In Memory of Vince Meades 2024

In Memory of Vince Meades: Sheet Music 

 

Delores Fisher Blogger

2023 and ongoing!!!! 

Thinking About Music: in attics, piano benches, in piles on floors under desks, on library shelves, where ever else, and yes . . .in archives

A few hours after daybreak, a huge lounge chair,  a cool glass of orange juice in a fluted wine glass,  music playing on my Ipod . . .  my Ipod not my phone? Yes . . . it's almost POST COVID and my music delivery platforms has changed--both are portable, both have Youtube  and I can stream on both --hmm!

Remember MP3 players, personal Walkmans, street blaring Boom Boxes, portable record players that the kids could take outside during a party when it wasn't raining? How about old Phillips adaptable turn tables to play 33 1/3 and 45s"? And stereo consoles and transistor radios with one earphone jack?

When I'm not being a passive listener, I think of some of the above electronics and will actually pick out a few pieces from old songbooks or sheet music and play a few tunes on my keyboard. Sheet music is coming back into style ONLINE as millions (or maybe a few hundred thousand) started looking for boredom aversion during COVID. I wonder how many of us learned to read music or actually play an old school musical instrument during our isolation?

Youtube has a plethora of tutorials and even some sheet music reprints. But it's difficult to find the real gems from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Vince Meades preserved thousands of them, even Television Show Theme music. Yes! You heard me. TV theme song sheet music as well as Tin Pan Alley favorites.

I have also been presenting music oriented lectures for Oasis San Diego  https://san-diego.oasisnet.org/ and after my Blues lecture in August, I am planning an early 20th century popular music lecture.

Now that COVID is almost over, the search resumes. . .this time I'll share what I find in several  places.

SDSU Special  Collections Sheet Music Archive Notesong

Inaugural post

  Delores Fisher

This new page is dedicated to a friend and his decades of research--Vince Meades. His recent death earlier in 2019 will leave a void that I have yet to fully realize. He helped me remember the value my family placed on owning sheet music and being musically literate so that sheet music's sonic gift could be reproduced and enjoyed with family or on a quiet night with just you and song. 

 

                  Robert Ray (SDSU Special Collections Division Head at thee time), 

                                               Delores Fisher, and Vince Meades
 

However, the articles posted here are dedicated to Vince Meades, his work, and his gentle friendship. Each article is based on a small window into his extensive sheet music collection in the San Diego State Special Collections Archives. Many of the music donated by Vince Meades over the years is now digitalized. 

 

Pre-COVID 19, I had the privilege to handle and analyze the actual music scores and lyrics. I will cherish the sheet music the SDSU Special Collections Archivers and Vince Meade allowed me to access,  Vince's  insightful perspectives on the music, and the many hours of Vince's absolutely delightful conversations with me!

Center For World Music's Seniors' Access To The Arts Concerts

  

                        Delores Fisher, Pianist

 

2017 After one of my African American music piano concerts for the

Center for World Music's Access to the Arts for Seniors programs

 

The Archived African American music that I have been studying from San Diego State's Vince Meades 

collection continues to deepen my appreciation for African American popular music fro the 1800s through the early 1900s. I use this knowledge at concerts for the Center for World Music when I perform at the Access to the Arts For Seniors programs.  https://centerforworldmusic.org/2018/08/access-arts-for-seniors-spring-2018/

 

 I add additional traditional African American spirituals and also pop songs from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is amazing how many of our elders who were once well known Opera, Gospel, and Pop performers add to the concert with their memories and insights. Many are still wonderful musicians. Perhaps soon, if I am blessed after the COVID Pandemic sanctions are lifted . . .a few of the seniors I have met during the concerts will perform with me if they still have their instruments or share  their voices in songfull celebration of the arts that still embraces their being.

Chatting with Vince Meades 2014

Vince Meades, 

 and me Delores Fisher 2014

 

Last week, I  went to the Special Collections and University Archives at San Diego State University to follow a research hunch that was a persistent itch in the back of my mind. I needed to talk with Vince Meades! 

Having misplaced his phone number, I hadn’t called him for months. Events converged into a wonderful encounter, unexpected, like a warm summer breeze placing a sweet fragrant rose’s playful perfume kiss on my nostrils. Vince and I  haven’t seen each other in months, yet here we both were, .at the Special Collections Archives.

Vince has been ill and is just beginning to recover (2014). It is his first day back. I have been busy teaching, finishing my book, planning a third book and fighting a persistent cold that relents for a only few weeks. It is my first day back also. One look at each other and we smile and laugh like  two children about to go on a mysterious adventure. Vince’s sheet music collection is like looking through a huge layered kaleidoscope!

Our previous archival searches through his extensive collection (more than 15,00 songs) resulted in the popular large page post sonictapestry.wordpress.com/the-vince–meades-collection/  ‎which has  material from a chapter of my upcoming book , completion date is set for early next year.
Today, I am searching for a rare set of pop songs by an Afro-Classical  composer for another chapter. As Vince and I look through several stacks, we take a side road into his Ziegfeld Follies Collection. We limit ourselves to one box starting from 1909. It is amazing to touch well preserved sheet music over one hundred years old. The colorful period artwork is still vivid. The collection includes a wide array of songs popularized by Fanny Bryce and Eddie Cantor and early show music by internationally acclaimed composer and pianist George Gershwin.

Ziegfeld “Show Girl” music by George Gershwin

Vince and I look at all sorts of sheet music and whisper for a couple of hours about my upcoming book and research project. He is delighted that my work is ongoing. For my current book click onto:  http://linusbooks.com/?wpsc-product=reading-in-african-american-music-history-essays

It’s good to work with Vince again. He is a humble man who comes from a poverty stricken background. At almost eighty four years young,  his birthday is “soon”, Vince values all the opportunities that life gives to him. And although the SDSU Special Collections Library was only able to digitalize a small portion of his collection, “The Vince Meades Popular American Sheet Music Collection a Visual Index”–http://library.sdsu.edu/digital-projects-news/visual-index-vince-meades-sheet-music-collection he is grateful to know that he is appreciated. With more funding, the endeavor can continue in the future, providing access for popular American music researchers around the world.

As we near the end of our song search, Robert Ray, Archives Division Head walks in. Photo op!!!!!
I am indebted to the staff of San Diego State University’s Special Collections and University Archives and to Robert Ray, a very gracious man for his continuing encouragement throughout my research process. Robert Ray introduced me to Vince. He also suggested that I examine other websites, be aware of references from various sources, and to compare information to what I had gathered to see if I could contribute a new scholarly perspective to the growing dialogue about American popular music.

Robert Ray, Vince Meades and me   

“In the archives . . .”

Let the research begin again!!!