The Leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the Leader of the Band
- Dan Fogelberg
That's when we lost it. I know I did.
Sorry, y'all. This took me a few days to process.
There are stories. Many, many, many stories about how Paul Gray had an impact on my life. I wouldn't even know where to begin.
In the beginning, I knew him from church. He was the choir director. He was my sister's band director. Then he was MY band director. There wasn't a time when he wasn't connected to my family. His wife Billie was a dear friend of my mother's and she was at our house quite often. His oldest son Paul (Sonny) was Liz's classmate. I remember when his younger son Michael was born. When he was around 5 or 6 was one of my first babysitting jobs: New Year's...1983? The year "Every Breath You Take" was the Number 1 song of the year, because I stayed up to listen to the countdown while in the Gray's den. The Grays were a big part of our lives: church, school, home.
We went to band concerts and football games and marching contests and parades before I was even in band myself. My sister and I grew up with "Gray Standard Time." It was already a way of life. I joined the middle school band in the 6th grade, under the direction of Randy Been, but I couldn't wait to be part of the "Big band" with Mr. Gray. I knew that would be epic.
And it was.
The summer before I was a freshman, Mr. Gray asked me to join the High School band for a clinic at the Arlington in Hot Springs, conducted by the incomparable Dr. Francis McBeth, no less. I was just this little kid, riding on the bus that day with all these high-schoolers. I was tucked back in the lower end of the saxophone section. But what an opportunity. Then two-a-day marching band practice started at the end of July.
Yikes.
But I did that, for four years. Worked my way up to first chair, held that position through my senior year, when I was drum major. Was a "band aid", copying parts and helping put together band folders for both marching, Christmas, and concert season. Lived in fear of being the first band to get less than a First Division AND Sweepstakes at ANY contest. (We never were that band - we ALWAYS won Sweepstakes.) Heavy duty pressure there. There were 100 of us when I joined as a freshman, and that's a hefty number for a school Mena's size. It was a pretty big deal.
Paul Gray was a formidable man, but if you KNEW him, he wasn't so scary. He liked to play golf. Richard Wagner was his favorite composer, which is probably why I like Wagner also. (We didn't play Elsa's Procession when I was in band, but Liz's group did. So hearing at the service, the recording by the 1980 band, was a propos. I analyzed the band transcription for a homework assignment in Tom Chase's Form and Analysis class, Spring 1990.) Six-to-five military marching style, with glaring white tennis shoes, was so ingrained in me that I considered corps-style marching an abomination when I was dragged into it kicking and screaming when I went to Henderson. (I learned to enjoy it though, because if Mr. Gray thought I was giving Wendall Evanson trouble, my ass was grass. And he would have told me so.)
Paul Gray was tough but had a great sense of humor. He let us do cool things like the end of show "scatter" and the great Senior Walk-Out (I can still see Suzanne Redman popping up out of the French Horn section and basically telling him off, in jest of course. We sophomores thought we would all surely die...). He was the first person to show me the World's Smallest Violin Player playing "My Heart Bleeds for You." We could tell him about our senior high weekend escapades and he never judged us, never blew our cover. When we played against Paris and they played their alma mater, to the tune of "O, Tannenbaum," he turned to us and mumbled, "Don't laugh!!" (We did anyway.) He was like a crazy uncle you could share a six-pack with.
One story I always remember was after a LONG bus ride home after an away game in Alma. Another girl (can't remember her name but she played clarinet) and I were the last ones to be picked up but we assured Mr. Gray that we had rides coming, so he left. And we waited, and we waited, and we waited, tried to get to the payphone over by the cafeteria...until finally my parents realized no one had gone to get me. (This was WAY before cell phones, y'all). We both made it home, but since then PG opted to stay until EVERYONE went home. He gave me a set of plastic "baby" keys at Band Banquet that year. I kept them for a long time. I'm sure they're in a box somewhere because I keep EVERYTHING.
My partner in crime Christine Cooper and I both sang in the church choir under his direction. We probably got in trouble a few times for giggling. He was much more mellow for church choir rehearsal, with the older folks. Those of us that knew him during the day though were still relatively terrified.
I was drum major my senior year. He DIDN'T chew on me too bad when one afternoon during rehearsal out on the football field I turned on the wrong yardline, thus causing chaos in each rank and file that followed. Maybe because he MIGHT have asked me at some point to do that on purpose to see if everyone else was paying attention. I apparently beat him to that...so of course we had to do it "One more time!" Then one more time after that. And another after that. And so on, and so on, and so on...
Geese, he called us. Others were goats. We were geese. And dummies. But those Sousa marches, y'all.
He was one of the first to trust me to be "in charge" when we did pep rallies and basketball band. I'm pretty sure you'll see his style in my conducting, if I ever get the chance to do that again. I was his second-in-command and that was a big role. I never wanted to let him down.
He taught me music theory and the old church modes. Basic composition. I remember the album he played in Music Appreciation (a class I didn't really need but took it anyway) of what Beethoven's 5th would have sounded like with the "deleted scenes." I wish I could find a copy because I thought that was so cool. He prepared me for being a music major better than anyone else on the planet. You REALLY need to love music, and because HE did, I was able to carry my love of it forward.
Speaking of walk-outs, however...
One day we were getting reamed up and down, in and out, during spring contest season. I don't even remember what we were playing. I'm sitting there, first chair saxophone, thinking, What the crap? I'm over here working my butt off and everyone else is slacking off...so in my just-turned-18-years-old mind, and with all the other senior drama at the time, I'm taking it personally. So I got up and just left the band hall. Something I WOULD NEVER DO. Naturally, I was called in for a "talk." His tirade of course had nothing to do with me. It didn't have to do with anybody, really. He just wanted us to be our best, as always. Uphold our reputation as one of the best high school bands in the state of Arkansas, maybe even the country. He knew I was doing my part; he expected nothing less. I needed to cool my jets and keep up the good work, get over myself. I aired my frustrations, he listened, and I was all the better for it.
We talked for quite a while that day. One of the first of many conversations I had with various mentors over the years about the need to have a thicker skin to maneuver one's self through the world in order to survive, especially when you were in danger of choosing a path less trodden by women. Professional musician, huh? Brace yourself, young Padawan. You're in for a bumpy ride. Here's what it's gonna take. And that wasn't just a discussion about the music world, that was about the world in general, which I really knew nothing about at that point. I would have the same discussion with Rick Dimond, Earl Hesse, Wes Branstine, Jim Buckner, David Rollins, Lydia Evanson, The Remarkable Ryes, Kay McAfee...But Paul Gray was there in the beginning. He gave me, and everyone under his baton, that foundation.
His influence got me through 5 years of college. Everything I was learning about teaching instrumental music always brought me back to what he taught me first and it built the foundation for everything I would do for years to come. I only band directed for two years, but those kids in that little school in Sanford, Colorado got to experience Paul Gray whether they knew it or not. I may have made a junior high trumpet player cry (a boy no less - that kid had got on my last nerve!), but they earned a 1st Division the first time they'd ever gone to concert contest. They marched on the football field for the first time in several years. They marched in a Christmas parade. Went to a clinic sponsored by the Monte Vista band director. Went to solo and ensembles at Adams State in Alamosa. We did some things, and some stuff, too. Because Paul Gray showed me how.
One thing I was reminded of when I read Mr. Gray's obituary was that he was preceded in death by his son, Roger, age nine. I vaguely remember this event; even though I was only four at the time. Since my mother and Miss Billie were very close, I remember snippets of conversations they'd had about it; other mentions by Liz and Sonny and their friends. Now that I know this type of grief, losing a child, I regret that I didn't have the opportunity to talk about this type of life-changing event with Mr. Gray (I can't call him Paul; it seems so disrespectful). I'm sure there were days when he didn't want to give everything he had to band directing; but we never saw that. Maybe his "goats" and his "geese" provided solace for that. I had a role model for a future experience and I didn't even realize it. Thank you, sir. Because that helped me more than anything.
A legend is gone, but what Paul Gray has left behind will live on through the lives of all of us who sat in those band rooms, on the stage at the old Middle School Auditorium, the grounds of Boyd and Bearcat Stadium, the parades routes down Mena Street, the First United Methodist Church Sanctuary, and other venues across the state of Arkansas and beyond. And for those of us who also got to hang out with him outside the confines of music, we will miss his laughter, his candor, and his friendship greatly. And someday, we'll see him again.
One more time.
