- Welcome to Kalamazoo Lively Arts, the show that takes you inside Kalamazoo's vibrant, creative community and explores the people who breathe life into the arts.

- [Narrator] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

I'm Jennifer Moss here at Miller Auditorium.

On today's show we circle back with the Gilmore to learn about their educational and community programs before looking back at the musical career of The Velvelettes.

- Education.

That's what you're all about, Adam, and it's certainly what the Gilmore is all about.

So, what does a Director of Education for the Gilmore do?

- Basically manages about 10 to 14 different programs that serve different parts of the Kalamazoo and greater community.

- All right.

As the Director of Education, I'm looking forward to being educated, take it away.

- Sure.

So you know, I get into technology a lot which is helpful because our piano labs have a lot of technology, especially going online.

We also did, you know, last year's piano camp online as a kind of a free digital offering.

And so what's cool about these days is that, you know, you can make music online with friends or you can do recordings, you can play piano, and there's all sorts of different websites and programs.

It's like our students at the Gilmore, they all have this keyboard at their house, this is our loaner keyboards.

In the back of these things, there's a little USB port.

So this is Chrome Music Lab, so if you go to Chrome Music Lab, I'll show the main page here, it's a free website and there's lots of fun little musical games that students can explore and play with.

One of the ones we've played with with our students is a shared piano.

And so when your musical keyboard is plugged into a computer, that MIDI signal is often just naturally connected, you don't have to do much these days.

You used to have to download drivers and do weird things, but now you can just play.

So when I play a note, (piano note dinging) - It shows up online and this app's interesting because you can actually invite people to come and play with you on the shared piano.

So, you can copy this link down here- you can copy this link down here and you can send it to a friend and they can come and play with you on the piano, and you can play different things, you can change the sound.

So... (musical note ringing) - There's a marimba, you know?

(musical notes ringing) - It shows you which your notes you're playing and also gives you a cute little animal there.

You can change it to, you know, strings if you wanted to.

(heavier music note playing) - Right?

(melodious music notes playing) - Right?

You can do stuff like that, and it's pretty fun because it shows you kind of, what you played, it records a little bit for you, and then, you know, you can kind of see what's going on.

You could teach somebody, like, somebody could be, you know, on the shared piano and go, okay, with your, you know, thumb or your one, three and five finger play C, E and G and the student can see that, then they could jump on and try the same thing and try and match those colors or play it down an octave.

And so that's the fun thing about MIDI, is you can plug in the stuff directly and play with it online.

You can click on these things too, you don't have to have a keyboard, you can just use your mouse.

- Let's zone into Piano Lab.

What is it?

And who takes it?

How does it work?

And what's my end product?

- Sure.

So, Piano Labs have been serving the greater Kalamazoo and Battle Creek area for over 20 years.

I think we're in like our 22nd season of Piano Labs, and basically we're offering small group, in-person lessons or virtual lessons to paint in what's happening with the pandemic, to students that are at these different schools that we're stationed at.

So we have several Kalamazoo schools, elementary schools, we have a community lab that offers, you know, to general public small group lessons that are online.

We also have a lab in Battle Creek and then we also have a lab at the juvenile home, the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home, and a lab at Kalamazoo KRESA's Young Adult Program which serves students with a wide range of disabilities.

And so every lab is a little bit different, but the the goal of the labs are to reach students that may not otherwise take piano lessons privately, or might not have that as part of their normal experience, and so trying to make it more accessible for everybody and trying to make a great add-on to the schools that we're at and also, you know, make it something that families can aspire to be part of.

And generally speaking, I try to tell people that we're here to promote a music-making and a music-going culture.

- What's KeysFest?

- KeysFest is a day of masterclasses for piano students that are pre-college, so pretty much kindergarten through high school.

These students participate in a public small group lesson with a clinician that's either from a regional or further college or university, or a professional pianist of some kind.

It's a chance for them to get reinforcement of ideas by a teacher other than their regular teacher.

It's also a chance for them to perform in a pretty casual setting and receive immediate feedback, and it's also a chance for them to participate in a performance in a class with their peers, which you know, piano lessons are often one-on-one, you know, it's nice to see other piano players of your age and ability playing and performing and doing things, so that's the short of KeysFest.

But the other thing I want to show you is a program called Band Lab.

And this is another free program, these are all free.

Bandlab.com, you can see it up there.

I did this for a theory class I teach at Kalamazoo College and it is basically a recording program.

So it's just like a program and we call it a digital audio workstation or a DAW, and it has different tracks that you can put MIDI signals into, or you can put a drum machine, you can put, you know, many different instruments and layer things and you can also do voice stuff and record your voice.

You can affect what happens with the drums machine.

(upbeat drumbeat music) - There's your hi-hat, there's your kick drum down there.

There's my snare, if I wanna take it off, now I only have one snare.

I can put two snares in there.

Right?

And so you have this little drum pattern and then you can play, you can layer stuff over it, so with my keyboard on this (piano music notes) - I layered over this piano sound.

I wrote these little MIDI signal, if I click on it you can see the notes I played, and these are all recorded with the keyboard but they're just MIDI signals, so you can just drag them around, you can edit them, and so I put these two sounds together.

(upbeat music) - And so you get this kind of you know, little chill groove.

(upbeat music) - You know?

And... (upbeat music) - And you can start to layer and play different things and you can make it sound... (energetic music) - You can make it sound however you want, and you can experiment with those layering just like a songwriter or a producer or a hip hop artist would do.

This is Band Lab, it's a free version of that.

- Take me to camp or two.

- So like KeysFest, the Piano Camp is kind of an extension of other opportunities for young pianists.

As far as we know we're still the only piano centric, outdoor styled camp.

You know, there's the great camps like Interlochen and Blue Lake that serve the whole music community, but the Gilmore Piano Camp's unique because we're integrated with the Sherman Lake YMCA, so the outdoor activities are all integrated and part of that whole camp experience.

And then we do, you know, piano study and piano extracurriculars and stuff with music technology in addition to private lessons daily.

So it's a great week-long intensive for the young pianist.

- All right, I'd have you go take us out with song, Adam, but save your energy for your teachers and your students and we'll catch up with your talent later.

Thanks for conversing with us, Director of Education with the Gilmore.

- Thank you, Shelley.

(Music) - Cal Street and Bertha McNeil from the original Velvelettes, it's the Motown group.

So, let's start with the name because I love the name.

I used to do a six o'clock 60s show in Detroit and we used to play your song.

So first, how did you come up with the name?

- Well, I tell you, our name was born on Western's Campus.

We Valvelettes love to ride on campus when we were at Western, because there weren't very many cars, so when you'd ride on campus, that was a big deal.

But we loved to harmonize when we got together and so this one time we were harmonizing, riding on the back seat of this car and just having a lot of fun Your harmony is really smooth, you know, it's as smooth as velvet.

- Oh.

- And all of a sudden I think all of us, you know, a birdie went on in our head and we just said, velvet, Valvelettes, oh, neat, that would be a good name for us, and we all agreed.

(Music) "Oh yeah, these things will keep me loving you" - How did you form the group?

- You know, you and Mildred met at Western.

- That's right.

- To start a serious group, so that we could enter a talent show.

My older sister brought me to Western and then Bertha brought her cousin, Norma, to Western and Mildred, and then I brought my good friend, Betty Kelly with me and we all got together, we started rehearsing 'cause we wanted to enter this talent show and win this $25, right Bertie?

- Oh man, $25 was like a $100 back then.

- Unbeknownst to us, in the audience that night was Berry Gordy's nephew.

Berry Gordy is the founder of Motown Records Corporation, his nephew was a student at Western along with Millie and Bertha.

He walked over to to us and told us, you ladies sound good.

I'd like to see you audition for my uncle's company in Detroit.

And he said, those records on the table over there?

And he named off them as he pointed to them, he said, that's my uncle's company.

And I remember Betty Kelly saying, yeah, right.

(laughing lightly) - And he said, no, I'm serious.

He said, that's my uncle Berry Gordy's company, he's my mom's brother and he owns Motown Records and we got a lot of artists, and so he started naming a few of the artists, like the Marvelettes, The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Temptations, The Miracles, and so we were kinda like, really?

(Music) "Well, well, I once believed" "All fellas were nice" - Who did the choreography?

Like, did you have to come up with that?

- No.

Well, initially we did our own but soon after we got with Motown, you know, not knowing they hired a professional choreographer and dancer out of New York, Charlie Atkins, and he is the one who- He did choreography for everybody, for all the groups, and he was brilliant because he was able to make every group look different, you know?

And his choreography was specific to each group.

So, he did that and then we had Mrs. Maxine Powell who taught us how to speak professionally, how to present ourselves professionally.

Motown was different from all the other companies, and people used to say that to us when we would go out doing different engagements and they would say, you can tell these Motown groups coming through here, they are just so classy and so well-trained and polished.

- Yeah, they loved that word polished.

Yup.

Yup.

- The Gordy family, they ran that company but they did a wonderful job and so they expected their artists to also be part of the family and that's how he operated his business, as one big family and... Just treat each other with respect and just, you know, be glad and happy to be a part of the family, which we are to this day.

I'm very thankful and grateful to have had the opportunity to be a Motown alum.

- And you know, that was one of the wonderful things that I loved about Berry Gordy.

He made each of us feel like we were... - Important.

- Important.

- Significant.

- Special.

- Can you tell me where Norman Whitfield, kind of, fits into your story?

- "Needle in a Haystack" was his first really big hit.

- He was a young writer, upcoming writer, he wasn't so popular when we first got there 'cause different ones had been there longer than him.

He was assigned to us.

So, he's the one wrote a "Needle in a Haystack".

He used to take me over to his house, and he and his wife would feed me dinner while he played a tape recorder on the... you know, the best of you or whatever, for me to listen to the next song that I would have to record.

And he'd give me the tape and he'd say I want you to take this home and you got to go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it 'cause we're gonna record it tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock.

- You know, talking about Whitfield, he wrote "Heard it Through the Grapevine", "Ain't to Proud to Beg", "Just My Imagination"- - "Carwash" - Yeah.

- Yeah.

He came in, like, he was competing with some of the writers and producers who had been there for a while but he finally made his statement and made it well because "Needle in a Haystack" was a hit before any of The Supremes had had a big hit.

- That's right.

That's right.

- And the words, I might add, are still from high school.

Mrs. Edwards said, you're going on a tour, Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour with The Supremes and Dick Clark wanted two girls to go from Motown, and so we went on that tour with The Supremes and The Supremes did not have a big hit song out at the time.

They had one, but it wasn't all that, and so "Needle in a Haystack" was a hit, it was out there.

And before that tour, by the time that tour ended, 30 days later, "Where Did Our Love Go" was number one in the country.

That was The Supremes first number one hit.

- When you were performing do you remember what it was like, maybe driving around in your car, and hearing your song on the radio for the first time?

- Oh, it was like... - Oh!

- It's hard to say.

All entertainers say that when they hear their voice coming through the radio for the first time- - Yeah, that first time.

- It's shocking, you know?

It's just shocking.

You've spent time in the studio recording, and when they release it, finally release a song for you, you have no idea when it's gonna be played, so you can be riding down the street or going to the mall or to the store and all of a sudden, "Here are The Velvelettes new release..." and you're like, it just shocks you.

You say, "What?"

(cross talking) - You can feel that with pride, you really do.

You get just filled up with pride, and emotion, and screaming, and hollering, and yelling.

- Oh, wow.

- [Bertha] Can you guys see it?

- Yeah, we see it.

- Yes.

(indistinct) - [Bertha] That's me in the middle.

There's Betty Kelly.

- Mmm-hmm.

- [Bertha] And...

There I am.

And there's Mildred, and there's my cousin Norma.

And one other picture- (indistinct) - That's at the Apollo in New York.

- [Bertha] Yeah.

- What was it like playing at the Apollo?

- Oh, wow.

- [Bertha] That was one of my favorite theaters to go.

When we went there, I actually saw on the walls they had picture of people like Duke Ellington (indistinct), Ella Fitzgerald, and Cal and Mil- (cross talking) - [Bertha] We're saying, yeah, we're like, man, we're here with these people, performed on the same stage that Duke Ellington performed at, I mean, it was a thrill.

It was a thrill.

- And, well we were petrified though.

They told us, you know, at the soundcheck rehearsal- - Mmm-hmm.

- You got to be good.

You've got to be really good 'cause the New York audiences are used to seeing any and everything come up on this stage at the Apollo, and if they don't like you, you will know it.

And they had this guy that used to float around the stage, if they started booing you he would shoo you off the stage with a horn.

(imitating a horn blowing) - And they would boo- - That's right.

- If they didn't like you.

The audiences were just, they could be that cruel because they didn't want to spend their time looking at somebody who didn't have anything going too much for them.

So, we were petrified initially and the audience loved us.

- Yeah.

- They loved us.

They were clapping loud and stuff and we felt, Oh Lord, we have arrived.

- We made it.

We made it.

- Apollo Theater in New York.

- That's right.

- We have to be in the theater all day, all day long.

- And remember what time we'd go home?

We wouldn't go home until about- - One or two o'clock in the morning.

- Yeah, I meant that was an all day.

And we learned to eat... At... what would we call 'em?

The soul food places that were really close by, they had delicious food.

(cross talking) - Uh-huh, uh-huh.

So that would be part of- - And they had, fortunately, they had cots in the dressing room.

- And then I wanted to ask you about those Motown tours, because I've seen still pictures of them, but what did it look like from your perspective?

- Well, as long as we stayed up north, it was fine.

The Southern tours I wasn't that anxious to go on anyway because there was a lot of racism going on back then.

Now, this is a tour bus full of... (indistinct) 30 or 40 seats, and the side of the bus had Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars on it, and we went from one part of the country, Chicago area, all the way out west.

But we had to go below toward the South to the Mason-Dixon line that they had talked about, but we didn't really paid it- We didn't fear it because we thought we felt protected being on Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars tour.

But we went into a restaurant and they wouldn't serve us.

- I'm not sure where it was.

- It was Howard Johnson's.

- Ah.

- I know what restaurant it was.

- That's right.

- They wouldn't serve us.

Yeah, they wouldn't serve us 'cause they said they don't serve black people.

- Yup.

- Dick Clark happened to be on the tour, and he came in the restaurant because we all came walking back out, and when we all came back out, he said, well, what's wrong?

What happened?

And we said, they said they're not going to serve us 'cause they don't serve black people.

Dick Clark was furious.

He was furious.

He slapped his pen and his satchel down and he went in the restaurant and he hollered out, he said, Hey, I want to speak to somebody here, and Dick Clark said, what is this you don't serve black people?

We had never experienced that.

He looked at that man, he said, I will see to it that you go out of business.

Howard Johnson no longer exists.

- Yeah, right.

- Cal, didn't you room with Diana Ross on one of those tours?

- Yeah, Diana Ross was my roommate for the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tours.

She was a sweetheart.

She's older than me so she treated me like a little sister, she really did.

She just told me one time, she looked at me, she said, you know, you can really sing.

And I said, well, thank you.

When we stayed together, and in our hotel room, we used to stand in front of the mirror with our bra and panties on and argue over who was the skinniest.

(laughing lightly) - Paint me a picture of your very best day as an artist.

- One that really stands out in my mind is the very first time that we went to London and performed, and of course after the performance we signed autographs but there was this one gentleman, when he came up he had... 45 of "Needle in a Haystack" and he had tears in his eyes.

This gentleman had driven, I think, over three hours or more, you know what I mean?

To see the show, to see us, to get that signed, and that kind of thing just warms your heart.

If we make that one man feel good like that, can you imagine, you know, so many others?

- I love it, I love it.

Thank you so much for giving me your time today and sharing your great stories.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts.

Check out today's show and other content at wgvu.org.

We leave you tonight with another great performance from The Gilmore.

I'm Jennifer Moss, have a great night.

(melodious piano music) - [Narrator] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.