Lucinda Jane "Cindy" Powell Miller

LHS '65

Paula Spencer Kephart Smith writes, "Our classmate, Cindy Powell Miller, has passed away. I don’t have any details. She was a graduate of UNA, class of 1969. I will share whatever I find out. It’s very personal when our dear friends/classmates pass away. So sorry to bring sad news." (Apparently, she passed away a little earlier but we could not find an obituary, so if anyone has the information please let us know.)

Our Music...Our Time

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

We had a 100% positive reaction to the survey about continuing to feature music in the weekly Lee's Traveller, so we will honor those requests. I am going to start the subject off with a memory of my first stereo record player and then we will segue from there.

During the Redstone Arsenal building boom, my family rented out our spare bedrooms to temporary workers who came down from the North for work. We had one loyal roomer who showed how much he appreciated our hospitality by buying my family a TV/Phonograph console once he returned home. We did not expect it and were amazed when it showed up. It was not exactly like the one above, but very similar. A 21" TV set and a combined LP turntable.

Before that we had a little portable record player that sat on a small table in our living room. I don't believe we had any LP records and only remember having 45RPM records to play. We did not have a lot of money for entertainment, so we did not have a lot of records either, but my mother had a favorite collection of sentimental songs and would often sit alone in the corner of the room by the record play and play them. You can imagine the difference in audio quality we got from the new technology compared to the old machine.

In the future I will share some memories of the progression of the music in my life brought about by the wonderful gift we received.

The Wayback Machine

My Prayer by The Platters

One of the early records in my family's small record collection was "My Prayer" by the Platters. This was one of the records I often took to the boy/girl parties I attended and loved to slow dance to this song in the dim light of the parties.

"My Prayer" is a 1939 popular song with lyrics by Carlos Gomez Barrera and Jimmy Kennedy. It was originally written by Georges Boulanger with the title Avant de mourir and the lyrics for this version were added by Kennedy in 1939.

Glenn Miller recorded the song that year for a number two hit and the Ink Spots' version featuring Bill Kenny reached number three, as well, that year. It has been recorded many times since, but the biggest hit version was a doo-wop rendition in 1956 by the Platters, whose single release reached number one on the Billboard Top 100 in the summer, and ranked four for the year. This version also went to #1 on both the R&B Airplay and R&B Juke Box charts.

I offer up my sincere apologies this week to one of you readers. Several months ago I was sent a collection of songbooks to use in Lee's Traveller and shortly afterward we had company coming and I had to pack up all the odd things in my spare bedroom and put them away for a while. This week I got them back out and found I had misplaced all correspondence with the sender. There was a generic mailing label on the package with no name attached. So, I am now seeking the identification of the sender so I may officially thank him/her and recognize the donation of a gift which will be shared many times in the near future. So, I humbly ask, who are you? I'm sorry I have to ask. 

Last Week's Questions, Answers, 

And Comments

Nothing to report this week.