Description:
Musician Glen Edward Burleigh talks about growing up and going to school in Oklahoma and about his life as a composer.
Transcript:
Glenn Edward Burleigh Oral Interview Transcription
Interviewee: Glenn Edward Burleigh
Interviewer: Female Interviewer (unnamed)
Interview Date: 9/10/2007
Interview Location: Oklahoma Voices taping, exact location unknownTranscription Date: Wednesday, 6/17/2020 - Friday, 6/19/2020
Female Interviewer: Well, here we are once again at the Oklahoma Voices taping and I’m here with musician Glenn Burleigh, a wonderful composer, pianist, conductor, you name it. We are happy to talk with you today, Mr. Burleigh.
GEB: It’s my pleasure to be here.
FI: Great. Mr. Burleigh, we’re going to start off this time together with you. I’m just going to throw some questions, and I want you to feel relaxed and do what you do best. That’s just talk to your audience. You have deep Oklahoma roots. We know that we’re in a centennial year and you have deep Oklahoma roots. Can you elaborate, tell us about when you were born? Where? All those wonderful things that you experienced as an Oklahoma youth.
GEB: You’re absolutely right. My roots in Oklahoma go way, way, way back and they’re very, very deep. I was born in the first capitol of the state, which is Guthrie, Oklahoma. I went to public school there, and junior high, and high school, and took piano and all that there. My grandfather was my pastor at Mount Olive Baptist Church. His son, my dad, was the junior pastor, they called him at the time. My dad baptized me right there at Mount Olive Church in Guthrie. I played piano from I guess about age 7 or 8 all the way through marching in the marching band. One of the unique things about Guthrie is we were right on the cusp of integration, so I attended the quote-unquote Black school most of my life, but our last two or three years we were encouraged to go to the quote-unquote white school. My class was the last class was the last class to graduate from the Black school, so we had the best of both worlds. I marched in two bands, sang in two or three choirs, went to contests that were sponsored by each school, so I had a huge musical training. All of the teachers in both schools were just excellent, so I had a great, great education. I remember marching. This is way back, but when they were having the sit-ins and so forth, in Oklahoma City with (unintelligible). My uncle was very much a part of that, Reverend Isaiah Burleigh. We also marched in Guthrie. We were the first. They had Black people sitting in the balcony. Actually, I liked the balcony best but I wanted the right to sit downstairs. I had picket signs and we were not all that well-received at the time. I was the first Black, I think, to swim in the swimming pool in Guthrie.
FI: Wow.
GEB: And the first Black to check out a book. I gotta tell you the story. My grandparents were janitors at both – they had a Colored library and a white library. This was not 100 years ago. This is just a little while back, less than 50 years ago. Anyway, they worked at both libraries and I would go to work with them during the summers just to help. I didn’t do much cleaning, just fiddled around in the way, but I was there with them. I noticed the Colored library was smaller and it didn’t have a lot of books. When they’d take me to the other library, they had books about Chopin and Beethoven and Braums and I was fascinated with composers. I did not know that there was a racial difference in the libraries. I just thought one was a little library and one was big. I reached up to pull a book down from the white library, on Chopin or something. I was just fascinated because I knew I wanted to be a musician, and they said, “Oh, you can’t have that book. Those books are for white folks.”
FI: Wow.
GEB: I said, “I thought they were folks that could read.” [FI laughs] I could read and so I wanted to know why I couldn’t have this book. They tried to explain and I didn’t get it. I wasn’t having it. I said, “They don’t have that book down at the other library. They got it at this library. I want this book.” So they tried to pacify me. The librarian, I forget her name but she was a sweet little lady, came and said, “This young man wants to read this book (unintelligible).” She took a chance and jeopardized her job and let me take a stack of books home. They don’t know today that I got those books. [FI laughs] Well, I don’t have the books out. I took them back. But I took them home and read all of them on the lives of these wonderful composers and it just changed my life. It was a project that my grandparents helped me smuggle these books to my home. We took them back and I’d get a new batch. She let me have five or six at a time. I was very careful not to damage them and all of that, but I read about these great composers. It was just terrific. Finally the day came when I could legally do it, and if not the first, I was one of the first to check out an official book at the Carnegie Library in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
FI: Open to everybody.
GEB: Open to everybody. That meant something to me. I treasured that, and I think my grandparents - you have to meet people where they are. I’m not ashamed that they were the janitors. That’s where they were at the time, but they opened up the door. My grandmother bought me my first piano because she said, “There’s music in that boy.” Her name was Mrs. Carvy, Carvy Lee Burleigh, and her husband was the pastor Reverend Henry Burleigh. They started me off with the music there. My parents, we didn’t own a piano in our home ‘til I was a senior in high school. I went next door to my grandmother’s every day, faithfully, and practiced. She made it possible. I cherish it. Out of all the pianos I’ve played, that old upright piano still means more to me now.
FI: Do you still have it?
GEB: I don’t have it. My uncle in Wichita took it.
FI: Oh. But it is still around?
GEB: It may have deteriorated by now because it was very old and falling apart. I haven’t seen it in years now. My sister and I both took music with that piano. That’s kind of the early thing. I played for my church. They had something called the Cherub Choir, which is little kids. I played for them, and then I played for our youth choir. It was a joy to play for my youth choir. We had one of the best youth choirs in the state because all of the kids took music. They were all musical. The guys – almost half the guys played the piano so I didn’t have that thing about a guy - ‘cause all of them were brilliant students. Some of them played football, but they also played the piano. It was just a wonderful environment for me. If they didn’t play the piano, they played a horn in the band. Some played drums. I had a very musical group of kids and I was the same age. It’s different when you’re an adult teaching music. When you’re 15 and they’re 15, it’s hard to get that. But they respected me. At 4:00 on Wednesday afternoon, I became the choir director. I wasn’t just plain old Glenn. They respected me for that hour and a half, and then it would all be back to old Glenn. We had an excellent youth choir. They sang four-part harmony back then.
FI: Wow, really? Because that wasn’t something that happened a lot.
GEB: It was very unusual. I had some of the best bass singers in the world. These people there right now. Some are doctors. Some are lawyers. They were right there in Mount Olive Church in Guthrie. That taught me the beginnings of choral conducting.
FI: Early at 15?
GEB: Yeah early on. Our church sang spirituals, anthems, gospels, and whatever contemporary was of the day. It would be considered old hat now, but we did the top stuff of the day. We kept up with all the stuff on the radio. I wasn’t even writing then. It never dawned on me that I’d ever write a song. I did everybody else’s music. The audiences love it. The church would just go crazy. Our church was a shoutin’ kind of church, so they’d get happy and run and scream and jump and then we’d sing an anthem. It was just fun.
FI: You know, especially within the Black church we have a lot of people that play by ear, and then we have people that play with music. Where did you fit, especially as a choir director with youth having to take things off the radio but also having to read? How did you bring those two things together?
GEB: I had to do both because I had a group of people who enjoyed both. We had a senior choir, and they did most of the anthems. We thought their music was very boring. We were the hot little youth choir. The funny thing is now I don’t remember anything we sang. I remember everything the adult choir sang. They did such high quality, and they were not the best singers, and the little lady that played perhaps was not the best pianist in the world, but she gave them high quality music. That has stuck with me, so I had encouragement from taking piano and organ, and reading music in the manner we read. We read, but we always played the hot stuff on the radio. There was not a lot of sheet music around for that, so you had to take it off the ear and literally note by note either put the chords down or something to make your own arrangement. I’ve always done both, and so that has kind of filtered over into the composition that I do now, that mixture of classical and jazz or gospel. That’s not something I learned at OU. That’s something I did in Guthrie at age 12, 13. That mixture – everybody appreciated everything. It was just a fun environment.
FI: Talking about OU, how did you go through that transition from being in that small town in Guthrie and being very surrounded by your parents and your family and all the encouragement to going to Norman, Oklahoma in – what, 19 – what year was that?
GEB: The late ‘60s. It was like going to New York. The transition from Guthrie, Oklahoma to the University of Oklahoma where every – but we were free. First of all, no one made you get up and go to class. If you had an 8:00 class and it was down two miles’ walk, you had to just get up at 6:30 and be on time. Nobody was gonna call. No one made you breakfast. You had to decide, “I’m going to eat breakfast because I need the nourishment.” You had to make all these decisions yourself, and it was just such a shock to me to go from being a star in Guthrie – I was the hot musician of Guthrie – and all of a sudden everybody in your class is a star from where they came from. I had to just rethink this whole thing of why am I doing music and why am I here? Then you run into all sorts of ethnic lifestyle differences. I didn’t know that there were people that didn’t believe in God. Everybody that I knew went to church. Everybody. Even the bad people respected the church and they didn’t say bad words around the church. It was just a reverence for God. Then all of a sudden, you may have some professors that have never been to church and they’re giving your grade and they’re saying terrible things about God and Jesus. What do you mean you don’t know Jesus? What do you mean? Of course He’s The One. Well, there were Buddhists there. What’s a Buddhist? All kinds of lifestyle people. All kinds of homosexuals and they did all kind of crazy stuff at OU and many other campuses at that time just trying to be themselves, trying to find themselves.
FI: Yeah, the late ‘60s, early ‘70s – I was there. Crazy.
GEB: That was the period. People were praying for me because it was very easy for a vulnerable, impressionable young kid from Guthrie, a little town, to not be swept into stuff that they really don’t want to do. For some reason, people just constantly prayed for me and kept up with me. Thank God I did not fall into a lot of the traps. I mean, I did my college stuff like everybody does, and my parents never knew. For instance, I had a club gig.
FI: Oh, you’re gonna tell us. Everybody’s going to know now.
GEB: My parents are gone to heaven so now it’s too late. [laughs] They’ll hear it now. I had a club gig Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, I think from about my sophomore year on through college. We were a wonderful little trio. I forget – I think it was a little club called the Bull and Bear Club, I believe. We played three nights a week, and it was an odd combination: piano, conga drums, and flute. It was a sweet little mix of stuff and we played the hot stuff. I was the last Reverend Lewis pianist back then. I could do everything Reverend Lewis could do, or I thought. It was just great. At the same time, I was studying classical piano and I would faithfully get up and be in church every Sunday morning after being in the club. My church members didn’t know. My parents didn’t know, and I was never broke. I played for a ballet class. I played for church. I played in this club gig. I did weddings. Any way to make an honest buck in music, I did it to help pay my way through school and it was just fun. It helped me musically and it helped me mingle with people who were different from me. Just being that 30, 40, 50 miles away from Guthrie was like being in a new country. I literally had friends from all over the world. I remember the first time one of my very dear friends – he is a physician now – a Jewish fellow who went to Israel right after graduation. When I got that first letter from Israel, I just felt like I was a part of the world. It had a little Hebrew on it and it was such a joy to get international mail. He’s back here in the States now but it was my first international letter from him. He lived right down the hall from me in the dorms at OU and we’ve been friends all this time.
FI: Wow. That’s awesome. Who were the musical people that you really looked up to while you were at OU and who helped you out? Who were the influences in all the craziness?
GEB: It’s kind of funny. I had some phenomenal at OU, and each of the teachers taught me something beyond what they actually taught. This may not make sense to people who are not musicians, but I think if you really listen…. I had a piano teacher who was very hard on me. I loved her dearly. She was probably one of my favorite teachers, if not the favorite. Lois Gaiter. After I settled with (unintelligible). She was hard. I never pleased her, but she taught me so much about music. I’ve used so much of what she’s done. She’s taught me things that helped me become a better conductor and orchestrator, although her area was piano. She was more than just a piano teacher, and in like fashion, I studied kinda through the back door, voice with Thomas Carey, your teacher, and Carol Rice. I think Mr. Carey taught me more about playing the piano than perhaps some of my piano teachers because he went beyond what he does. He could hardly play, and as you know he would fumble around the piano but he was such a musician. I accompanied him and his students on so many concerts. He made me become a fine, fine accompanist. I could read. I was musical. I could follow a phrase and move with the singer. So in a sense, he was probably one of my better piano players.
FI: And the Careys were African-American, which there weren’t that many at OU, especially in the music department.
GEB: When I first was there, they were the only two and I just was so fascinated. They took me in as a son. I loved going to their voice lessons just as much as I loved going to my piano lessons. It was just fun. I traveled with them on recitals, and they were very honest. If I played well, they would tell me and we were just super. I remember one time I played horribly and Mrs. Carey didn’t say anything. She just went on into the room. I stayed with them at their home. I noticed she didn’t say much and I didn’t know it was as horrible as – [laughs]. The next morning she pulled me off, “Glenn, you realize you were horrible last night.” “Uh, no ma’am, I didn’t know.” “Well I don’t know what you were thinking. You’re always brilliant but you just had a bad night. You need to fix that.” She called him Tommy. “Tommy, don’t you agree?” “Yes, yes I do. Yes.” I practiced. I did better. I’d take some of the pieces to my teacher that I was playing for them and she’d coach me. It was a really wonderful team. I had a team of teachers that worked with me. It wasn’t isolated piano here, voice here, theory here, but I worked with the faculty. They all contributed something really wonderful to what I do so I’m grateful to all of them.
FI: (unintelligible) students ‘cause I went to OU and I don’t even think I went that deep. I stayed with the Careys as you were saying. They’re wonderful teachers but I think for you especially as a composer, being in those classes with voice really helped you as a composer. I’ve sang your pieces and you write brilliantly for the voice.
GEB: I didn’t know that I could. I just took a chance. I sat through more voice lessons than most voice majors because I played for Doctoral student recitals, Bachelors student recitals, Masters students recitals, so I got the full gamut, and not just as a Carey studio. I played for Mr. and Mrs. Gillis. There was another – I played for their lessons. I played for Kathleen Harris. I played for Elizabeth Palm. She put out some great students. I put out for Bruce Govitch. Marilyn Govitch now teaches at I think Central State –
FI: UCO. (Transcriber’s Note: UCO was formerly known as Central State University. The name was changed to the University of Central Oklahoma, abbreviated as UCO, in 1990.)
GEB: UCO, yes. Bruce Govitch got me my first job at Lyric Theater.
FI: Oh, that’s right. You did work for Lyric Theater.
GEB: On one phone call, he got me a job as Assistant Music Director at Lyric Theater. I was needing a summer job, and all of my summer jobs prior to that had been construction work, furniture factory work, working at some department store selling stuff I didn’t wanna sell, all that kind of stuff. This was one of my first musical summer jobs. He said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “Anything in music.” He said, “You wanna work at Lyric?” I said yeah. He called up a lady named Marion Sirce, who at that time was one of the executive people. I forgot her position. But she hired me so she was very important to me. He called her up, “I got a young man here who plays very well, reads anything, plays in my studio. I need you to hire him for the summer.” On that one call she said bring him down. I could have played three or four seasons, but I moved away. I played two wonderful seasons with two wonderful music directors and I just had a ball. That experience at Lyric I did ten shows. Ten shows and I wasn’t just playing the piano. I would coach singers and I would work with the dance people and all that. I was involved with the actual production and it was so funny that I became kind of popular. They used to do those shows at OCU and you could see the pit so you could see the players. Well, I had people come to the shows sometimes because I was playing. So they’d come down to the pit and shake my hand and say, “You sure did play good today. We’re coming back.” We did a show called The Fantastics with a piano. Both pianos feature right out in the audience. It’s a part of the audience, it’s not in some pit. I think it’s two pianos, a bass, and drums. That’s the orchestra for that particular show. I was right out there in the face of the people, so I was known as Lyric Theater’s pianist for a couple of good years.
FI: Another great Oklahoma -
[FI and GEB talking over each other]
GEB: - absolutely wonderful. It gave me so much in spirit. I also did Gaslight. [FI and GEB talking over each other] Gaslight Dinner Theater. They’d feed us. They had this buffet every night and I did the music production for that. We got a fantastic review and the reviewer said even with the players doubling up on instruments – we had five players and we had to double up and play different instruments but we made it sound kind of orchestral. The reviewer made that comment every year so I thought that was kinda fun. That all goes back to my experience at OU with the Careys and Dr. Govitch and all that Lyric stuff, so by the time I got to Gaslight I was a pro.
FI: You really were. [GEB coughing] Do you consider yourself a pianist, teacher, composer, conductor? What do you feel like is your main thing?
GEB: Yes.
FI: Yes? [laughs] All of the above.
GEB: It’s kind of funny. [coughs] Excuse me. Musicians very often have to wear a lot of hats, sometimes for survival but sometimes because it’s fun. My big time heroes who did it all, I can think of two right now. Rachmaninoff, who was a brilliant conductor and a fabulous pianist, and his compositions speak for themselves. He did it all, and did it all extremely well. Leonard Bernstein wrote beautiful music and in later years I discovered he played. He didn’t play – he did those young people’s concerts on TV when I was growing up so I got to see a lot of music on a regular three channel TV. Now we have a million stations on cable and can’t find anything to watch. But back then we had three stations and they had great programming. He sat down and he’s played Mozart concertos and he’d conduct Mahler. So that showed me that one can do a lot of stuff. I may not be perhaps on that scale, but I sure am enjoying writing and conducting and playing. It’s just fun.
FI: I’d like to know what was your first piece that you wrote? Do you remember?
GEB: I do. My first piece was a corny little piece in C major with three chords. It was just too silly to even play and I wrote it on my grandmother’s piano when I was about 8. There was really nothing profound about it. I mean literally 3 chords, but I felt good because I wrote it. Now that I listen to it after many years, there was nothing spectacular about this piece and it sounds like anybody else could write it, but I did it. (unintelligible) in C. No sharps or flats in it. Just white notes. I remembered it through all the years, but I thought that would be it. I never dreamed I would write any quote-unquote legitimate pieces.
FI: Did you start writing in college more prolifically or was it after that?
GEB: It was after that. I was a pianist. I was either going to play the piano or teach college piano or accompany or something with piano, which I’ve done a lot of, but that turned out not to be my major thrust. I took a church job up in Omaha, Nebraska in the middle of my Master’s at OCU. I went up there and I’d come home once a month to work on my recital and work on my paper. I’d done all of my classwork. I just started just fiddling and I was very nervous about this and very shy, and I never told my choir that I wrote the pieces unless I had good response from them. So if they acted like they liked it, I’d say, “Oh yeah, I wrote that.” If they showed any negative facial expression, I’d say, “Oh I just picked that up somewhere. I just thought I’d try it.” Finally, after a few successes I began to be bold and whether they liked it or not, I had a little more confidence. I said, “Well, I wrote that but you guys just aren’t ready. [both laugh] This is a wonderful piece, but you aren’t ready.” My first major, major composition, I don’t even remember the year. I wanted to do something for Christmas, and I did not want to do “The Messiah,” which is a brilliant work. It’s an eternal work. I didn’t like anything I heard on the radio. I didn’t like anything I heard in the stores, so I said, “I wonder if I can write something for Christmas?” The result of that was “Born to Die,” which was we just sang Oklahoma City Philharmonic. It’s a cantata and it’s becoming a piece of major proportions. There are a number of performances this Christmas across the country, some with orchestra, some with small ensemble. I’m just so thankful that people like Richard Sias and other supporters have supported this particular work, especially over a period of years. The Ambassador’s Choir has sung it a number of times. We just recently did it out at Rose State College with the philharmonic, the Ambassadors, several soloists -
FI: Me! Yay! [laughs]
GEB: You all did such a tremendous job. I was happy because it was right here in my home state. I’ve been blessed. This very year, this Centennial year, to get to do more stuff in Oklahoma than I’ve done in the last ten years. It’s big stuff, like the Spirituals concert we did in Norman.
FI: (UI) – when they had Mr. Burleigh present his works on Palm Sunday. This year is our Centennial year and Centennial concert. It was amazing. How did that feel because you had not been back to Norman, I think you told me since you graduated from college?
GEB: I have not done anything with OU since I graduated. It’s not that I planned it that way. I still have a deep love for the school and the people. There are just a few professors left from when I was there, not very many. It just worked out. I’ve been to New York and L.A. and to D.C., Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, all kinds of fun stuff, but there was never an occasion to get back to OU. It was very wonderful and mix of people there was just – you couldn’t have planned it any better. It had the OU Concert Choir with Dr. Stephen Curtis at that time. We had OU Gospel Choir. We had a wonderful delegation from Oklahoma City, a mixed group of churches, your home church Quail United Methodist, and Mount Olive. Brenda Johnson was there, the Minister of Music. She participated with us. Some of my family members, my brother Kenneth, my cousins Elvis and Arnold, [pause].
FI: It was a true Oklahoma mix. It was just great.
GEB: You had people who were very highly trained in music and those who had natural talent with no formal coaching all on the same stage. I remember Dr. Kerr weeping, just weeping and turning red, he was so touched by the singing from the mixture of the people. He conducted brilliantly, brilliantly, one of the pieces that I had done. He took that piece to Spain. I don’t know if you knew that.
FI: No, I didn’t know that.
GEB: They went to Spain right after that. He took that piece and the Spanish people just fell in love. It was great just to be there on my alma mater campus with all those people. At First Baptist Church, of which I was a member when I went back to OU for awhile. So that was fun. It was just like going home, and going home and being well-received. Sometimes you go home and people don’t let you come back so easily. But they welcomed me and they sang the music. The younger kids at OU – I shouldn’t say kids. The young people at OU ate it up. They sang that music. They loved it and the young lady that accompanied them – everybody who did anything on that program did it well. So I thank you for allowing me to come and thank you to Carrie who initiated that way, way, way back. I might have participated in the second or third, or maybe the first – I don’t remember – but it was early on with them and all those years when I was in Oklahoma, I played every single year.
FI: At the Festival of the Spirit?
GEB: At the Festival of the Spirit.
FI: Talking about going to New York and L.A. and all those places, you left Guthrie and came to big Norman, and then you left there. You went to OCU and worked on your Master’s at OCU. Then you said you went to Omaha, Nebraska. So talk about your career a little bit after you left Oklahoma. Now you’re kind of back here and doing your thing, but talk about your career, some of the highlights that you’ve had.
GEB: Um, let’s see. Where can we start? First of all, the church has been a major, major foundation for everything I’ve done. I’ve done symphony performances. I’ve done community choir. But the church music I had written most of my choral music for churches of varying denominations. I’m a Baptist, but I’ve done Catholic stuff. I’ve played for a Catholic church and for the Methodists, and a Baptist church in Omaha. I wrote a mass for them, bona fide, with all the Kyrie and Agnes Dei, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus Spiriti, the whole thing. It was in Latin and in English, and many parts of it have been sung in a lot of different denominations. It’s not just for Catholic people. A lot of people, when they see the word “mass” say “Oh, that’s music for the Catholics.” I made it work for any Christian denomination that really wants to praise God. Lots of it is classical. Lots of it is not. That mixture of all these kinds of churches that I have been working with has sort of paved the way for my career. I’m comfortable in just about every denomination and non-denomination. They come close to what I believe so I can kinda handle it. There may be one or two parts that I don’t particularly agree but I let that go and they’ve got the basics of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the world, I can live with you.
[both laugh]
GEB: I’m participating in the ordination celebration of the new bishop at the Episcopal church. There’s a new bishop coming to town and they’re having several wonderful services. They’re calling it a party and they expecting 700-800 people to come and then dinner and a festival. That’s going to be at Saint Paul’s.
FI: Here in Oklahoma City?
GEB: Here in Oklahoma City. I play for them every now and again on the 5:00 service. One of the priests and I have become very good friends, and he’s invited me several times to come and just play. I learned some new hymns, some new music, and they have a fabulous choir on Sunday mornings. I just love to go and listen to them sing so I’m there half the time. Also, at the same time I’m here at Mount Olive Baptist Church here in town as artist-in-residence so I’m getting a whole big spectrum of wonderful church music.
FI: So after that, you’ve just gone so many places and you’re just happy to be back in Oklahoma.
GEB: Happy to be back. I still travel a lot and I’m getting ready to do some things. We have some recordings coming up over in Arkansas. With the gentleman who sang at the Spirituals concert (unintelligible – is the man’s name), we’re getting ready to record Four Spirituals for Bass, Baritone, and Piano. So it’s just sort of a mixture of tastes, mixture of denominations, mixture of educational levels. All of God’s people are wonderful.
FI: There’s two pieces that I know you wrote. One of them, if you’re in the gospel world at all you know very well. It’s “Order My Steps,” which was nominated for a Dove Award and has been sung by every major choir in the United States and probably outside. I know I’ve asked you how did you come to write that piece. What is your answer?
GEB: There’s a little bit of a story. I’ll say this first. I don’t have an Earth-shaking story. A lot of composers, you’ll read the little book about the hymns and the stories are so heartbreaking and they’re so sad and so inspired. I always worry that I don’t wanna write ‘cause I never had these great tales to tell. I tried to make me up a story once and it just didn’t work. [FI laughs] (UI) God has blessed me and I like to write.
This particular one has a little bit of history because I was inspired by some young people who were marching in a drill team. In the South, in many of the larger churches, especially the African-American churches, they have drill teams that are similar to marching bands. They’re in uniform and they march and while they march, since it’s a church, they quote Scriptures to rhythm. It’s very unique how they do this. The drums are going to a certain point, and then they’ll do some Scripture and they’ll march some more. This particular drill team in Houston, Texas was a big church call Saint Agnes Baptist Church. There were probably 150 kids in this drill team and they had all their stuff shined. All of their shoes. All of their brass buckles. They were just handsome and beautiful, and they recited all the books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in about 20 seconds. Then they turned around and it from Revelation backwards. It was just amazing to see these kids have that kind of memory, and it was a ministry to them. I was in the middle of the concert with the Winans. The Winans would just sing and (unintelligible). I turned the sound off in my head and sat down. People were screaming and jumping because they were just having this great concert, and God gave me the words for “Order My Steps In Your Word” because they were stepping and reciting the words. So it just hit me. I don’t even know how that verse came to me because it’s not a familiar verse that I would normally just grab. It was particular that I always write out of the King James Version and I’m glad that I do because nobody else uses “in Your Word,” in “Order My Steps.” They use some other way. It’s the same meaning but those newer versions wouldn’t have said that. When I told the kids that they inspired this song, they were just thrilled that they played a part. It’s all around the world.
FI: It is. I’ve seen it in major publications. Like you said, every major choir, the Bruckland Tabernacle.
[GEB and FI talking over each other]
GEB: - The Mighty Clouds of Joy, which is a gospel quartet for those of you who know that genre of music. We did it at Ithaca College School of Music. The Florida A&M marching band marched on it at halftime, and everybody in the audience was singing because everybody seems to know it. So it just reminds people. Star Jones from The View was talking about her classic wedding and said, “I want to march in on this song. I love it and I don’t know who wrote it, but I want this song.” We were listening and all of a sudden it was “Order My Steps.” I had no clue who she was. I didn’t set out to write a hit. I wrote 15 songs at the same time and they all did very well in the region where I wrote them. I didn’t know that one was going to do it any more than some other stuff. All of a sudden, God said, “Okay, you’re the star.” I praise Him for that. I didn’t try. I just did what I do.
FI: There’s another piece that you wrote that I don’t think has ever been played in Oklahoma, but it’s a piece that you dedicated to the bombing on April 19, 1995.
GEB: As a matter of fact, and this would appeal especially to the classical/jazz community, it was commissioned actually by a professor down in Austin, Texas. It was supposed to be for an AIDS benefit and I did it for that, but when I thought about it – it was just a little while after the Oklahoma City bombing – I said, “I think I’m just going to dedicate this to that.” I have a very dear friend, Mr. Stanley Blanchard, whose wife was in the building. We thought she’d be gone, but God worked it out. She made it through. She’s up and doing fine, and they’ve since had two children and they’re just blessed and happy. I dedicated not just to them because they’re my friends, but also to all of the victims. After September 11 came, I made another dedication so the piece now is dedicated to the victims and survivors of September 11 and the bombing. It takes people through the various moods of complacency, taking things for granted before a tragedy, lollygagging around and being happy. The first piece is called “Happiness.” Then all of sudden and without warning, tragedy strikes. Then you go through anger and wanting to get back at them and revenge and all this stuff, and then finally you just get to a point where revenge doesn’t help after all. There’s a degree of forgiveness even in the midst of the most horrible tragedies, and then there’s peace. It ends on this peaceful reconciliation and you know that God’s still in control and it’s going to be alright in the end. If you believe that and you know that in your heart, then you can deal with those kinds of things. I’ve performed in a lot of places, and I had a priest come up to me with tears in his eyes and he said, “You know you took me through every emotion that a person can go through.” I’m saying to my Oklahoma friends, “I want to do this piece here in Oklahoma.” This is a commercial. [both laugh] It touched me because I felt, for the first time in my life, close to a tragedy of major proportions.
FI: Were you in Oklahoma when that happened?
GEB: No, I was in Chicago. I called my friend to see – I was scared to call. I finally got him and he said he didn’t know, but I finally got him again and he said she’s okay. We celebrated and praised God for that. It was just strange. (unintelligible) My mom called and told me that. She said they had this horrible thing and was just crying, and people were numb. This can’t happen in Oklahoma. This can’t happen to my friends. These are my friends. How dare stuff happen to my people? Anyway, God blessed that and our hearts go out – one thing that experience taught me, we have a member of a church that I used to play for who lost four family members. When I came back and just talked to her, she was not bitter. She said, “Revenge doesn’t help. You have to pray for those people.” I thought that was just so incredibly the way Christian people should be, but the way we aren’t usually. The worse the tragedy, the more I want to get back. She was calm. She said, “Yes I hurt. Yes I’m devastated. But I’m praying for those people because they must be sick to do what they did.” That touched me even more, so I want to do something in Oklahoma, say a word of encouragement. That’s why I’m so glad to be doing all of this now in Oklahoma.
FI: We’re glad you’re back.
GEB: It’s so enjoyable.
FI: I love that for me personally, I’ve always enjoyed your music. It’s very calming. You’ve got a piece that you’re going to play for us, for the tape and recording. It’s a piece from…?
GEB: Margaret Bonds is the composer. I’m just going to play a few pages of it because it’s a long piece, but the reason I like this piece is she reminds me of myself in that she takes a mixture of classical style and a little jazz and puts it together with a spiritual so you’ve got these three components of music all in one piece. She’s known for her very famous arrangement of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” It’s internationally recognized. Almost every soprano in college-dom has sung this piece at one point or another. It’s the one. There are lots of arrangements, but it’s the one that all the sopranos sing. She also wrote some wonderful orchestral things and some piano pieces. One of the piano pieces is this arrangement called “Troubled Water.” It’s based on the spiritual “Weight of the Water.” At some point before we get through. I’ll play a line or two of that.
FI: Before you play that, I wanted to ask what it is that you are wanting to see as you continue a career here in Oklahoma? It’s your home state, especially since you say you’re going to be celebrating in Guthrie in November. They’re going to be having a big Centennial celebration. What is it that you would like to see for the future with what you’re doing, especially in terms of being an Oklahoman and being here in Oklahoma? What would just knock your socks off to see happen in Oklahoma?
GEB: I want to see a continuation of bigger picture of interracial, interdenominational, intercultural music performances where people of different levels play on the same stage. We have fantastic classical people and the classical people go to that, and the gospel people jump and kick on their wonderful music, and the jazz people go to the jazz club. I don’t see enough – now other stages where I’ve been we’ve brought people together and that’s what I do. You almost have to speak two or three musical languages to pull it off, and maybe that’s my role in Oklahoma. The Spirituals concert in Norman showed me that that’s what I do. I don’t sing, per se. I sing enough to teach. I’m not a soloist. God has given me a gift to take the Ph.D. in music and Miss Johnson who’s never studied music, put them on the same stage and somehow make it all work, make everybody feel welcome, make everybody feel a part. I think that’s probably my strongest gift. I want to see more of that. I want to see it at the schools. We’re doing a workshop – I’m going to throw this commercial in – we’re doing a workshop for children’s teachers, choir directors, those who teach children from 4-6 and 7-13 at the Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church on September 22 from 10:00-12:30. It’s at 7th and Robinson Downtown in the main cathedral. There is a registration fee. You can go to our website and get information, phone numbers, email addresses, all the of that. W-W-W dot glenmusik dot com. That’s one G-L-E-N, M-U-S-I-K. That’s a K. One N and a K, dot com. Or you can call Saint Paul’s and find out. That’s one of the things. We’re starting a series of workshops for all ages, all denominations. I want to see the races mix for real. [coughs] Excuse me. Lots of interracial dating, lots of interracial marriage, lots of interdenominational things for Thanksgiving, lots of interdenominational things for Christmas kind of. We do a wonderful display for a special event and then we go back to normal. I want normal to be the mix. That’s where I am. That’s my calling and I know that’s why God me here, or one of the reasons. He has me around the world doing this. Everywhere I go, that happens.
FI: I think you’re very good at it because you showed me that it’s certainly capable of happening. We had an awesome time and you’re good at that. I’m looking forward to that. Maybe we’ll do more of that as we move along. I’m going to ask you to go ahead and play the piece. I’ve enjoyed talking to you today.
GEB: This is just a line of “Troubled Water” by Margaret Bonds. Let me just take a second to move up to the piano.
FI: Glenn Burleigh, playing Margaret Bonds’ “Troubled Waters.”
[GEB plays piano]
FI: Awesome, awesome, awesome. Can I ask one more question? Mr. Burleigh, when someone’s going to be listening to this recording in a year, or 25 years, or 50 years, maybe even 100 years, what is it that you want them to say about Glenn Burleigh, Guthrie, Oklahoma native composer? What do you want people to remember about you?
GEB: This may not be in order of importance. I want them to remember that I actually love God’s people, the people that He created, even if they are very different from me. It’s so easy to love people that do what you do and think like you think and all that, but one of the things about Oklahoma in particular is there are a lot of different people here. I may be a Baptist but I may have Catholic or Episcopal or other kinds of friends. I may be Republican but I may have Democratic and Independent friends. I’d like to be remembered that I loved a lot of different kinds of people, and that I want my music to reach out to a lot of different age groups, a lot of different races, a lot of different nationalities. I want that music to encourage to reach out with whatever gifts they have, whether it’s art or dance or playing football, whatever it is you do, I think it ought to show some love. That’s the main thing. The world is full of hate, full if resentment, full of anger, so whatever your occupation is then God’s love ought to show through that. Everything can be a ministry. You may not be all that religious. It doesn’t matter that you’re religious. You ought to show love to people, strangers and old friends alike.
FI: Through your music I think you’ve certainly done that, so thank you Mr. Burleigh for doing this today.
GEB: Thank you for having me. It’s absolutely my pleasure.
End of interview.