Total=Sum of All Parts

Dec. 9, 2013

By Bob Farrell

I  fully intend for each installment of My Manifesto Mondays to be based on one of my song lyrics, but I'm gonna depart from that here to give you some intriguing backstory (it'd better be, huh?)

Each of us has their own 'total=sum of all parts': a personal backstory that makes them singular and unique.

I look at the Old Testament accounts of King David and Joseph (and many others in the Bible) and I see that what those individuals became in life was a composite of all God brought them through—good and bad.

David was a simple shepherd boy who slew Goliath—he was also a murderer and an adulterer.

Joseph spent time at the bottom of a pit where his brothers threw him, and as a slave and in jail in Egypt—he also became #2 guy right under Pharaoh.

David (a picture of us all, btw) was adept at sin—but he was also big on confessing to God and receiving forgiveness—a man after God's own heart. And God made him King of Israel—and possibly one of the world's first songwriters (Book of Psalms, don't 'cha know).

Joseph kept his cool through all his reversals and heartache and stayed true to his convictions—including forgiving his brothers. Then God used him mightily in Egypt.

My point is that their ultimate destiny and point of impact upon their culture to God's glory was made up of all their life experiences.

I'd have to say the same applies to me. Whatever impact God has allowed me to have on our culture has taken shape by means of my entirety.

The wise choices—the dumb ones. The good days—the dreadful days. Bob the Princely—Bob the Horrible.

I guess I wanna tell you some of that story.

People often assume that songwriters set out from an early age to answer a clarion call to pen songs. No doubt some do. But I can only say that in my case it was far from any such lofty summons. Mine has been an odyssey almost totally unintended, accidental and serendipitous—but apparently inevitable. It seems God always had a plan, but His plan's implementation took a lot of turns on its path.

I think it appropriate to give you a brief (I'll try my best) sketch of how that odyssey unfolded.

When the Beatles invaded America in 1964 they also invaded my life. I was an 8th grader going to Cary Junior High in Dallas, TX, where every Thursday before school a 30-minute dance was held in the gym. I had only moved to Dallas in the Summer of 1962 and still was trying ways to fit in and find some new friends, so I decided the Thursday dance might turn up something worthwhile—i.e. girls.

As I walked into the gym one Thursday morning in January, 1964 what greeted my ears was the first Beatles single released in America: I Wanna Hold Your Hand. The Beatles and I fell in love right then and there. I was struck dumb at how infectious and fun their whole new brand of pop-rock n roll music was.

And I was glued to the family black and white TV on February 9, 1964, to watch them perform on the Ed Sullivan Show—along with 73 million other Americans.

I played trumpet in the Cary school band, which in Fall semesters meant having to play baritone instead, till football season was over and concert-band season kicked in (I loved neither marching band or the very un-cool baritone instrument—kind of a miniature tuba—but held out, anyway).

One of my new Dallas buddies was neighborhood pal Sandy Bolton. He and I had already become soul-mates in the few short months we had known each other, and we spent countless hours in his bedroom playing along with car-songs and beach-songs, mostly Beach Boys albums—Sandy on his drum kit and me piddling on his Decca 6-string guitar. I knew nothing about the guitar, but was immensely drawn to it.

Sandy's drumming eventually earned him an offer to play with some other buddies, in a band called The Sticks. And what developed from that was me being allowed to sing background vocals and beat a tambourine or cowbell at some of their gigs: at roller rinks, house-parties, Battles-of-the-Bands. The Sticks' repertoire soon grew to include music from many of the British invasion of Merseyside-Liverpool bands: The Kinks, The Stones, The Animals, Gerry & The Pacemakers, et al.

At band rehearsals and gigs I would bug The Sticks' lead guitarist incessantly to show me more and more chords on guitar. He suggested I learn the entire song by The Byrds called Feel a Whole Lot Better. That required that I master all-important bar-chords, which I did. Sometimes the finger stretching felt like a form of torture, but well worth it to me.

By the time my folks moved us back to West Texas in January, 1966 I was supplementing my self-taught-lessons by ape-ing Paul McCartney's bass lines (on the Garcia 6-string I got for Christmas 1965), from their latest release Rubber Soul. Oooeee. Just hearing those tunes today still conjures up in me such glorious, special, private, sonic (good 60's word, btw) feelings that I'm instantly transported back to that happy and mysterious voyage of personal discovery.

In the Spring of 1967, just before graduating Monterey High School, I formed my own band, which led to meeting the woman who would become my wife, Jayne Robinson. In our Senior Assembly my brand-new band backed her in a rendition of Dancin' in the Streets; and we quite rebelliously sang together, for the first-but-far-from-last time, the Animals classic: We Gotta Get Outta This Place—though the Principal forbade us doing so. Jayne was actually the one who named the band: D.O.A. (yes, really).

D.O.A. played for the next couple of years while I attended (sort of) Texas Tech University, performing for fraternity dances and school proms/dances, eventually becoming quite popular all over West Texas. Jayne sang with us a good bit, doing Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Aretha Franklin, alongside the band's covers of The Beatles (by this time including Sgt. Pepper's), The Doors, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, etc.

After we married in 1969 Jayne and I moved to Houston, where I enrolled in Univ. of Houston and I left D.O.A. behind (I found out years later at a Class Reunion that the band still exists to this day, with none of its original members—wo.) I continued to love and listen to music, but was no longer performing at all—and I missed that musical outlet immensely. I was trying my darndest to transform the formerly single-carefree-fledgling rockstar guy into the responsible-husband-father (we soon were parents to sweet little Dawn Cheri). Jayne and I both worked full-time jobs, while I logged 12-hour semesters in night school at U of H.

Without giving gory play-by-play, suffice to say that by early 1971 our marriage was in trouble—our little vessel had run onto rocky shores. And it received a major blow on January 17, when Jayne came home from an evangelistic crusade at First Baptist Church and announced she "was going to live for Jesus." My response? "I'm gonna live in Dallas."

Which I did; quitting school, leaving Houston, wife, and baby; and finding myself sharing Sandy Bolton's childhood bedroom again in Big D (he had just returned home from a tour of duty in Vietnam). Weird doesn't even begin to say it.

I thought I was just running away from a bad marriage. But it actually felt like I was being chased by something else—and clueless as to what it was. Or, actually, Who was pursuing me.

Anyway, after three months I'd got enough of living "free-but-feckless" and decided to return home to Houston. Jayne received me with open arms and the homecoming was sweet—although, in my absence our roomie Margo (a lifelong friend of ours from Lubbock, and my 'hard-drinking-buddy' since high school) had also been born again.

Great. Two new believers living under my roof.

Within one week I was ready to bolt again, but on Saturday March 13, 1971 the big chase-down came to an end. Jayne had concocted a "visit' to our home, by the leader of the music group that played at the crusade she attended at FBC 3 months earlier.

That day my life would be changed forever.

To be continued ...


photo credit - AP