The Yale Glee Club 1953
In the photo above the white haired gentleman with a white handkerchief in his pocket in the first row center is Marshall Bartholomew. “Barty” was an incredible human being and was the collector of dozens of Appalachian folk songs and Negro Spirituals which were the most famous part of the Glee Club’s repertoire. 1953 was his last year as director and the next director was Fenno Heath who is the person to the left of Barty. Fenno was not my favorite guy but he gave me solos and I appreciated him for that. One of my solos was “Ach Gott vem Zoll Ich Klagen”. (I doubt if I spelled that right.) I don’t speak German but I translated the words and hope that I conveyed the emotion of the piece. If you will click on the sound bar below the photo you will hear me sing the German solo. (I just discovered that my web program will not let me put my sound bar here for Google Chrome users.)
My solo was recorded at our performance in Wigmore Hall in London in 1954. An odd thing is that I had gotten laryngitis two days before this performance and I did not sing at all in this concert prior to my solo. My voice came back and somehow it worked out.
Jim Martin
In the above photo I am in the 3rd row up from the bottom and am 4th from the right side of the picture. By the way, the fellow in the top row 5th from the left side of the photo is George W Bush’s uncle and directly below him is Russell Reynolds who founded the executive recruiting company.
