were immediate. His wife became destitute, and apparently remained so for the rest of her life. His son, Joe Jr., hated his father, and didn't outlive him by many years.

Music got a really bad name in my family.

My father, Daniel Leon, when he expressed interest in the saxophone, was not only forbidden to do so, but his mother, Mozella Gardemal Verges, responded by throwing out her husband's violin (without consulting Mr. Verges Sr. about it). 

And then came the Great Depression. All of the Verges brothers were hit hard, but Leon, my grandfather, who had given up a musical career to pursue the shipping business, and later real estate, made enough money to help his brothers out. So, the story of my musical great-uncles with their hands out for help from Leon continued, no doubt spread by my grandmother.

Music became a disreputable pursuit now, as far as my family was concerned.

Here's an anecdote from my mother: around the time Joe died, one of my relatives saw me toddling around at a get-together and said "There goes another Joe Verges!" Apparently I had the same coloriing as Joe - blond hair and blue eyes. Mozella was offended by that remark. Joe was dead, and should stay buried. There were now no more living musicians in the family, and Mozella liked it that way. She had successfully repressed my father's musical development, and probably hoped that the curse of music was extinguished from the Verges line forever.

And the way I and my siblings were raised, this was looking quite likely. Although my sisters played the piano, and my brother sang in musical productions in high school, not a one was truly in love with music. My dad sang with the Esso chorus for a few years, and later played piano duets with his girls, but when Mozella died in '68 he stopped playing. I played the snare and bass drums for a couple of years in my elementary school, Our Lady of Mercy (more on that psychic abbatoir in another blog post). It seemed to me from these experiences that music was something you studied so you could abandon it to pursue other, more practical things.

I was born in 1960, and between 1963 and 1970, some of the most remarkable popular music ever was flooding the airwaves: The Beatles, the Doors, the Who, Cream, the Hollies, the Grass Roots, the Turtles, the Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, . This did something to me. Then, when my brother got a job about 1970 at McDonald's to pay for a stereo, there was the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Jethro Tull, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, and, most importantly for me, Yes. Listening to Yes' Fragile album over headphones rewired my brain. I've never recovered from the experience. And what really rocked my world was the soundtrack to the movie Love Story, which my brother and my oldest sister got from the Columbia Record Club. This cassette tape had a piece of music by someone named J.S. Bach, and it was called Harpsichord Concerto in E major. It was actually the last movement of a three-movement piece, transcribed from a violin concerto by Bach himself, although I didn't know any of that. What I did know was that I couldn't get enough of this. I couldn't play it, I couldn't sing it, but it absolutely bewitched my 11-year-old brain. I was in love, and I've never cared about any topic since, and never really wanted to do anything but learn more about music, since that time. (Except, chase girls - that topic definitely got my attention...)

Why then, didn't I start studying music right away? Well, piano seemed like a girly pursuit, so that was out. No guys were playing piano at all in my neighborhood. My brother played drums for a little while at OLOM,  so I figured that was masculine enough for me. Unfortunately, learning drums meant there was no pitch information being taught to me - just rhythm. Not good for a career in music. And drums weren't doing it for me - I've never had the soul of a percussionist. I had wanted for a long time to be a singer, and indeed there was a boy's choir, starting in fourth grade. I had ambitions for that. When I got into fourth grade, they made a rule saying that it started in fifth grade, and when I got into fifth grade, they cancelled the choir altogether. I then could look forward to choir in high school, but when I got to ninth grade, scheduling incompatibilities between my boy's high school and its sister institution for girls made that impossible as well. So, when I got into middle school, I sang in a very mediocre mixed choir at my church, where I again failed to learn to read music.

And then, there was a discussion between my parents and one of their party buddies, Dallas Draper. Dallas conducted the A Capella choir at LSU, and for some reason came to my parents' parties (perhaps there was a connection with the Esso choir). While drinking together one night, my parents mentioned the possibility of their boy Roy studying music to him, and according to my mother, who related the story many years later, Dallas' reply was "There's a lot of folks with music degrees looking for work" or some such response, so, behind my back, with no communication or consultation, a musical career was ruled out for Roy boy. After all, music was dishonorable. Music was disreputable. Just look at the old Vergeses. End of story.

This was why, dear reader, my parents kept my musical ancestry from me. They were afraid that my fascination for music would lead to my destitution.They wanted me to pursue something lucrative that would keep me going, so I could do - what? Marry and raise a family of  unhappy children? I don't know. They didn't talk about it - they didn't say - "Roy I know you love music but please for God's sake study something in college that will get you a good job" - no: there was no communication. Just a cutting off of musical possibilities whenever possible. No communication.

Stay with me, reader, and next time I will communicate with you about my father's attempts to suppress my musical inclinations, just as was done to him by his mother...