Mitch, We Hardly Knew Ye

Mitch Miller died Monday. He was 99. Truth be told, I thought he died years ago. I think I must have confused him with Mantovani, another of those who took music to the mainstream.

Mitch was the one with the goatee. Mantovani was Italian. Leonard Berstein was talented, but such a mess of emotion when he conducted. Miller seemed, as I recall, "cool."

While I may have hummed, I don’t think that I ever “Sang Along With Mitch.” I know some folks who did and they didn’t seem worse for the wear. Mitch’s music was not exceptional or complicated; there were no challenging harmonies; it was after all, unison sing-a-long.

Despite the simplicity of it, I did call upon Mitch a lot over the years. Maybe not “call upon” but evoke him.

You see, I have conducted a volunteer church choir since I was around 14. Yes, that is correct. I was a precocious nerd. The Baptist’s were in need and I answered their plea. This was along about the time when my father decided that our family was going to go to church together rather than roast in hell. Up to that signal event, his weekly Sunday “headache” had put our souls in peril. But that was an earlier blog.

Invariably volunteer choirs are small. That is, unless you are in a large mega-church, and then they are large and sloppy and sound a lot like a Mitch Miller group except for the “Blood of the Lamb” part. Mitch usually dealt with the Bossa Nova. I think the Astrud Gilburto, “Girl from Ipanema” was far too-wordy for Mitch to tackle, but I could be wrong.

So back to the volunteer choir.

Most volunteer choirs have been garnered through a lot of coercion and applied guilt. Growing up as a Baptist, I know volumes about applied guilt. Only in about 23.8 percent of the cases of “volunteerism” does the singer actually come forward and proclaim, “I want desperately to sing in the choir. I have a passion to do so.”

Many years ago, I had an alto who had a passion for singing in the church choir. She also had a great talent for being “way off pitch.” Her passion was so great that she never missed rehearsal or Sunday worship. She was friendly and the type to jump up and get a copy of music for another. But she was always a “tonal irritant.” But the choir was her outlet. The choir was her expression of her faith.

You just don’t mess with a person’s expression of faith.

With volunteers, you learn that you endure their faults and rejoice in their contributions. Mary Franklin filled a robe and a seat on the second row. She also contributed to my prayer life since week after week I pleaded, “Dear God, help MF to find the joy in arranging the altar flowers or being a greeter.” Had I had more of an entrepreneurial bent and had Mary Franklin more of a sense of humor, we could have pre-empted “Jonathan and Darlene Edwards” or gone “downtown” ahead of Mrs. Miller.

But, I digress.

With the 76.2 percent of the volunteer choir who have been recruited through coercion and guilt, they generally come with a sense of timidity.

Do you know how many times I have heard, “I only sing in the shower.”

We had a sprinkler system installed over the choir loft.

Over the years, I have often reminded my volunteers that 20 people singing sotto voce (half voice) does not garner the same effect as 80. Hence, the reference to Mitch. “Choir, this isn’t ‘sing along with Mitch time.’” I am big on mental images when I work with the choir. Ask my tenors and basses about Betty Lou and the St. Ignatius Boy Choir.

Oh, the mysterious ways of the volunteer choir.

I keep waiting for Susan Boyle to appear in my congregation and following a “rip roaring”sermon come forward and say the words that a choir director longs to hear.

“Would you have room for another singer in your choir?”

But since our sermons are more beige than “rip roaring,” I have to continue with the coercion and the guilt. Thankfully, my Baptist mother taught me well.

Years ago, I had a great teenage soprano who volunteered to sing in my Youth Choir which met on Sunday afternoon. She had an amazing young voice. However, I discovered soon afterwards that "choir" was a way to meet a rambunctuous boyfriend. Her mom would drop her off in front of the church and observe her enter the building. She missed her exit out the back.

While I could threaten to post something on the internet, I never would.

Rest in peace, Mitch.