Interview with McDaniel Bluitt, December 7, 2021

MB: He would come by the -- It was kind of a rundown place in the early days, but it's pretty fancy now. I call it the Groovy Grill.

JM: Wow. All right, well, I'm set up finally. Sorry about that.

MB: No, hey, no, man.

JM: Let's see, I've got some notes and everything. I even listened to the last part of our last interview, kind of get back where we started.

MB: Okay.

JM: And today is --

MB: Tuesday.

JM: Tuesday, December 7th. And I'm back down here at the Heritage Center with McDaniel for part two of our interview. And Mr. Bluitt, like I say, I was listening to the last part of our interview and I might like to take you back to something you said about being out on the road. You're out on the road as the -- 1:00Oh, heck, I can't remember the name of the group when you left for Toronto, but you ended up being the Outlaws.

MB: Houston Outlaws.

JM: The Houston Outlaws, which if I didn't know you and didn't know what type of music you played, I would assume it was maybe a country western group, which wouldn't hurt my feelings either. I love country music.

MB: That's the kind of stuff I love too.

JM: I bet you heard a lot of country music --

MB: I'm in Jackson.

JM: Yeah, yeah. Oh, out in Jackson.

MB: That piece Little Bitty, "It's all right, be little Bitty, low town and a big ole' city."

JM: Right, yeah.

MB: I said who was this kid, we were heading to down toward Grenada, outside of Mississippi, we were going out to Grenada. And that song kept playing and I say, I went and bought it, when I got to where I was going.

Speaker 3: It just got its hooks in you, huh?

MB: Oh, yeah. I like that.

JM: That's cool. Well, so you're out on the road a bunch. And you told me that at some point, and I don't know how old you were, maybe you could fill me in. You kind of had a secret contract with the Lord. You said, "You protect me as 2:00I'm out on the road, kind of guide me through the wilderness."

MB: That's a good way to put it, a great way to put it.

JM: Yeah, yeah. And I'll come back someday and do something different.

MB: Yeah. There's just kind of an interesting thing about how we make contracts. You give something and then the other person gives something. Well, I guess I took it by the legs and I said to the Lord, I said, "This gives me great joy. It's all I've ever wanted to do," my mom, they all play, brother. But they had other things they wanted to do too. I didn't want to do anything else.

And so, I caught myself, put in the bulk of the responsibility back on God. How little did I know? But I think I spoke my heart, and I think he knew the difference. Because I said, "I didn't make myself like this." And the battleground in my mind was that, and I could say it was kind of a secret contract, but the battleground was my bringing up was a certain thing. And the people that are out there, I don't want you to be like those people out there.

JM: Tell me a little bit more specifically what you mean.

MB: She played clubs, mom did, when she was with Santa Davis and some of the other guys that came along during that era. And she says, "I don't want you to be out there with --" Let me use this, this is 60 years ago, keep in mind, okay? "You got four or five Ps out there. You got pimps, prostitutes, pushers and punks."

And that was her, that was the package that I was wearing within my mind. Not my dad's, but with my uncle. He was one that would walk through his house, tell my cousin, "Aren't going to be no sissys up in here. And you playing the piano, trying to find your way." Did that sir, were you up a little bit? Yes, it did.

JM: Wow.

MB: I guess it was a strong insistence that you do the things we're talking to you about it and church all. And what makes a community wholesome? They want you 5:00to be a contributor to those kind of things. And in our community, little rural town, it was not a whole lot of anything really, except farming, and hunting, and fishing, that kind of thing. But for those who had gotten the chance to explore some of those other areas, they didn't have a lot of good things to say about the people out there.

JM: So, what was your mom's response when you've said going to Toronto and then basically you came back, having sort of cruised around with some of the most fantastic and significant musicians in secular music.

MB: That's right. Mom had passed away.

JM: Oh, I didn't know that.

MB: Yeah. See, when I did my second year in college, third year, Texas Southern. She was still alive when I finished, when I came out of those 14 nighters and 6:0021-night tours with Motown. Yeah, she was there for about a year. They didn't know what the condition was. They had so many chemicals down there, and there was a dump site not too far from where -- it could have been any number of things. She taught school there for about oh, well I can remember, till she was about 40/45 years old.

Mom's response to the nightlife, nights outside of life that she knew, she talked about how great some of them were. She thought they were doing what God gave them to do. I don't think she took a real strong stance to say, "Don't talk about my friends. Not like that." She says, "You take every man that is married, 7:00what does he bring?" And he says, "Be watching people who have a lot of friends. They never get to talk about their enemies because they don't have time, you got so many friends to talk about."

And she had another one she would use, "If you spend your time with people who are upward thinkers," that was her term, "upward thinking people, that'll rub off on you and it'll make you want to be, like switch you around." Mom was very innovative; I have to give it to her. Real creative, real artistic type, paint, 8:00do sculptures. She was working on her doctorate up at Denver, Denver University out of Boulder. No, in Denver. No, not Boulder. Boulder campus is University of Colorado. But we'd go to Denver, and she introduced us to the dog races.

JM: Wow, wow.

MB: And we had never seen anything like a dog race. In Texas, where we live, you had rodeos, and all that.

JM: So, she's working on a doctorate in Denver?

MB: Yeah, DU.

JM: Remotely? Or she moved up there or what?

MB: No, I don't think there was any remote.

JM: Well, I mean --

MB: What dad would do, and I remember two of the summers that I went with him. He would pack up and she would travel and then they had a facility there. And then, he'd go back up and we'd go see her, she was up there for about, it was 9:00like six weeks of the summer. Because she was really on a contract teaching school there, in marriage station, Crosby they call it. And I remember, I think she says, "Why don't you bring the kids when you come back?" So, when the six-week, eight-week period was over, we got to go up with him.

JM: Oh, wow.

MB: And that's where we got the dog races.

JM: What was she studying?

MB: Mom was --not educated, she got a bachelor and a master's from, I think when she went to Rice. Rice was a like a sister school to DU, which was a sister school to Vassar, it was that little league circle.

JM: Uh-huh. Seven Sisters, whatever.

MB: There you go, Seven Sisters. Yeah, look at you, man. You're right. And of course, the guys, yeah, he had Oxford and Stanford, and some of the other pretty 10:00prestigious schools.

JM: Wow.

MB: So, I look back at it, I say, "I got a chance to be a part of some of this eliteness that I read about."

JM: You read about, right.

MB: Yeah.

JM: Wow. So, your mom was still around right when you were getting started in your --

MB: Yeah --

JM: In your career out on the circuit. Well, I mean, she had been a part of it, she played some and --

MB: Oh, yeah. She knew the [inaudible -- crosstalk].

JM: She had a foot in both worlds. And I guess, actually, I wonder if you would take a minute to reflect on or talk about that position. I know that there are some folks in African American ministry and in the sort of faithful, who just do not have time for secular music.

MB: Oh, exactly. Oh, yes.

JM: And to cross that line is to really run afoul of the congregation.

MB: Oh, man. Almost like a sacrilege. They did a special or documentary on Ray Charles. Have you seen it yet? It does a good job depicting the difference between -- They did one on Sam Cooke too.

JM: Oh, wow.

MB: Because he was even a little bit before Ray Charles. Those stigmas were very well pronounced because they had one scene on the story --say I was not Ray Charles. And they said he had brought the devil's music in the church. He had a better shot than Sam Cooke though because Sam Cooke's family wasn't church people. And plus, Sam Cooke had the Soul Stirrers long before he went -- 12:00[inaudible] went to the world.

JM: Oh, is that what people say?

MB: Oh, man. Yeah, that was --

JM: Went to the world.

MB: Into the world. You went back into the world. I think they use some part of the biblical teaching that says he came to deliver you out of the world, from the ways of the world, things like that.

JM: Yeah.

MB: And that cut pretty deep because Sam -- Now, one thing he did do, and when I saw that documentary, I said, "That's exactly what I probably would end up doing." And he went and got the guys that were Soul Stirrers from the church. Because here, they weren't making any money. They needed to make pay for the bill, take care of their families. And they toured with him for a period of time. And the relationship didn't change, as far as associations, but the way 13:00the teaching was and biblical teaching, you were a taboo, man. You're gone.

And even the organization I'm with now, there was a day when the sanctified church, you didn't go to the nightclub. Period. I found this out after I got in. And I tell you, it was something that crossed my pathways. And the Seventh Day Adventist, they were real big on this too. Oh, man. My good friend that founded the Harlem Boys Choir, Walter Turnbull, Dr. Turnbull. And he stands about 6'6", great big fella, and his brothers about just as big as he is, Horace.

He told me his story while he was at Venice, and they're very orthodox about what God said and what he didn't say. And when he started the community program, 14:00oh, man. He, I guess communicated in the Catholic Church would be, he was just basically put out of the Seven Day Adventist organization --

JM: For dirtying his hands and by starting a community choir?

MB: That's exactly right.

JM: My goodness.

MB: His story made me cry just listening to it. He says, "They didn't want to hear any of my music. They didn't want to see my program because when it became national, you're everywhere, you know you couldn't." And about the time he became a national item, with the Harlem group, the teaching had relaxed a little bit.

JM: Uh-huh. Well, yeah.

MB: Oh, wow.

JM: Yeah, I'm so curious about how that happened. I'm so curious about it. I'm 15:00still putting it all together too. I mean, there's spiritual singing into the 20th century. Black spiritual singing that we think of is sort of the foundation of what we would think of as gospel music.

MB: There you go.

JM: But then, there is a moment at which gospel music becomes the alternative to pop secular music.

MB: That's right. You hit it on the head.

JM: When does that happen?

MB: I can tell you when I remember. The shift had to have been -- well, let's see --it's almost like what happened with integration. In the areas where I was, 16:00the big band era, that's where I spent most of my time. I loved the big band music. I even like the Mills Brothers. I don't know if you remember them. Way back.

JM: Yeah. No, that name rings out. I remember.

MB: Yeah. They were [inaudible]. Those were seriously segregated operations. And if you look back at the history, you can see why because where are they going to perform?

JM: Right.

MB: The clubs are not going to let you in if you have somebody black in there.

JM: Right.

MB: Sam Cooke was a real key player when it comes down to crossover. And I think that's kind of what you're asking about. When he came out with this --what's the name of that song? "Remember what I said,"

JM: "That's what I say now," that one?

MB: That was Ray.

JM: Yeah, that's Ray Charles.

MB: But Ray and Sam Cooke, they had roots in the church because remember, Ray did have The Five Blind Boys, that was his connections. And whether his dad was a preacher, I don't know.

JM: Okay.

MB: But when he pulled out from and started Ray Charles, and then the promoters and producers, they went all because he could put out hit like that. "Hey, what I say, hey, hey. Oh, what I say right now," you know.

JM: I'm still thinking about -- that's got to predate that though. When is the moment when we get away from --I mean, somebody like Ray Charles comes up in the church? And so, when he's making records and they jump and they pop, he's bringing church music into the secular.

MB: Yeah.

JM: And what I'm curious about is when did church music start to jump like that. And not be, if I may, I mean, I have some understanding of pre-war music and music of the 19th century.

MB: Okay.

JM: A little bit boring by contemporary standards. I don't know, this is a pretty academic point, but --

MB: No, a lot of people have thought on how -- The same thing has crossed my mind many times. There's a guy, Kirk Franklin, you know of Kirk Franklin, don't you?

JM: No.

MB: Well, he got a few Grammys several years back and his music was challenging the norm. And he did a heck of a job of it, I must give it to him. "If you did church music, it ought not have the ornaments or embellishments of pop music, 19:00worldly music. And if it did, you got to get him out of here. He's going to poison up the minds of all young people."

That's what they say. And Kirk, he put out a recording, Revolution, that was it. "Do you want a revolution? Do you want a revolution?" And that song was supposed to almost, according to his producer, that was supposed to be his last one, doc. And it's so, so big on both sides, that he came back and wrote his own ticket.

JM: Wow.

MB: Became a mega gospel singer on both sides.

JM: Both sides, huh.

MB: Yeah.

JM: Interesting.

MB: I'll tell you another group that helped turn the tides. What's her name --Well, the Clark Sisters. Clark Sisters were out of Detroit. Mattie Moss Clark 20:00was there, their mom, and she was in charge of the National Church of God in Christ. The National Choir, I used to sell records for it at the convention. Quite an artist. The girls wrote the song, let me see, one, two, it was four of them.

The church was so set on that separation piece we just spoke about,

she got relieved of her duties as the International Minister of Music. Oh, yes, she did. And her daughter -- now, listen why. Not because of what she did. She would make all the national meetings because I know I made them all, I'd see her there. Well, her daughters won a Grammy Award.

JM: For what type of recording?

MB: It was church recording, we thought. No, we didn't. We were fooling ourselves; we knew it wasn't a church recording. It was seen as a pinnacle for turning the key, for the doors to open for both sides. Because in gospel music, you can't hardly talk about gospel music and not talk about Clark Sisters.

JM: Okay.

MB: That's the first group that I know ever got a Grammy.

JM: But the people at the convention saw this as having completely soiled it, wow.

MB: Yeah, you are crossing over. And keep in mind, Sam Cooke had already done it before. Ray Charles didn't have to do it too much to cross over. And there's one 22:00other one, see, they came along, that's before Kirk Franklin, James Cleveland --

JM: Before James Cleveland?

MB: Oh, yeah. In fact, James used to come to our conventions to get his music, he capitalized. But he had great promotion and people love James.

JM: Wow.

MB: James didn't do a lot of creating waves though. He sort of stayed in the pocket, so to speak.

JM: Wow.

MB: Those are the ones I remember. The guys who crossed over though, they got battered pretty badly.

JM: Wow, that's so interesting. It's so interesting.

MB: The one I was going to tell you, and it baffles my mind today. The Seven Day Adventist organization, which is what Dr. Turnbull, the Harlem Boys Choir founder. Like I said, the Catholic Church --

JM: Excommunicates --

MB: Excommunicates you. They didn't excommunicate him, they just took him down 23:00from all the positions he had. And Walter, the program got so big. I mean, he had his own school, man. Had about 1500 kids on a waiting list to audition to get in.

JM: Wow.

MB: I went to the academy to see it with my own eyes. I ain't know nobody in the country doing that. Nobody. Boys Choir in Texas didn't have that kind of tree. And the only criticism I think a lot of the other directors had, who did boy choir programs, they said, "Turnbull's too big. He's just too big. You can't manage that many children." I said, "Well, I don't imagine you had to manage them all at one time." But the church pushed him out way, way out. And his last few years, well, he died. No, even before then, because I was up there at the 24:00camp with him.

Saratoga Springs, that's where he was. The church would say to him, "You give up that worldly association, which is the boys choir," was no girls. "And you come back home, you can repent, you can come back to the church." And Turnbull said, "I repent every day." He says, "Just when I pray." He says, "But not of that. Not for that." He says, "I think -- This is what he told me, "Jesus's ministry was to help people, not beat them up and push them in a corner somewhere."

And I said, "I agree with you, totally." And there were boy choir directors that 25:00would come from all around the world, just to kind of to sit in his camps, to hear his thinking. It's the big thing with all new G, but he knew that wasn't a problem. And he would tell you things that would kind of prepare you for some of the bumps in the road ahead of time.

JM: Like what?

MB: If you're going to put a recording out, don't rely on this only. Call Evan, call Kevin, some of the other programs. Send it to them, get their take on it. You can't hear it all, he says. And if they offer you suggestions that you can use, send them a thank you and say, "Appreciate the help." I didn't send them a copy of the finished edited product. And that didn't make sense, some people are afraid someone might take my stuff, and all that stuff.

JM: Right. Yeah, of course.

MB: Yeah. But he was from the heart about it. He told me once, when I put -- I had a recording ready to go, it was already wrapped and everything. Don, this is what he says, "Don't you let anyone else hear that." He says, "You change your engineer. The engineer, he doesn't know what you need."

JM: Whoa, really?

MB: Yeah, he told me. He went to the recording; I was in Saratoga with him. It didn't rub my shoulders at all, but it made me think when I went back. I called a guy right here in town named Michael Bolden. "Michael," I said, "What do you hear, man?" He says, "Your lines have blurred." In other words, if you got a vocal line here, and you got a solo, and the solo is down here, he says, "And then, when you want to add the instruments, you got blurred lines because the people listen, don't know who's leading what." And I didn't hear it the first 27:00few times I did it, and I said, "Let's just put it on there." He says, "I would not put that out. Go back, get you another engineer."

JM: Was it a mic placement thing? Or was it just a mixing thing?

MB: Well, when I looked at it, I think it was mixing.

JM: Huh, interesting.

MB: What I did though, I cut back, I got a cassette of it still.

JM: Really?

MB: Yeah.

JM: What year are we talking about this recording?

MB: Oh, you're talking about --They were cassettes, that helps you a little bit.

JM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, early 80s?

MB: Late 80s --

JM: Okay.

MB: Because we did a little piece. I've forgotten some of it.

JM: Oof, I love that last chord.

MB: Yeah. But he was, it's called Jesus, I'm in the wrong key. "Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming --" Whatever it was, "Jesus is coming back for me." And that little kid would say, "Though I'm young and very small, I've got a God I can call. He's coming," It was a really pretty piece.

JM: Who wrote it?

MB: I did.

JM: You did?

MB: Yeah, way back. The first cut, there was nothing but piano and the kids singing, and of course me singing with them. And then, it got to the place at church when we would do it. I'd say, "Do I know what they're going to do?" I hadn't written but three of those songs. "I know what they're going to think." What Simon says, "I hope they do Jesus is coming." And we [inaudible] and Bishop Moore, he used to have everybody stand up, "Children of the future, our future."

JM: Wow.

MB: Yeah.

JM: Wow.

MB: See, Bishop Moore grew up in that same era as you would find, the early days at Venice, who would have pushed Turnbull aside. The early days, COGIC, that's what they call it, Church of God in Christ, who shun the Clark Sisters. That teaching prevailed very strongly in those days.

JM: So, Bishop Moore was a Seventh Day Adventist?

MB: No, he was Church of God in Christ, COGIC, they called it COGIC. In fact, he was my pastor for 38 years. You got to hear this; this will shock you. He says, "What do you do with the boys' choir, Bluitt?" I said, "Well, you teach them how to be young men. We take them out, and we use music as a template for how it's done." I said, "We thought about doing it. We just need a place to do it."

Well, we didn't call it a choir, no, I called it, I said, "I think we can start a boys' choir. And get a lot of the young boys engaged around the church that are doing nothing." And I mentioned go on out and do something they shouldn't do. And he said, "That's a good idea. I like that." He said and how was I going to do it? I told him what I had in mind. And he said, "What can I do to help?" 31:00And I said, "Well, I need a place to practice." And he says, "Well, you can practice right here. And I'll give you a key." Sure did.

And apparently, had to go against a lot of opposition of the older parishioners of the old teaching. But by him being the head of it, some stuff he was no nonsense when it comes to it. He says, "This blew at his door and was helping all the children and I was helping our community." I said, "You need to get your children in this choir." He said, "They were in the pulpit." And man, I had people coming from everywhere. My recruiting got simple after that.

JM: Wow.

MB: Yeah. But when I saw Matt Turnbull and came back and told him what I'd seen, and how this boy choir program could be a real specialty touch for our community, our church included. And he got up and he told the people in the church, he says -- and the state. Because I was a state youth person at the time. He says, "The boys choir's getting ready to go, we're going to Florida." And they had to cancel it and he said, "Well, they're getting ready now to go to Memphis for the National Convocation." And I took them up there. Yeah, we sang Jesus is Coming Back for Me.

JM: Wow.

MB: But I asked him a question after I got back.

JM: We're talking about Moore or?

MB: Bishop Moore.

JM: Okay.

MB: I said, "Bishop, I got a question for you." He says, "What's that?" I says, "I'm a little concerned." I said, "Dr. Turnbull, the guy that started that 33:00program up there, this church put him out." And I said, "And I'm thinking of back here, that if I bring what I know about this program here, I wonder would my church put me out?" He busted out laughing. Right [inaudible]. Oh, no, no, no. No, he said, "You just do the program you feel like you know to do it." So, I had free rein, man. For 30 some years I did -- the choirs about another 25, I guess.

JM: 30. Actually, would put that maybe -- let me move this mic over --

MB: Oh, I'm sorry, I moved it. I'm sorry.

JM: That's all right.

MB: I was at him about 38 years, yeah.

JM: You were at Moore Temple?

MB: Oh, yeah. Well, Moore Temple wasn't the main church. In those days, the church was located at 19th and Cedar Street, which is only a few blocks from here, little concrete building.

JM: Is it still there?

MB: Well, somebody's painted it white and they've added some space on the side. Well, not quite the same building, but that structure is still there.

JM: Do you have a lot of pictures of the choir in that space?

MB: Oh, let's see. Not in that space. That's where the wife and I started. See, we started with a band. We had a 26-piece orchestra at the church there.

JM: Well, let's take it back then. So --

MB: Choir didn't start until about '89/'90.

JM: Oh, in '90. Okay.

MB: In fact, our incorporation paper says November, 1990. Let's see, we started before we had an incorporation situation.

JM: So, when did you kind of come back around and make good on your end of the bargain with the Lord?

MB: I was in Montreal one night and we were -- I'm trying to see what year that was, '73? I guess you could say I was really, I guess, more withdrawn from the environment. I had a harmonica I'd play. And I'd play Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. But it gave me a lot of release inside because money was good. It wasn't the money. Edwin Starr was opening up at the Lacock Door, right outside of Montreal, not far from the McGill Conservatory. And I'm trying to think of a chain of things that happened.

I think, basically, my joy wasn't there anymore. It's like the joy I had, about an excitement you have as a young person going to see a new -- Well, Montreal 36:00wasn't just a big beautiful city. I mean, we'd been there before, but there's so much you don't see in one-time visits, you got to come back again and again. And I got where I just didn't want to dress that environment anymore. And the idea of a teaching, it hadn't left me. Because I felt strongly that God had given me a chance to do what I asked him to let me do. And I had no reason to take any guilt with me.

JM: Sure.

MB: But when I was on the real joy of being there doing it was all of a sudden disappearing. I want to say I had an epiphany. And really, maybe that is what I 37:00had. Because the guys were telling me, says, "Bluitt, get ready, man. We're going to church in the morning." I said, "No, we're not going to church. We're not going to do no better than we did last night. We'll do the same thing we've been doing all along." I said, "I don't think God want us to be playing with him like that." So, they'd storm off, "We're going to see the girls." [Inaudible] church. And he said, "[Inaudible] going to church? Man, you're going to go to hell." That's what they'd tell me. Oh, yeah.

JM: The guys in your band?

MB: In the band, yeah.

JM: Huh. So, when you guys were out on tour, they were finding a church to go to on Sundays?

MB: Yeah, some of them would. But I think they were more entrenched and going to 38:00church to see the girls and all that kind of thing.

JM: Okay.

MB: It was just to practice your mindset. You were brought up in church and you say, "Well, it's Sunday morning to --

JM: Go find a church somewhere.

MB: Yeah, go find a church somewhere. But it was never was such a strong presence among the guys that we were going to -- I was the bandleader for a long time. See, and then John came back and he took everybody out to California after that. But I said in the meanwhile, I told John -- He said, "Danny, what's wrong?" I said -- and we were like brothers, I mean, in the dorm sleep in the same bunk bed, running wild. But he said, "Danny, you're not the same." I said, "No, I don't feel the same either." I said, "I think I'm going to go back to Louisville. And I think I'm going to go back to school and finish up." I only 39:00had a semester left, about a semester, yeah.

But John had already graduated from pharmacy school at Texas Southern. And he went out there and took the group with him. And I told him, I said, "You head back this way, y'all holler at me, but I got something I've got to do." And so, one of the guys told me, said, "Johnny says Danny Bluitt ain't the same, man. He said, "I think he's going to be a preacher." I guess, based on our level of exposure to religious activity, the only thing you can do in church is be a preacher. And I don't throw any ice water on preachers. I think that persuasion has to be profound, to take someone like that.

JM: For sure.

MB: I told my pastor who I'm with now, he and I were on the Bishop Moore together as they say, as apprentice learners. And he told me, he says, "Bluitt, you sure you haven't had a call or something?" "Nope." He said because everybody come in here and want to know why I'm not in the pulpit. And I say, "Well, I'm not running. If God's looking for me, he shouldn't have a hard time finding me." And when I told him that, he said, "Oh, okay." I'm not running, I said, "He can find me if he had something he wanted me to do." I said, "Right now, I'm doing what I think he asked me to do."

And I think it makes sense to even today. Because the Bible [inaudible] 41:00teachers, and pastors, prophets, all these for the perfecting of the church. Well, everybody's not in a pulpit -- somebody got to go outside for everybody that stayed in here. Who's going to be a life for a world that you see is such a terrible place? And he said, "You're right." He said even he has [inaudible] from time to time, to get outside those walls. And he sets up tents sometimes. He gives them the freedom to get outside the walls of the churches. And I met a lot of preachers that have that thought from time to time.

Got a whole big world out here that's crying, and a lot of -- No food to eat. And, anyway, those are just some of the -- When did I make my decision to turn? The year had to be right around '72, '73. It was '73. And I got up and I said, 42:00"I'm going back to Louisville and going back to school. And I'll put the rest of it together when I get there."

JM: Okay. So, you did some amount of school at Texas Southern?

MB: Yeah. I did first two years there, really.

JM: Studying performance?

MB: Music. Yeah.

JM: And then, how did you end up in Louisville?

MB: I love Texas Southern. You got to kind of put this into context. Texas Southern was an all-black university, and my teacher was a white guy named David Peters. David Peters, you may not have heard of him, but he was written up in DownBeat Magazine years ago as being Mr. Technoman. He was like the guru of 43:00electronic music.

JM: Really?

MB: Yeah. He was a phantom, man. And could play. Ooh.

JM: Wow.

MB: I know that's my phone. I just -- excuse me, just a minute.

JM: Yeah, sure.

MB: Yes, Dan Bluitt. Hello. I don't know you. You're trying to figure out who you're speaking to. Oh, boy. But I'm trying to see, how did we --'73 it had to be the year when I made my exit. And we were still in Montreal. And I got on a plane and I call David Peters. No, I called Leon Rapier. Leon Rapier was the principal trumpeter with Louisville Orchestra.

JM: Okay.

MB: Missing a little piece here, but I'm going to come back and get it.

JM: Okay.

MB: I met Leon Rapier at a Interlochen National Music Camp. And Peters, before I left Texas Southern, he made a provision for me to go to Interlochen because it's rich boys' camp. My folks were not rich. And I think there was maybe two African Americans in the entire camp, out of about 700/800 kids. And we were part of the university or the division because we were already past school age. So, when I got ready to leave Montreal, I would call Peters. And he said, "Go up there, and ask for" -- He didn't say ask for Leon Rapier, he said, "Ask for Robert Grocock."

Robert Grocock was a real technician or fine player. And he would miss my lessons 45:00and when you miss lessons, I get indignant about that because I'm paying you to be there. And so, eventually, my roommate says, "Dan, let me talk to Leon and he may have an opening, he'll take you." And so, they talked to Leon and Leon said, "Sure, tell Dan to come on down." And Leon Rapier, they were all from Louisville, he and Mike Doyle, Dr. Doyle's son. And I got to meet him. And I love that man, so I said, "If I didn't have a daddy, I'd adopt you."

This was years after he had gotten older. I said, "You're about the nicest white fella I ever met. It was like everything was on the table. Leon was the same 46:00way, and I found out his roots were in Texas. And things he shared with me was -- we're talking about things that people don't talk about on a everyday level. He said, "People weren't raised right, Daniel," he says, "My folks, they want to make sure we understood that's not what God's -- the difference in what God's mission for the world is versus what we're actually doing. Not the same thing."

JM: Yeah.

MB: "Help people sow seeds, help people sow good seeds." And he stuck with me because what he said to me was a lot of the same things my mom would say. And measure a man on his own his own merit. Don't put him in a box and say he's black, he's a rapist, and he's a this, and he's that. He's white, he hates all black people. Those labels really probably separate us more than the actual behavior.

But if I can go back and put that question you asked about the date when I left, it had to be '73. And the reason why I left because I was very dissatisfied with me. I had some of the best musicians around. I mean, guitar players were just scary, man. Gene Senegal, Bobby was just out of Berkeley, Johnny Reser, those guys, they could have records on any day. And then, Johnny Graham came into it with us for a while. Johnny Graham played with Earth, Wind & Fire.

JM: Oh, yeah. Of course.

MB: Yeah. And he came --

JM: He came in with the Outlaws?

MB: Oh. No, no. Johnny Graham was on his own here playing guitar. I met him as a 48:00trumpet player.

JM: Did you?

MB: Yeah. We all started with Leon Rapier. Leon Rapier was a part of the central most, highly regarded trumpeter in this area, really. And --

JM: So, Johnny Graham played trumpet as well as guitar?

MB: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

JM: Wow.

MB: They go to lessons. I said, "How's the lip, man?" And he says, "I got to practice." Only time we have a talk like that is when it's time for the juries to come up, your testing time. But no, we had a lot of good pieces I guess came into play, and I made my decision on what I was going to do. Johnny came back and called me. And I was in Texas, I had gone back to Texas.

JM: So, just let me ask you a couple things, just so I can follow you.

MB: Yeah.

JM: You're in Montreal doing a show? Or were you guys stationed there for a while?

MB: Oh, no. We did two weeks at the McGill. I mean, not at the McGill, at the 49:00Lecock Door.

JM: At the what?

MB: Lecock Door. It's a French club.

JM: And so, from there you went to Interlochen?

MB: From there, I went to --Oh no, no. I went from Interlochen there. Because it was when I left traditional education with a university. I went to --let's make sure I got it right. Motown, Edwin Starr, back to Detroit --make sure I got it right. Johnny, no. I had already met Johnny, I think I'd already met Johnny Graham. No, there it goes, there's the piece. When we left the Interlochen, we 50:00all rode home in Mr. Rapier's car. It was full of us, along with his 50 trumpets. Not exaggerating, he had about 50 some trumpets in that van.

JM: Wow.

MB: In the trunks, in everywhere. And me, Mike, Dr. Doyle's boy, and met Johnny after getting to the dorm at University of Louisville. Because the University of Louisville then was still private, it wasn't a state-supported school. Dr. Swain was the President of the university. And he and Leon Rapier were apparently good church friends, buddies. And he called Swain, he says, "I've got a student and I want to bring him to Louisville." And they wrote off a package for me, so I didn't have to pay any money.

What can you say? So, Leon became a real go-to guy for me, and it seemed like all of his connections were with the top echelon or whatever happened in Louisville. Old Man Whitney, for example, when I graduated, Old Man Whitney put 51:00the name Whitney Hall after. He was the one that came and picked me up. He says, "Dan, I got a job for you." Because he stuttered all the time. "Dan, we got a job. Get in the car. Come on." He drove me all -- Remember, the Board of Education was right there where the [inaudible] is.

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: Upstairs.

JM: Oh, I didn't know that.

MB: Yeah. And all the offices were there. He says, he gets past one desk. I remember this lady, she says, "Who is this?" to Whitney, he said, "This is Dan, my friend. He's going to be teaching music over there at Duvall." And I didn't know what Duvall was from no other place. This is the funny part though. "He going to need an emergency certificate." And he says, "Emergency certificate." 52:00And then, when I come back through, I want to take it with me. And sure enough, she had it ready and you got it on file, took me out to the school where we're going to have me teach.

I went in there, I say, "My goodness," it was almost about the size of this. And there was a little room in the back. And I said, "Mr. Whitney," I said, "This a fine opportunity. I appreciate you very much." Know what I was saying. Went there in the back room, I said, "But where are the instruments?" Every imaginable display of destruction had been applied to the instruments. They just didn't burn them and take them outside. Drums were ripped, trumpets were bent, clarinets were fragmented everywhere.

JM: Oh, no.

MB: I said, "Mr. Whitney, what in the world, we got no instruments to teach the kids. "Let me make a phone call." He got off the phone, the very next day a big truck comes up, all brand-new instruments. Tubas, drums --

JM: Really?

MB: Yes. Whitney was a bad man, he'd make a phone call, things happened.

JM: Wow.

MB: And I didn't know it until later, but Whitney was really the fundraising machine behind Global Orchestra for years. He'd go and have tea with some of these wealthy widows and families, and he'd leave there, they'd write checks. Great PR, man.

JM: Yeah. Wow.

MB: I mean, great PR, man. That's the way I looked at it anyway. But he come and check on me some time, "How you doing, Dan? Doing fine?"

JM: So, you met him through Mr. Rapier?

MB: Yeah. See, he also had an office at the Shelby Campus, where the music school was in those days. Well, he also had a office at -- what's the name of that? Oh, I can't recall the name of it. That's where all the music classes were taught before they had the Shelby Campus. When I came --

JM: Was it on Eastern Parkway?

MB: Yeah. What's it called?

JM: Right across from the Dairy Dell, the little school that used to be a old school house right there. I forget what --

MB: No, it's called Garden Court.

JM: Okay. Oh.

MB: You familiar with Garden Court?

JM: Yeah. At the Theological Seminary --

MB: Seminary, yeah.

JM: Wow, that's a nice place to play.

MB: Very nice. I only had a few lessons there. When I actually started, we were at Shelby Campus.

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: Yeah. Leon was -- I think he taught there too. But that was the University of Louisville School of Music, man.

JM: Wow.

MB: Yeah. And Whitney had an office at the Shelby Campus. And he had a special affection toward making sure that the black kids weren't treated poorly. And 55:00sometimes, I think the population that we were faced with, an all-white environment, was really unfair to those students who hadn't been [inaudible] basically. And I thought it was an overkill because if we wanted to go down to the main campus or go shopping or whatever, they'd send vans, Mr. Whitney make sure we had vans to take us where we had to go.

JM: Wow.

MB: Oh, yeah. Now, I know the university got several million dollars just by integrating, putting some black faces in the mix. In those days, private schools open their doors up then because of federal dollars.

JM: Wow.

MB: With Whitney, he was doing it before the federal dollars came, that's what got me. And I went to him one day and I said to him, I said, "Where are you from?" I thought maybe he was from Mr. Rapier or old friends. But he was much 56:00older than Rapier. "Chicago, man. I grew up in Chicago. And I love the symphony and I work with musicians." And to today, I don't know what he played.

JM: Really? Wow.

MB: Really. But he was --

JM: So, you come for your last two years of school at U of L.

MB: Texas Southern. Oh, yeah, back here.

JM: Yeah. So, you do two years at Texas Southern, meet Rapier at Interlochen. He says, "Come with me down to Louisville."

MB: Yep. That's exactly what happened. Right.

JM: Okay.

MB: Yeah.

JM: And you do a couple more years in performance or education?

MB: Performance and education. It was both.

JM: Then Mr. Whitney kind of places you at Duvall in the south end -- Now, you're a band director.

MB: Yeah.

JM: At a high school. Just like your buddy, John, right? What was his name? The guy who taught you in high school?

MB: John Roberts.

JM: Robert, who came in on a helicopter.

MB: Oh, you remember that part? Yeah.

JM: But at what point do you set up shop at Bower Garden?

MB: Okay, I had graduated, I got married.

JM: Did you meet your wife at school?

MB: Yeah. We married in '73.

JM: Wow.

MB: The same year I came off the road.

JM: Wow.

MB: And I hadn't graduated yet because I was on an emergency certificate to teach. Rapier, not Rapier, but Whitney got me an emergency certificate. I said, "I'm going to have to have a real job, Mr. Whitney." He said, "But Dan, we'll take care of it. We'll take care of that." He kind of treated me like a son, that's what he did. And it was kind of shocking in a time like that. He said, "If something goes wrong, you call me." He come in the building at Duvall, man. It was a week or so, come in and want to know if I had lunch yet. Have I had 58:00lunch yet? Oh, he was so much affection that you couldn't be overlooked.

JM: Wow.

MB: Because it was not the norm. And the principal, they had all revered him quite hard. I consist that he was -- if he said he wanted something done, everybody would do all they could to get it done. And keep in mind, you had a city school system in a county.

JM: Yeah.

MB: And Duvall fit into the city school system on the purview. And when they merged, of course, that was another whole world. I can't even begin to talk about that one. Because merger was an experience all of its own.

JM: Yeah, yeah.

MB: The good, bad, and the ugly.

JM: We're still sort of sorting it out now.

MB: You know, it's true. We really are.

JM: I mean, it's so true. I mean, even though I grew up in Louisville and was here, I guess the merger happened in '91/'92. Is that right?

MB: '65, let me see.

JM: The merger though, so the city county merger.

MB: Yeah, that was another one. Yeah. I was just speaking of the bus --

JM: The bussing.

MB: The merger was after that.

JM: Definitely still feeling the impacts of all of it.

MB: Oh, man.

JM: So, you're at Duvall for a while.

MB: Yeah, yeah, I finished that year out. No, I'd say two years, two years --Oh, wait a minute. Going to rewind back a little bit. Whitney first took me to Old Mill High School. Because Mill was the same year they won the national championship. Well, the state, Darrell Griffith and Bobby Turn and all those guys. I was taking the band up to Freedom Hall. Taking the band out to Freedom 60:00Hall almost every other day or so. And then you go back and then the band goes along and plays along with it. Let me see, I finished that year out. I know what --

What's his name, little short guy, Sears and Roebuck open a doorway for black guys to come and be trained as managers for Sears and Roebuck stores across the country. And when they opened the door -- I want to say Sloan, it was Charles Sloan. Charles Sloan was the band director there. And he didn't hesitate to let the board know he's on his way out. And that's when Whitney brought me in, and I 61:00was there about a week before Sloan left. And what I saw that evening, brother, I never forget it.

He walks in, there was just a music stand. Short guy, well dressed, very articulate, very smooth. He puts the music stand, and then he goes, he gets his folders. And he takes his pistol, I kid you not, puts his pistol on the stand. And not a sneeze, not a quiver. Not a person had one thing [inaudible] to say. I said to Sloan when it's over -- and he had his car parked, in the back, you'd park your car in the back there. And the football fields on the other side. And I said, "Man, you really need that up here?" "Oh, yeah, you never know, Bluitt. You never know."

I said, "I'm not going to get no gun." Sloan had his car in the back. And I 62:00said, "Aren't you afraid somebody's going to come and do you some damage, man?" And his car was immaculate. I mean, wheels just -- he was a real fashionable kind of brother. He went out there, he says, "Nope, nobody's going to touch it." Went out there, he had people paid to watch his -- "Hey, man, watch the car. That's all you do."

JM: Oh my goodness.

MB: And he passed the money out when he got down there.

JM: To students?

MB: Yes. These are big guys. I don't know whether they're football players or what they were, but he paid the people to watch the car, and don't let nothing happen to the car. They said they didn't know what would happen if something did happen, and that's on your watch. Sloan would probably lose it. Put the gun at 63:00his head. I don't know what they were thinking.

JM: So, you finished out the year for Sloan at Mill.

MB: Yeah.

JM: Then went to Duvall.

MB: That's right. Then went to Duvall. Yeah.

JM: And then, when did you go to Bower Garden?

MB: This is how Bower Garden came in. I got settled in, I think my first child had been born.

JM: Oh, wow.

MB: And I got settled in, I had about 20/30 kids right there at the school, I was teaching private lessons. So, after school, I'd just stay at school to keep on teaching until --

JM: At Duvall?

MB: At Duvall. Honestly, Duvall had a pretty serious record too, as far as safety in the evenings. This wasn't just for white people; this was black people. Some neighborhoods you didn't cross over after dark there. Peyton Place, Duvall was one of them, but that's where the school was, you had a little protection. But Peyton Place and you cross 34th Street, I don't know what that's 64:00called now. It was --

JM: Yeah. Southwick Cotter Homes.

MB: Southwick, there you go. Cotter Homes, that's right.

JM: Okay, yeah.

MB: Those were the two areas, not wise to go over there if you didn't live over there.

JM: That's where your boy James was from, with Wind and Fire.

MB: Yep. Okay, that's right.

JM: Yeah.

MB: Yeah, Johnny was --

JM: Johnny, that's right.

MB: Yeah, Johnny was very expressive about it. But anyway, what I ended up doing when I teach, I leave, I was still at Duvall. Then I go, I teach kids in folks' homes. And I enjoyed that. Either the dad would ask me to come or -- I was real guarded about the girls though because I've seen too much and I wouldn't like that. But the guy was the president of the Urban League then, and he was living out Boonesborough Manor. And gave me the address and he said, "That's okay, 65:00Bluitt, you go ahead on, I won't get off till a little later. But they'll let you get started and I'll see you before you leave out."

And he had two daughters and they were so well mannered, I walked in, I said, "Good evening." I had to be on my best behavior too and, "My dad said that you would be here at this time and it's already this time." She says, "Did you want something to drink? Did you want something to eat?" I said, "Oh, no. I'll be fine. The water's fine." They bring you water. Before the next lesson, they bringing sandwiches and stuff.

JM: Wow.

MB: Man, I said, "Your all daddy know you're buying all this food up and feeding." She says, "He said that's what it's for." And these kids couldn't have been more than 12, man, 13 maybe.

JM: Wow. Were you giving them trumpet lessons? Piano? What?

MB: I was doing them with piano lessons. Yeah.

JM: Wow.

MB: And after he left the position as president of the Urban League downtown here, I don't know what job he took, but something also happened and he left Louisville for a while. Really, that's what I think happened. And the girls, of course, I assumed that they kept the piano going. But one of his daughters is back here. She's the lawyer, VP at the LGD.

JM: Really?

MB: Yeah. Angela. I said, "You don't remember me, do you?" But what it is, we honored her dad, Larry McDonald, who had the Lincoln's Foundation for years. Whitney Scholars, I'm sorry. And she says, "Can I take this with me?" I say, "Yeah, that's Larry's picture. He would be glad for anybody to have it, but for you to have it." And she said, "You don't remember me, do you?" And I said, "I'm 67:00so sorry. I really don't."

JM: Oh, no.

MB: And that happens a lot --

JM: Well, you teach so many kids.

MB: Yeah, you can't remember them all. And then, they grow up and they get bigger, or wider, or prettier, or whatever. And she says, "You used to come in the house and teach piano to me and my sister." I said, "Are you Angela?" Oh my.

JM: Wow, wow.

MB: Most important time there. But I was amazed that he would trust me like that.

JM: Yeah.

MB: And I think the other part of it was, he said it wasn't some -- he didn't say it, but I picked up it wasn't just me. But there was an older lady at the church who was under Bishop Moore. And they knew her well. I think she was a house cleaner, keeper or something.

JM: Gotcha.

MB: And he felt that anybody who comes up under Bishop Moore's teaching, I don't have to worry about my daughters. And with me, she didn't have to worry anyway. 68:00I know my boundaries, you know.

JM: Yeah.

MB: Where were we?

JM: I'm trying to kind of plot out your years in Louisville. So, you moved to town. Do you kind of meet up with Bishop Moore immediately when you get here? Did you start going to church?

MB: We met Bishop Moore out on the state convocation. They had about 1,000 people at that little school gym, up in Owensboro. Yeah, Owensboro, Kentucky. And we were looking for a church. I remember that my wife and I used to ride 69:00through the streets, 18th Street, wherever there was a church that had a sign that said, "Church inside, come on in." Revival going on or something. And my wife went to -- Her family attended Guiding Star Baptist Church at 26, 28th. I forgot; Muhammad Ali I think it is.

JM: Okay.

MB: And so, she had some church roots, but I don't know how friendly that teaching was because they are -- And their family was a straight up family when it comes down to education, being morally sound about life itself. And all of them were great readers. A painter, artists out there, and went to the --not Dartmouth --What school did he go to? Princeton. He went to Princeton, but 70:00that's a school of the arts out there. Off in Boston.

JM: Wow. Visualized?

MB: Visual. Oh, yeah.

JM: Wow.

MB: [Inaudible] Johnny. It was Johnny and Joni, they were twins. And oh, man, they were fantastic. Well, Johnny, let me tell you about Johnny. Johnny moved out to -- I'm trying to think of the name of the little Township. The smallest -- Rhode Island.

JM: Okay.

MB: Rhode Island School of the Arts.

JM: Okay.

MB: And his stuff was just touching. They'd have big art shows, he'd have his own art show after a while. And he did. We got to go up and see. And he got 71:00married, he bought a big old brownstone. I call them brownstones homes. And they would rent them out for other people. He made that his home, of course. And he'd come back here periodically. His dad and mom, but his sister, twin sister, Jone. Her comprehension level was kind of frightening.

JM: This is your wife?

MB: Huh?

JM: Jone is your wife?

MB: No. Jone was Johnny's sister, the twin sister. It was Jonie and Johnny. But Jonie, she became a nurse, she went to U of L. And the teacher she had remembered her because she says to my daughter, and my daughter was trying to go to nursing school. And she says, "You remind me of somebody."

She said, "What's your last name?" She said, "Bluitt." "No, I don't know of any Bluitts," she says. But I taught a young girl named Green, Jonie Green. That did it. We all knew what was going to follow. She says, "It didn't matter what I brought to class, whether it was some new --anything innovative or cutting-edge discoveries in medical science, Jonie already had the article. She was kind of ahead of the teacher, for sure.

JM: Wow. And Jonie is your wife's sister?

MB: Yeah.

JM: Okay. Older or younger?

MB: She's older. About two years older.

JM: Okay.

MB: But she would constantly read all the time.

JM: Yeah.

MB: And she'd go and read people's dissertations that got out and have some kind of a claim for what they say they did, were doing. And she'd bring it to class. 73:00What do they call these people? They do forensics. She had gotten her master's by that time. And so, she got started on her doctorate, and she ended up leaving the medical institution and went straight to forensic sciences.

JM: Wow.

MB: And my wife told her, "Are you ever going to graduate?"

JM: Some people are lifers. Some people do it for life. I miss it, I miss it --

MB: Oh, well she's academia from the heart, man. We just found out a few weeks ago, she got a law degree now. See what she can do, you got all these degrees.

JM: Wow, that's amazing.

MB: Yeah, some people love it. My mom loved reading books like that.

JM: Yeah, I wish I had the time.

MB: I wish I had the interest.

JM: Really? Oh, man. I got to make demands around my house to get some reading time, like Sunday morning, you guys just got to leave me alone.

MB: It's hard, man.

JM: Give me 15/20 minutes to read a book. Come on.

MB: I bet you get up before everybody.

JM: I do. I got up this morning at 6:30. I got up and the only thing I wanted to 74:00do was read my magazine, that's it. So, how did you show up at Bourgard?

MB: Okay. I had so many students, I couldn't teach them all at the Duvall school. I was teaching students at my house; I was teaching students at the church. And one day, I was up in front of the church and the guys were washing cars or something. I said, "I don't know where to go, I got some students going to show up." He said, "Where are you teaching at Bluitt?" "I'm teaching everywhere, man. All over the place." I said, "I just need to find a place to teach them." He says, "How many kids you got?" I said, "I got about 50."

And sure enough he says, "There's an old building, Bluitt. Right down there on Muhammad Ali, the old Bourgard School of Music. And I think it's shut down, but there may be somebody in there on Saturday. And that was Saturday. I said, "You 75:00think?" And he says, "Yeah, there's nothing going on up there." And I walked in there that same day, and I knocked on the door, and I went in. And as you walk in, there's huge sliding doors on each side. She opens the door, she says, "Yes, young man, what can I do for you?" Very distinctive voice. I said, "My name is McDaniel, I teach school here in Jefferson County. And I'm a music teacher."

And I'm like, "And I hear you might have some space available, so I can teach my students." And she says, "You, come, come here." [Inaudible] now, she's sitting here, beautiful mahogany desk. Beautiful. Got all this, what do you call it? Antiques, stuff you don't see at homes. You don't hardly see it nowhere, period. These little lattices with little beads going all the way across the doorway. I 76:00say, "Woo wee, this is a nice place here." And she has a very noticeable China set, and she's sipping tea.

She says, "Can I offer you some tea?" "No, ma'am. I don't drink tea." That's what I told her. But she was such a gentle person. She says, "Well, we have rooms available," as though this is a full-blown operation. "We have rooms available and there is a fee." I said, "How much you charge?" She says, "We charge $2, $2 per student." I thought she was talking about the rent for the building. She was saying that's what she charged the students.

JM: Okay.

MB: I said, "Oh, Ms. Bourgard." I mean, not Bourgard, what's her name --

JM: Buford?

MB: Buford, yeah. Buford. Buford, I said, "I better tell you right now, I charge 77:00$5 a lesson." And that is about the average going thing for kids --

JM: For one hour?

MB: One half an hour or less.

JM: Half an hour?

MB: Yeah. And she says, "You do?" I noticed she had been kind of trapped in a little bubble of time. And when you look at that China set, you know that was [inaudible] trapped in time. And she would come down only once a week, Saturday mornings. I saw five students once and I saw only two after that, and they were twins.

And I knew there was something I was going to do; I was going to find her -- The 78:00dad, pastor of the church on 15th and between Muhammad Ali and Jefferson there, I can't recall the name of the church, but she was there when I saw the other students coming in. And Ms. Buford, well, I guess we worked together over a year together, just the two of us, and she had those two students.

JM: On Saturdays?

MB: On Saturdays only. Because I was there all through the week after that though because I couldn't get all the kids in on one Saturday. And she had one of their board rooms, come in, I would open the door and make sure I could get in and out. Buford got sick. She had a stroke, that's what it was. And she couldn't go to in full like she once did. And so, she called me, and she said, 79:00"McDaniel, I will not be coming in for a period of time. I'm going to have to get my health together."

And I say, "Well, wow, Ms. Buford, I'm sure looking forward to seeing you." She says, "But I'll call you when I come back." And that lady, how she did it, I don't know. But she would call me and asked me to meet her at the bus station. That's right, I'd pick her up at the bus station. She was living in Indianapolis. She would come, ride a bus from Indianapolis to here, and I'd be there to pick her up. And we'd take her to the -- Oh yeah, take her to the school, the Bourgard, and she'd get the tea thing cranked up and I --

JM: She cranked up what?

MB: I said she'd crank up her tea making machine and there I'd be -- Well, she'd 80:00plug it, I'm sorry, just plug it up. And then, I would start, students were just rolling in through the doors. And then, my wife would start bringing her students, she had about 20/25. And she seemed to be very comfortable with us there and --

Sometimes, like this place here, for example, after [inaudible], they were kind of left in charge of making this thing stay alive, when all the money was taken away. And I'm putting it in my terms, I don't know what the real reason was, but that's the way I remembered. Because when Celeste had misgivings with Ann Arthur, but I think there was a lot of power play and money got re-directed.

JM: Oh.

MB: Yeah. So, Celeste ended up, whatever their differences was, I don't know, I guess they settled it. But it left $17 million in the ground here that had 81:00already been. And they only needed was the other, what, 20 million or something like that to finish this place.

JM: Yeah, a lot of money.

MB: Yeah. That was a political -- had differences of views or whatever.

JM: So, Ms. Buford lived in Indianapolis?

MB: Oh, no, no. Buford lived -- Yeah, her family lived in Indianapolis, right.

JM: Okay. When she got sick, she went up there.

MB: Yeah. Family members came and took her there, really.

JM: Oh, okay. Where did she live in the neighborhood? Did she live right around the school?

MB: Not to my knowledge. Yeah.

JM: And where were you all living at the time?

MB: We had a apartment out of Six Mile Lane and --

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: We were pretty far out.

JM: Yeah.

MB: I don't think we had but one child, maybe two.

JM: Wow.

MB: Oh, I know what it was. Buford had a living arrangement upstairs.

JM: Is that so?

MB: Yeah. And we worked in arrangement. This came afterwards, after Buford helped [inaudible]. She says to her board, there's only about three people left though, all pretty old. She says, "Find McDaniel, and ask him to take charge of the school until I get back on my feet." And that's what I did. I said to her, "I'll be glad to do what I can do." And we brought some other teachers in as time went by.

JM: Really?

MB: Ron Jones Jazz Quartet. Yeah, Ron was my teacher. His cousin played; Roger Jones played guitars. Tyrone Wheeler, bass. They just come out of -- I don't know where Tyrone graduated from, but he studied at U of L. Jim Bates was his 83:00teacher for a while.

JM: And what year are we talking about, when her health kind of starts to fail and you guys are taking over?

MB: Oh, let's see. You may be looking at '76 --'76 or '75.

JM: Can you talk a little bit about what had been going on at Bourgard before you and then your wife showed up? Had it just been just Ms. Buford there for forever doing one or two students?

MB: Well, she had five when I first got there, and that was when I first met her. And those five kind of dwindled away, except for the twins, they stayed around.

JM: And she was the niece of the original teacher there or something?

MB: Some say she was; I didn't never read anything on her niece. She was a 84:00prodigy, from what I understand, of old lady Buford. She ended up studying at Juilliard and --

JM: Ms. Buford did?

MB: Yeah. So, Buford had a really good friend at Bourgard. And Bourgard had a strong affinity toward negro children, as she says in her will.

JM: Bourgard was a white lady?

MB: German, white. Yeah, probably German. And yeah, that was very unusual. I read her will just last week.

JM: Did you?

MB: Yeah. We have a guy that does a lot of research at the deed's office. And they were trying to figure out what's going to happen to the Bourgard. But since the state had dissolved the nonprofit status of the program, there was no more 501(c)(3) involvement. And so, back up a little bit further than that. When 85:00Bourgard, when Buford, I'll put it that way, when she had health problems, they call the board for me to come and assume the role of director.

And I was there about six, seven years. And probably would have been longer than that, but in the meanwhile, I had a family. So, I said, "We're going to need to get some kind of contractual system in place." Because he had just a wife, I just had children and a wife, it didn't matter. And so, I said, "I need something in place that's going to assure me that in case some unforeseen peril were to occur, that the expenses involved in me being displaced would be covered." That's all I wanted.

JM: Right.

MB: And they kept that policy in place for several years until the board began to change. And somebody made a decision, on that board, that says, "We just 86:00wasted money. McDaniel's [inaudible] for this policy. He dropped the policy.

JM: This is some kind of a -- like a life insurance or health insurance policy for you?

MB: Yeah, it's kind of annuity, where if something were to happen to me that would displace me from the facility, I would have financial reimbursements. And so, Buford was no longer in the picture by this time, okay? Anna Huddleston was the girl that was brought in as a -- and her husband went to my church, so I got to know who she was. And she says, "McDaniel, we're going to Frankfort to meet with the Landmarks Commission, to see about getting this building."

And I said, "Okay, I'll ride up there with you." And we did and came back, and I didn't like the language of the contract, I told her. Not my contract, but the one that the state made with Bourgard. And I had my brother-in-law look it over, 87:00he's a lawyer. He says, "You're walking on thin ice with this, Bluitt."

He told me, he says, "If everything works out like they say, you might be okay," he says, "But with a family, you probably want some guarantees." And I was saying that to Anna about the Landmarks Commission. "Anna," I said, "It's going to take every bit of $100,000 for us to get this building back. Replace all the mechanical working system that aren't working."

JM: The whole time you've been there, things have been kind of falling apart?

MB: Oh, yeah. It's falling apart. Big time. I think Bourgard, she had a trust fund.

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: And fortunately enough for us here, we got a call a summer ago, and they wanted to know if we would be interested in assuming that control of that trust, which was on the PNC's Assets Management Department Division.

JM: Wow.

MB: Yeah.

JM: I just read a press release too that the mayor is going to --

MB: Yep.

JM: What's the scoop?

MB: Well, the National Parks donated basically $500,000 to redo Bourgard School. Yeah. They sent it to Mayor Fischer and Mayor Fischer in turn -- since the property is under his purview here -- and it says it's specifically -- And what was great about it, the Parks Department emphasized the mission of Beau Lady 89:00Bourgard just a year earlier. They said it has to be placed in the hands of someone who works with children in Louisville's, West Louisville. Because the will read, "I leave or bequeath," something like that, "To the Negro children of West Louisville, said properties, da, da, da, da, da. The trust funds, da, da, da, da, da, however much it was, for the purpose of art, music, performance, entertainment."

Those were the key pieces that she wanted, which in her bit business, that was education. And it was in part. And so, that trust fund, they called me, I was in camp. And they asked me, they said, "Are you McDaniel?" I said, "Yes, I am." She says, "We have a trust fund here that they wanted your organization to take 90:00charge of it."

JM: Your organization being Bourgard?

MB: West Louisville Performing Arts.

JM: Oh, okay. Okay. Because our mission overlaps with the same thing that she had intended, years earlier. And so, it was a couple 100,000. And I readily spoke up on that, I said, "We'll take charge of it, no questions asked." But that trust was really set up very smart. Whoever did it was very, very prepared mentally. It wasn't set up like an endowment, like if you have an endowment, you can add to it, you can expand, you can shift your dividends every quarter or you can do it once a year, you don't have to do it at all.

But with the Bourgard trust, it's like a personal investment of -- what do they 91:00call it? Irrevocable investments, which means you can't change the mission, you can't change the layout of how the money is being dispersed every quarter, whatever the dividends are, we'll get a check.

JM: Uh-huh.

MB: There used to be a check that would come in at Bourgard when I was there. And it was mainly to pay the utility bills and keep the insurance up on the building. It wasn't that much, but --

JM: Wow.

MB: But anyway, I asked, "How did you get my name?" She says, "I have a document here where you filed a lawsuit against Bourgard." And I did because that board 92:00at the time, when Anna came in, the old board had passed away or something. They weren't active anymore. They refused to honor that contractual agreement. So, my attorney, who was my brother-in-law of course, he went on, processed the claim. I mean, they would call me at home, they'd call me at the church, they'd come to my Sunday school class.

They wanted to let me know that they were not at all happy about me filing the lawsuit. I say, "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do." And I've totaled out about $8,000 that I've spent on my family expense and displacement. "Why don't you get with the board, and you all just pay me the $8,000 because," Well, what 93:00eventually happened was, and they didn't do it, I think we got $1,000 for it. So, they were trying to win father judgment and the judge granted it. So, everything that was there, it would have broke Bourgard as far as a company, there wouldn't have been any money left. And I said, "No, just give me the $8,000 and I'll be okay."

And they kind of scattered, went different places, and that was unfortunate. So, here we are 25/30 years later, they pull up this judgment. And I said, "It says here that you want a judgment of 45, $48,000, 60 years ago." Come to think about that. And I said, "No, I remember the lawsuit and everything very well." I said, 94:00"But we never got any of the money." And she says, "No, it's still here." And what had happened with that trust, the way it was setup, they couldn't pour new money on top of it.

It was just what it is. It was mainly there to pull it out, they'd invest, pull it out. And so, the state had to get rid of it. And the state has a way of getting rid of money that it's like you're here, and now you're here, it's gone. And the lady told me, from PNC, she says, "Bluitt, if this money is not passed on to someone, at least an effort made to pass it on to a program that has the same mission as Bourgard had," she says, "It'll dissolve, along with building." --

JM: The whole trust would dissolve?

MB: Yeah.

JM: And who owned the building --Who owned the property? Yeah.

MB: Well, Bourgard, she owned it --

JM: Trust still owned it?

MB: Well, we got the trust. We got the money, but we didn't get the building.

JM: Huh, interesting.

MB: Oh, yeah. That's why Fischer is -- I think he's a good guy and I think he's trying real hard to fix this one. But we weren't really supposed to -- Because the girl told Kathy the other day on the phone, she says, "Yeah, you all got the trust, and we tried to get it, we just want you to know. We were the first ones in line to get it." But somebody from PNC thought that we ought to have it instead. And when I asked the attorney who called me initially, she was from, not PNC, but another [inaudible].

I said, "Who recommended that we be considered for this? Because I haven't filled out any paperwork." She says, "McDaniel, all I can say is that there is somebody up there who really thinks a lot of what you're doing." I never found 96:00out who it was.

JM: Let me try to restate some of the things that I've heard you say. So --

MB: Okay. You're a good one, man. You can recap, I'm wandering all over the place.

JM: No, this is what I do for a living.

MB: Oh, okay.

JM: So, in '76 maybe, you meet Ms. Buford, you started hanging around, teaching lessons at Bourgard.

MB: Yes.

JM: Prior to that, there's not been a whole lot going on. She was the student of and the prodigy of Ms. Bourgard?

MB: Yep. Buford was a prodigy of -- and she played violin.

JM: Well, I'm going to come back to her because I would like to hear about her.

MB: Okay.

JM: So, you post up. You and your wife, and a few others, really revitalize the scene in the building.

MB: Oh, yes. Yes.

JM: And start having students' recitals. That's really beautiful.

MB: Yeah.

JM: How long does that go on? How long are you in the role of the director?

MB: Until the lawsuit.

JM: Which was when?

MB: Let me just make sure -- I'll have to go pull that one up. You're talking about -- Probably would have been about '79.

JM: So, three/four years?

MB: Yeah, but I was there six or seven years. See, it means I came to Bourgard -- I mean, if I came to the school, I had to have come to the school before, a couple of years. So, before I met Buford at the Bourgard. Yeah.

JM: You had come to school at U of L, you mean?

MB: Huh?

JM: Sorry. So, you met Ms. Buford, you came to Bourgard, initially, the day of the carwash. Somebody says, "You should go down to this building." You think that year is --

MB: I think try looking a little further down than '76, probably around '78 or 98:00nine. Because I think back about it, I got married in '73, my child was born in '74. I was teaching school at Duvall '75, '74 and five, so I started teaching privately after school at the Duvall Junior High, it was junior high in those days, junior high school. And I think I probably did that a couple of years before we connected with Bourgard.

JM: Okay.

MB: '76, yeah.

JM: Okay.

MB: And then, we had the lawsuit. It had to be around '79. I can pull the paperwork up and give you exact --

JM: No, I'm just trying to put it together. So, you're there teaching lessons, revitalizing Bourgard for four to six years, somewhere in there.

MB: Yeah.

JM: And then, this lawsuit, you feel like you kind of get hung out to dry a little bit. And then, you leave and people continue to teach there?

MB: No, when I left, there was this dry period. And then, there were two others -- let me see, what's her name, Joetta Perkins.

JM: Joetta?

MB: You know Joetta?

JM: Yeah, her name comes up.

MB: Yeah. I don't know if she came in directly after me, it was a little dry spell there when I left. All of my students naturally followed me. And let me 100:00see, when I left, there was a guy named Lipscomb, Lewis Lipscomb. And I think they came in after Joetta though. We got to back it up. Yeah. Joetta had to be the one who came in after me.

JM: Okay.

MB: And she was quite a capable musician. Maybe not the ideal community worker, but she really was good with music with kids. She taught at the Brown School for quite a few years.

JM: Huh, okay. So, Bourgard continues on for a while after you leave. When did they close the doors and never had any students anymore? If you had to, you can take a guess.

MB: Okay, I'm going to take a shot at it. Joetta was there about three years. And Joetta left, about another two years, Lewis Lipscomb came and his friend, '82, '83. And then, when he left, the building was shut for --I don't know how 101:00long. But then, there was a lady who was a assistant principal at one of the schools, named McDonald. McDonald, yeah. And she had a daughter who had --So, she had the grandkids, and they would come -- I only went in to see them once.

So, I don't know much more than that. But I went in to visit her and I also wrote her a letter of interest in utilizing space, like I did years back with Bourgard, when Buford was there. And she says, "I'll take the letter under consideration." But by that time, I only live right on Chestnut Street, so I 102:00wasn't far away, said she's not interested in doing anything with that building. And as it turns out, she was only teaching her grandkids and maybe one other kid. She had about four or five kids, and they would have lunch together in the building.

And after a while, she died, that's what it was. She kept it open about a year, but there was no music going on. She was just doing academics, you know your colors, you can count to ten. That part I know because I remember when I went to visit, I sat there for a while. And how she got in the mix, I don't know where she came from.

JM: Yeah.

MB: Maybe she had a record of working in the community with kids in West Louisville, maybe that had something to do with it.

JM: And so, Bourgard continues to have a board that is meeting and maybe picking this person McDonald out, and saying, "Okay, you're the one now."

MB: There were about three people left that we're trying to keep it going.

JM: Okay.

MB: Henrietta. Anna had just about passed on off the scene then. Digs, Leo Digs was a former principal.

JM: Okay.

MB: And Henrietta was a former bookkeeper with United Way. They were pretty prominent people within the times. Then there was one other girl, I can't remember her name, but anyway --

JM: That's fine. Okay. I feel like I have an idea of it now. So, after the lawsuit, I'm trying to put it all together now. Whatever press release I read the other day, the National Park System I guess you said they were going to start a program, and who applied for the grant?

MB: We don't know --

JM: Nobody knows, huh?

MB: Yeah.

JM: That is wild.

MB: Something very intrinsic happened. And timewise, it's almost like something was planned. The day I walked in Bourgard, well, let me see, we had gotten the trust three or four months prior. We'd already been signed over to the court to West Louisville.

JM: And just to be clear, so Bourgard's trust now is --

MB: West Louisville.

JM: Is operated by West Louisville?

MB: Yeah.

JM: But not including the house?

MB: Not including the property.

JM: Interesting.

MB: That's very interesting. So, that's what I was, I guess, taunting Fischer about when he came to our performance and I said, "Wait, what you going to do with that building that belongs to the Bourgard trust? That's part of what she 105:00left behind." They hadn't seen the will. Eric went to -- at the dean's office, pulled it up.

Because I had sat at the board meeting because my board was wrestling back and forth, "Well, how do we actually tell the city of Louisville that this property belongs, according to the will, it belongs with the estate, the finance, the trust?" So, Eric goes down there and he digs and he digs hours, I mean, a day or so. And he finds finally a lady, one of the workers there says to him, "I know what you're looking -- somebody else came there."

JM: What a weird town, man.

MB: Man, this is weird. She says, "Somebody else was just in here trying to find that same document. I tell you where it is, go such and such," and Eric pulled it up, and it read just like I -- I remembered it because it was an old English writing at the school there. And I said, "If we can ever get our hands on the original, I think all of the questions will be answered."

I said, "It reads, 'I leave to the Negro children of West Louisville said properties' da, da, da, da, da, describe the Bourgard, [inaudible] layers and leave to the children of West Louisville," says the trust fund that also is to help further their education in the arts. And the area [inaudible] I said, "I memorized it. I read it and it stuck with me just like glue." He says, "Where is it? Where is the document?" He went on and found it.

JM: Did he take a picture of it?

MB: Oh, he's bringing it to the meeting tomorrow.

JM: Yeah. That's interesting. I'd love to see it, have a look at it sometime.

MB: Oh, you would enjoy. Fischer's going to enjoy reading that.

JM: I mean, is the hope that someday the Academy will end up back at Bourgard?

MB: I believe pretty strongly that it will.

JM: I hope so.

MB: Yeah.

JM: It seems like a natural circuit.

MB: It was a natural -- but this is what was so saddening, that it wasn't not a month later, I guess. And I pass Bourgard because I take kids home, some of them after practice. And I walked in the building, I walked up to the sidewalk, and I looked at the building. Lots of great memories, I lived upstairs for a minute. And I said, "The door is wide open."

JM: No.

MB: Yes.

JM: Come on.

MB: Wide open. So, I got out of the car and I walked up to the building. Just rubble. Floors, walls, had holes knocked in, they've gotten copper out of the walls, all the antiques. Antiques you can't find, you won't find them anywhere else. You come in, there's an armoire sitting there with hands like this. And 108:00it's a mirror, and it's all kinds of etch work all up and down it. And then, there are two forks on each side where you hang your coats or your hats. And that was just one piece.

And I said, "My God, what in the world happened here?" Grand pianos and organs were just -- and you couldn't tap a grand piano like that without a sledge hammer. Wham, wham. [Inaudible] I stood there in the floor and looked at the other rooms, all of the lattices, where you'd see slide doors open in the old days --

JM: Pocket doors, yeah.

MB: Oh, man. Everything was just -- the floor, all the papers that were in those drawers and those little boxes all over the floor. Mr. Reed, my chairman, he went, got busy and start gathering up, gathering up, he said, "I think I've got 109:00it, Bluitt. I think I've got it." And that document he didn't have. So, Eric went up and found it. He said, "It has to be on record somewhere." And sure enough, that's what he pulled up.

JM: That's so sad that somebody got in there and tore the place up. That's just awful.

MB: I mean, just absolutely riddled the place, it looked like complete rubble that someone -- just a lot of destruction taken place. Who puts walls in -- and keep in mind, those were not walls like today walls. You're talking about 12-to-14-inch walls.

JM: Yeah. Plaster.

MB: Plaster, yeah. Lattin them when you get the lat slabs to go across. And to go in there and pull the copper out of the wall. That's one day I cried. I did. Because so much of what I knew was no longer there anymore, and I had no 110:00ownership of any of it. But to see somebody come in and -- they took those, what's the name, the antiques with them though.

JM: Shameful, man. That is so shameful.

MB: Yeah. Stairwell, all those pieces were irreplaceable. But somebody --

JM: They took the stair -- they took like the banisters off?

MB: Oh, yeah.

JM: Come on.

MB: Man.

JM: These are savvy crooks.

MB: Savvy, doc. Took the banisters, which means that -- Well, no, I call Barbara Sexton, I say, "Barbara, you got a building here in your district that's been left and abandoned. And sound like it's been completed destroyed by people who have stolen a lot of antiques." And she said, "I'm going to send somebody over there." Boarded up, and they did.

JM: What's the address of Bourgard?

MB: 2503 --

JM: Chestnut?

MB: Chestnut. Or, no, Muhammad Ali.

JM: Ali. Okay. And you say you live on Chestnut?

MB: I did then. I stayed there about four years, five years maybe.

JM: Where? No, I'm saying -- My bad.

MB: 26 Street, Chestnut is downtown. So, if you head like you're heading downtown, you got one, two, three, four, five, six, where the fifth or sixth house from the corner on the left side. And if I look at the house now, someone has painted it blue and gold or something.

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: I guess that's [inaudible].

JM: Where do you all live now? Where abouts?

MB: We're on Church Hill now. I got a house.

JM: Ah. I live out Southern Parkway.

MB: Oh, really? Oh, man. You got some fabulous houses out there.

JM: Well, no, we're not on the parkway. We're around the corner. We're on the corner. Yeah. We're on Auburndale, which is almost --

MB: Oh, you're way out there then.

JM: Yeah. Almost all the way out. Huh. How long have you all lived in the south end?

MB: 10, 11, 12, maybe 12 years.

JM: Okay.

MB: I can figure it best when I can figure out how many years my daughter's been married.

JM: Natalia's mom?

MB: Huh?

JM: Natalia's mom?

MB: Natalia's mom, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

JM: Of course, Natalia wrote about their engagement to Darrell and the mayor and the wedding and her book.

MB: Yeah, yeah --

JM: I worked with her a lot on that chapter.

MB: You did? She'll be home end of this weekend, I think.

JM: Oh, that's sweet.

MB: Yeah.

JM: That's sweet. Tell her I said hi. Please, tell her I said hi [inaudible -- crosstalk].

MB: I told her momma the other day, I said, "The Louisville story programs." And I said, "The guys," I think I called you Kevin.

JM: I've been called worse.

MB: Yeah. That's the only child, so you know --

JM: Oh, she's your only child?

MB: No, Natalia is her only child. Yeah.

JM: Right. You have how many?

MB: We have seven.

JM: Wow.

MB: Five boys and two girls.

JM: Man oh man.

MB: And there was a funny thing, my first one was a girl, she says, "I want a baby sister." I remember this little childlike expression she says, "I want a baby sister." And I said, "Well, this one might be the one." Another boy, then five boys later. She says, "I ain't even thinking about a baby sister no more." What happened was when her sister did come, she had a sister, she was too old to enjoy playing with her, she was 18 years afterwards.

JM: Shoot, that's funny. That is so funny.

MB: That was a memorable moment. That's a smart thing you're doing though. This year and a half, you have a bunch of kids like that.

JM: Oh, it was the best. It was absolutely the best. We just got lucky, my wife and I could both work from home, we figured out a way to do our full-time jobs, at home, in maybe three quarters of the time. We had very adaptable employers. And man, I mean, my kid, we were just right there for everything, we saw the whole thing. It was the best --

MB: Oh, man. That's great.

JM: It was the best.

MB: Great move.

JM: Let me, maybe with a few minutes -- because we know, we did it again. We talked for two hours. In the service of the part of this endeavor that's about documenting Russell, let me have you talk a little bit about Russell, as you found it when you showed up at Bourgard, and the types of experiences.

I kind of want to memorialize the Bourgard School of Music, when you showed up and Ms. Buford, just kind of walk me through a little bit of your experience there. Here's a good example of what I would love to hear, what were some really great times you had at the school? With a student, hosting a recital, just some scenes, what are some things that really jump out?

MB: Well, the first thing was -- And traditionally, they had held these garden parties, we called them garden, but they were really -- People would get colorful table cloths, and they used to put chairs and people would come and sit, and they had little umbrellas. And it was kind of a spot where people, they look forward to beautiful Bourgard's displays. I thought that was outstanding, 116:00then we started singing. They only did this one time, that stood out. And when we would sing as a part of that festive atmosphere that they had created. It was just almost unbelievable.

JM: How many people showed up?

MB: Oh, man. It was an ongoing train, people come and they sit and they talk, they'd drink tea and -- But then, they would get up and they'd go inside the building and they would look around and say, "Now, this is some kind of era." I entered an era that I didn't know much about; that was special, really special.

JM: And some of the students are performing?

MB: Oh, yeah.

JM: The whole while?

MB: Performing while other people are coming. And keep in mind, and the music in those days, emphasis was more operatic and more classically tuned. I think the 117:00spirituals were still -- Because we had one guy, he sang Amazing Grace, man, had so many verses.

JM: It does have a lot of verses.

MB: This guy made up verses, I believe, there were so many. But he was a student of one of the board members, Old Man Diggs. And had a beautiful voice and it seemed like they were inviting older students to come back. But after Buford's health got bad, that ceased, that was the end of that era.

JM: So, Ms. Buford, did she grow up in the neighborhood?

MB: Not that I know of. When I met Buford, she was going back and forth to Indianapolis. Kind of a [Inaudible] situation.

JM: And Bourgard must have been really a sort of integral piece to the very sort of high-flying set that occupied Russell at that time?

MB: Yeah.

JM: Is that your understanding?

MB: That's right. And I didn't find that out till later though. Bourgard had on her board, Sears, Byck, Old Lady Byck that used to have the big department stores up. She had bankers, she had two bankers on the board. I don't know who they were, but I remembered when she said JCPenney's. Now whether she had his son because she was in that era, that same era they were, in their hay day.

JM: Interesting.

MB: Yeah, very interesting. And then, it reads in that storyline on my profile of her, that she was appointed to a position that had never been before. And 119:00after her, it never has been since. She was the state's music supervisor.

JM: Ms. Bourgard was?

MB: Yeah.

JM: Huh.

MB: Yeah. And I said, "All right, this woman had some connections at high places."

JM: Interesting.

MB: And they revered her [inaudible] says to me -- The heavyweights she had on her board spoke volumes for it --

JM: Yeah.

MB: And then, turn around and the governor appoints the position for you and I said, "Oh, oh." But she made it very clear, her passion for black kids and people of color, at a time when I'm sure that wasn't popular.

JM: Yeah. Because when are we talking about, when she starts setting all this up? 50s?

MB: 29. One of the documents was dated June 29, 1929.

JM: Wow.

MB: And they've got copies of minutes from those early day meetings.

JM: Really? That's fascinating. Yeah, so that's very progressive for that moment.

MB: Oh, man. Yeah. Step out in a area --

Agra: How you doing?

MB: Hey, how are you doing, Agra?

Agra: You doing all right?

MB: Oh. Yes, sir. I'm keeping up with Louisville story.

Agra: Yeah.

JM: Hey, Agra.

Agra: Hey.

JM: How you doing, sir? Good to see you again, Joe Manning, Louisville Story Program.

MB: Yeah, I figured you all knew each other.

Agra: All right.

MB: Okay, Agra.

JM: Take care. Huh, okay. Wow. So, wow, man.

MB: Yeah, she had to be somebody of note.

JM: And so, was Ms. Buford from Louisville at all? No.

MB: When I came on the scene, Buford was in Indianapolis and once her health gets better, I'd pick her up at the bus station, when she come from Indianapolis to teach. Sometimes she come and teach one kid. Then next week and then the 121:00weather got real bad and she couldn't get around real well. She eventually just kind of --

JM: Did y'all like each other? You had a --

MB: Oh, man, I loved that woman. I'd make her smile and laugh I know. I'd say, "Is anybody here besides us?" She'd crack up.

JM: Oh, man. That's cool.

MB: Yeah. She had a good people manner about her. And you would think that she's pretty stuck in an era. And by some way she was. But when all that China and then all that, what'd we call it, the aristocracy of that era.

JM: Okay, okay.

MB: When all that began, and the doors are closed, and everybody's gone, it's just like none of us even exists. She's just as wild and crazy as everybody else.

JM: Was she? Really? How do you know? Wild and crazy how?

MB: Well, when you first meet her, calm, young --

JM: Yeah, for sure.

MB: Yes, ma'am. "What is your name?"

JM: Wow, wow.

MB: She says, "I hope I didn't frighten you off, McDaniel. She kept that real, proper speech thing.

JM: That's amazing.

MB: I think what she liked about me was, if she wanted to go somewhere, I'd say, "Well, girl, I got the limo right outside. Come on, get in the car." And she'd look at me and do this here, "That's not a limo." I had a Volkswagen. But I think she had a great sense of humor.

JM: Oh, man. That's funny. Where did she like to go?

MB: She'd go up to this little, what's the name of that little -- I don't think 123:00the stores are even there no more. I know she liked Ms. Byck. I took her to the water company once, and that's where they had all their meetings. [Inaudible] But it's not the same water company like we know it today. You know how you're on Zorn Avenue?

JM: Sure. At the bottom, yeah.

MB: Yeah. By the big towers. That's where they hold the meetings. Oh, man.

JM: Very impressive facility.

MB: Yes, it is. And Old Lady Byck was her contemporary, I guess you would call it. They had great love and affection for each other. And there was another girl who had -- And Anna Huddleston was an artist as well. So, that's how Anna got into the mix with the board. No doubt, one of them asked her to come on board. But Anna was not really the people person, and she didn't fit in really well. 124:00But with me, she made some pretty bad decisions for the program, the choir.

Well, not the choir, but the program in general. Because I read through Bourgard's profile over and over, and she made it clear, she said, "We're building leaders for tomorrow," something on that order, with these children. And Anna's view was not very futuristic. Hers was, "This is where they came from, this is what they're doing, this is what they did, this is what their parents did, this is where they're going." She was real pessimistic, I guess 125:00you'd call it.

JM: Pessimistic, huh.

MB: And I think I resented that about Anna. And her husband said something to me one day at church. Because Anna, she and Reginald Meeks, now, you didn't know --

JM: Reggie Meeks. Reggie Meeks.

MB: The days when we had aldermen.

JM: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

MB: Yeah. Reggie, he was the alderman for that district.

JM: Right.

MB: And Anna taught Reginald. Because now Reginald is about my age. And I told Reginald, I said, "It's going to take every bit of $100,000 to fix that building. We've already done the sketch on it, stats on it. He says, "Someone said $60,000 outside." I think I told you about that.

JM: No.

MB: I didn't?

JM: No.

MB: Yeah. And you're never going to get it matched by the Landmarks Commission.

JM: Oh, okay.

MB: Reginald and Anna got together, I guess, and -- Well, no. Maybe they didn't get together, maybe it was just Reginald's decision. Because black councilmen, 126:00now they have a lot of people pulling at strings, pulling at them. And we only got $40,000, I think.

JM: Oh, man. That ain't enough.

MB: Ah, well. And they matched it, but that's just $80,000. And the thing we have as an advantage now is that there's a tax credit you can get with the state and federal. But you can't get them -- They weren't eligible to get them in those days.

JM: Yeah.

MB: For a building.

JM: Wow.

MB: And I don't know what percentage of the -- I think a lot of it's based on the actual estimated cost of the property. That's how they determine what the tax rates would be. But we were already investigated and we were eligible for both, it's about 60 years past. So, yeah, that's one of the reasons I think 127:00we're pretty well [inaudible].

JM: I hope so.

MB: Yeah, I do too. But like I said about this place, this is not a place where people are used to children coming in and out. [Inaudible] and I met Hector since I've been here. And they've done it a certain way for so long. It's just the order of the -- that's the way we think about things. And it's taken a lot for Acrim to get adjusted to kids.

JM: Oh, really?

MB: Oh, yeah. Because I picked him up real quick. But after about a week, maybe two weeks here, I went to the supervisor of the restroom, make sure kids don't trash the place.

JM: Sure.

MB: But they're really good kids, they didn't do it anyway. And Charles is the 128:00oldest, well, he's 15 now, 16. He says, "Mr. Bluitt, I want to ask you something." And I say, "What's that Charles?" "About this place." And I said, "Charles, you know," "Yeah, go ahead and ask me," he said. Oh, no. I end up asking him, I said, "What do you think about this new home we have here? Temporary, of course." He says, "That's what I want to talk to you about." He says, "This place is not -- they don't really care to have children here."

JM: Wow.

MB: He had spoken up real quick. Well, I said, "You know, I'm glad you said that, Charles." I said, "But let's give them a chance. They probably haven't had children in this building since its inception."

JM: Yeah. Kids are smart, man.

MB: Yeah. Well, I just try to find an answer. Sometime I get the right answer. I tell him, I said, "So, let's give them a chance to get used to us. And here, we're in a strange place, we can get used to this new building. And see how we end up in six months or so." And he seemed like he was okay with it. For a kid to pick up -- Kids, they just don't miss, man.

JM: No, they do not. They do not.

MB: Bullseye, bullseye.

JM: No, they're watching us more than we're watching them.

MB: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

JM: Mr. Bluitt, do you mind if I take your picture for -- Let's get a good shot right here. And I would love to be able to tell our supporters that we had a great talk with you today.

MB: Okay. Well, I mentioned, to hear the description of Bourgard and the relationship that we've managed to establish over the years.

JM: Well, I'm interested to hear more too. Golly, I mean, because we still haven't talked about the choir, which is fine. Totally fine, we'll get to it. Were you ginning up the choir while you were at Bourgard? Or did it come much later?

MB: Not when I was doing Bourgard. The choir didn't develop until 1988, right in there, '88. I started a little choral group at Wilkerson Elementary School.

JM: Wilkerson.

MB: And I went and saw them, [inaudible]. And we had whole car loads, van loads. People would bring their daughters and their sons to Moore Temple because that's where I would do all of my teaching in those days. Well, I had one family, particularly Ms. Phillis, her van was more widely used than mine. There were so 131:00many kids that would come. And she told me, she says, "My husband was wanting to know where we were trying to hold the rehearsals." And I said, "Oh, boy. He's going to cut this off of them." He came in one day to see for himself. White kids coming in from the south end, to have a rehearsal with a black guy that I don't know nothing about.

JM: Right.

MB: Well, he came in, watched me teaching for a while. And there were no other white kids in the program at all. And he just came up to me, he says real stern confidence, he says, "Anything I can do to help, you let me know." Got a friend, man. This goes far, you know. Because the vibes I had gotten from his wife is 132:00that he has some apprehension about -- And so, I guess he had to break the mold on some things too, to let his kids come in.

JM: I mean, shoot. Yeah. I guess, I'm both surprised -- I'm frequently surprised by people's capacity to change and elevate themselves.

MB: That's right. I hear you.

JM: And also, I'm continuously surprised by how much people can be knuckleheads, without shifting at all.

MB: Yeah.

JM: But I mean, if anything's going to make you want to change your mind, a bunch of kids singing together, that seems like that would do it. You know?

MB: I think that's one of the things that did it. I think that helped because [inaudible -- crosstalk] about my charm.

JM: Well, Mr. Bluitt, I'm going to get out of your hair here. Turn this off.

MB: Hey, man, it's always good talking --