The Singing Chapmans: Something I Can Feel, & One Day I Will

    "Something I Can Feel" is the fourth song on side one of The Singing Chapmans "Redeemed By The Crucified One" album.  The song was written by Elmer Cole. For lyrics, click HERE.

    I've tried learning about Elmer Cole's life, and what else he wrote, but nearly every mention I can find is in reference to an article about someone else.  If you can point me to any website or article that has authoritative information, please leave the link in a comment.  It's hard to believe how little there is, when he's written songs like "I Found The Answer", I'm Looking for Jesus, and the fantastic "Ten Thousand Years." (This info, and a little bit more, were on the blog Southern Gospel Tidbits.)

    I found multiple mentions of him being with Willie Wynn and the Tennesseans, but again, his name was included, but no further information.  I'm not so familiar the most of the songs I can find for him, but have heard "Ten Thousand Years" all my life.  It was one of the songs Aunt Elsie Mae sang (and Uncle Freil played) as a special in church.

    "One Day I Will" is the fifth song on "Redeemed By The Crucified One."  It was composed by Walt Mills and John Stallings, or perhaps written by John Stallings, and performed by Walt Mills.  What little I could find seemed unclear, none of it from an authoritative source.  The lyrics can be found on Bluegrass Lyrics.com.

    Again, there's not much available other than their names being included/listed on a large number of websites.  Certainly no life stories, inspirations, or quotes.  There are some Youtube videos if you search, but again, nothing I'd consider a reliable source.  This is starting to look like a trend.  I'm not sure if it's more modern gospel, less-known gospel, or if the nature of online information has changed.  

    Over ten years ago, it seemed there was never a shortage of information about gospel composers and musicians.  This blog, "Grace Notes", is a recreation of a blog I kept from around 2012-2022.  Actual life got in the way, the site languished, and eventually I let it go.  This is a recreation of the spirit of that blog.  Years ago, there were Wikis, active forums, personal accounts, historical sites, all kinds of sources to help paint a picture of the songwriters that influenced my childhood.  Now, it's a desert.  Maybe I'm just not using the best search terms.  

    Whatever the case is, I'll leave you with these two songs for now.  For future posts, if I can't find enough information about the writers, or the song, I'll just give whatever brief details there are, and include multiple songs per blog.  No sense filling up all my pages with "I don't know, and can't find out."

It's been a busy week at work, to the point several friends from other offices are chipping in and helping to get the work done.  Tomorrow's Friday.  I'm off to see my parents on Saturday.  Something to look forward to.  I can't wait!

Off Topic - Roger Zelazny's Unicorn Variation As Read By Rene Auberjonois

     I'm going off the beaten path today.  Usually I'm all about Southern Gospel Music, or things that have some bearing on getting this blog where I want it to be.  Today, it's still about audio, but not about music.  It's about searching for one thing, and finding another.  It's about synchronicity.  It's about searching the shed for a 35 year old audio tape of my Uncle playing the family piano, and in the process, finding a 28-year old audio tape that I wasn't even thinking about.

    One of my favorite writers, Roger Zelazny, wrote several of my favorite stories.  That includes "Unicorn Variation", and to a lesser extent, "Angel Dark Angel."  Both of these stories are on an audiocassette, and read by Rene Auberjonois.  The tape was produced by Durkin-Hayes in 1995.  If you don't know who Auberjonois was, you'd probably recognize him as Odo, in Star Trek: Deep Space 9.  If you like niche sci-fi (syfy), you may recognize him as Hugo Miller, from Warehouse 13.  Numerous other things, but what you may not know is that he "read" for a large number of audio book productions.  And that he could breathe life into his readings with majestic ease.  When you listen to him, the characters came to life.  Each had their own voices, and mannerisms.  I've always loved to read, but listening to Rene read the stories out loud, added another layer to my enjoyment.  

    I've intended for years to find that tape, and transfer it to an MP3 file.  Because tapes wear out.  They degrade, the audio fades, the tapes stretch.  28 years later is stretching my luck.  Recently, I've been on a related quest to upload old audio recordings of my Uncle Freil on piano.  In the process, I've had to buy a new tape player, and re-learn how to use Audacity, something I haven't worked with in over a decade.  So finding "Unicorn Variation" might have been unintended at this exact moment, but it's been in the back of my mind for years.  And this was the perfect time to find it again.  For the most part, the audio quality is still nice and clear.  There was one section that had some trouble, but the words were still clear, so I'm okay with a bit of hiss and clicking.

For anybody not familiar with Zelazny, I usually think of him as a fantasy/sci-fi writer.  But that's like saying the sun's hot.  Zelazny wrote concerts with words.  He's not for everybody, and I'm not thrilled with everything he wrote.  But he used words like Leonardo da Vinci used paints.  Like Michelangelo used a chisel.  Everything he wrote was a work of art.  In Unicorn Variations, a lone traveler meets a chess-playing unicorn at an abandoned bar in a ghost town, with the fate of the world hanging on a single game.

    It's the kind of story I love;   nobody is 'the bad guy.'  The story is full of charm, wonder, and wit.  I've read it many times, and listened to this tape off and on since the mid-1990's.  Angel Dark Angel is also a "read many times" story, but it lacks the wonderful whimsy of "Unicorn."  

    So now I have both stories, read by the remarkable Rene Auberjonois, as mp3 files.  I'll back them up on a few hard drives, download them to my cell phone, and never lose it again.  PLUS, at the end of the tape, Rene mentions he's also recorded Zelazny's "Last Defender of Camelot."  Now that one... that one is arguably my most favorite short story in my entire life.  

    Monique and I both spent some time today trying to track down a copy.  Not on eBay, not on Amazon, nor AbeBooks.  Not on any niche sites I ran across.  Not on Youtube (I searched, in case another fan felt like sharing).  Youtube did have an old Twilight Zone episode base on it, but it didn't live up to the book.  Not even close.

    So, still hunting for an audiobook of "Last Defender of Camelot."  If you know how I can get hold of one, I'd appreciate a comment or email.  :^)

Progress Report: I have "New" Old Music from Long Lost Audiotapes

 Just the small stuff for now.  There were two cassettes in a box in the shed.  Also a videotape.  Still looking for the Hi8 video.  The cassettes were both home recordings of my Uncle Freil playing the piano.  One was dated 26 March 1988.  The other doesn't have a date, but is probably from the same time frame.

    Finished scanning the first audiotape last night.  The first side was done a few days ago, and had 14 minutes of Freil's music.  The rest was off-the-wall stuff, mostly commercials and old tv theme songs.  On the other side, it was a lot of Floyd Cramer music.  It makes sense, seeing that his style is very similar to Freil's style.  I used to have a lot of Cramer's albums, this was probably just a mix tape for the car.  Thank goodness it went into storage before it got old and brittle in the car.

    So, it was fun listening to Floyd Cramer last night.  There was even one song by Cramer that wasn't available on YouTube - Back On My Mind Again.  I know, it's a Ronnie Milsap song... but Floyd made it into a fun, up-tempo song.  I like the style.  Converted it to a WAV and added it to the "Songs I Want To Play" directory.  There are a lot of songs in there I can already play, but if someone does one song in a way I haven't heard, or that appeals and I want to learn their way of playing it... it goes in the directory.  Also, there are plenty that are beyond me.  Someday, maybe... or maybe I'll just enjoy listening to them now and then.

    The 14 minutes of Freil playing are digitized in one big WAV file.  I'll do some work with it later.  For now, the goal is just to get all these songs backed up.  One more tape to try.  Assuming the tape still plays, it'll be like opening Christmas gifts.  Who knows what wonderful songs he'll be playing?

... Several hours later...

    Slightly disappointed.  The 2nd tape was a duplicate of the first one.  So, no new discoveries.  On the bright side, I have 14 minutes of music I haven't heard in decades.  Quality is pretty low, but that was expected.  Recorded on a Radio Shack shoe-box tape recorder, while it was sitting on the piano as Freil played.  35 years later, the fact that the cassette still plays is absolutely remarkable.  I'm very happy with it!

    Spent the last couple of hours tinkering with the audio.  For what little I know, Audacity has some nice beginner level effects that definitely improved the sound.  Then started saving each song out as a separate WAV file.  Now I have 8 new songs by Freil.  Technically 9, but Yackety Sax was played twice.  I don't remember why, but it's all good.  It means a lot to hear him play something "new" after all these years.  Decades later, Freil still inspires me.

    It'll take some set-up, and hunting on the computer in the hopes I still have the VHS-to-File transfer software... but with any luck the VHS of Freil playing will be next.  Again, hoping it's in great condition.  Also, still searching the shed.  There's one more recording, a Hi8 videotape, that should be somewhere out there.  If I can find it, there's a point where he and I are playing a duet at Uncle Roger and Aunt Annie's home.  We're playing Goodbye World Goodbye, and it's a very favorite memory.  I need it to still be there, and still be playable.

One last thing, completely unrelated to music; there was another tape in that last box.  It has Rene Auberjonois (Odo, from Star Trek: Deep Space 9) reading a couple of short stories by Roger Zelazny.  One of them is "Unicorn Variations", and ranks as an all-time favorite story.  Going to digitize it and load it onto my phone for trips.  Talk about serendipity... this was an amazing rediscovery!!