By Laurie
Sticking with any hobby for upwards of 50 years is a feat in and of itself, but when you consider Jack Anderson was nearly 40 years old before he rang a barbershop chord for the first time, it makes his accomplishment even more noteworthy. It speaks volumes about the power music can have in a person’s life.
The 50 or so women of the Olympia Chapter of Sweet Adelines recently hosted a retirement party for their director of 46 years. Anderson, 87, is the founding director of the group, a chorus he and his wife, Irene, helped start in 1965. He had been singing with and directing the local men’s barbershop chorus, The Puget Sounders, for a couple of years and was a natural choice to help the women’s group get on their feet. Although he stopped directing the men’s chorus about 10 years ago, he only recently decided to step away from the chorus he has lead from the beginning.
“My great aunt, who was a Catholic nun, taught me all the music I know, ” says Anderson, who started playing violin under his great aunt’s tutelage. She was a task master who helped him develop an ear for tuning. In addition to playing the violin in the school orchestra, he also picked up the trombone and contributed to the band.
“I never dreamed about singing until I got out here in the west,” says Anderson. As a young man he sang with and eventually directed a church choir, but joining the fledgling Puget Sounders in 1961 was a revelation to him. “That’s when I first got interested. What I hear is the beauty of the chords and that’s what turns me on.”
Tuning a barbershop chord properly is an art unto itself with the different voice parts having to sing on the upside of the note or having to hit it a bit more “dirty” in order to achieve the ringing sound unique to four part harmony. His early ear training was about to pay off.
“He can hear things that nobody else can hear,” says Beth Heitz who joined the chorus in 1994. “One person can be off in a section and Jack knows… He never says, ‘It’s you.’ He never does that. He always says, ‘There’s something over in this area that isn’t quite right, and you’re not getting there.’ So he never puts anybody on the spot, but he lets them know that it’s in that area. But he knows. He hears it.”
Patricia Lorang joined the chorus in 1982. “I remember coming in, and I was really scared of him at first because he had such an ear. He’d say ‘A tenor is off’ or ‘A bass is flat,’ and I thought ‘Oh my gosh!’ I was afraid to open my mouth. But he was so wonderful.”
Lorang credits Anderson and the women of the chorus with getting her through the loss of her husband a number of years ago. “It saved my life,” she attests. Speak to any member of the chorus and, to a person, each will say The Olympia Sweet Adelines is “The Love Chorus” and that Anderson helped set that tone.
“We are family. Some of us have raised our kids together. We’ve grown up together,” says Patty Martin, who was only 21 years old when she joined in 1975. Anderson, she says, “Has always been part of that family. Jack was always there. We traveled together arm in arm to set that tone. Jack was always part of the group.”
In fact, many chorus members refer to him as just “One of the girls.” Anderson laughs at that assertion and says, “When I was with the guys, I was one of the guys. When I was with the girls, I was one of the girls. I liked the people I was with.”
Being one of the guys was easy when he sang baritone with his district champion quartet The Artesians. The group, which sang together for 10 years, represented the Pacific Northwest at international competitions of the men’s organization, the Barbershop Harmony Society, in 1972 and 1973.
The Olympia Sweet Adelines have had their share of accolades, too. They have earned numerous top five regional placements, and they won the coveted first place medal in 1978. That win gave them the right to represent the region at an international competition in St. Louis in 1979.
Sue Johnson, who was only 23 years old at the time recalls the night they won the regional contest, “(Jack) had so many lipstick kisses all over his face and shirt. We stayed up all night long because we were so jazzed.”
The chorus paid Anderson’s way to international and regional events but his efforts on their behalf were primarily volunteer. Mary Neff, another member who joined as a young woman in the late 70s states, “He never asked to be paid. He didn’t want to be paid.” Anderson’s “salary” was when the chorus sang well. Says Heitz, “When Jack rubs his arms (to indicate hairs standing up) you know. The chords are hitting. Everything’s coming together. It’s gelling. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.” The chorus lived for the moments when Anderson would say, “I just got paid!”
The true test of a leader is how those he leads carry on in his absence. The Olympia chorus knows that Anderson has given them the tools to succeed in the future. He has nurtured the talents of Dottee Rambo since the late 60s, letting her direct songs on their annual shows starting in the 80s and eventually asking her to be his co-director in the mid 90s. She has taken over as full time director and will be at the helm at their upcoming show.
Says Heitz, “It’s a forward motion. We’re going ahead. We’re going up. Jack left us with a legacy. He taught us how to keep going. He never taught ‘I’m it and when I’m gone it’s gonna stop.’ It was always ‘This is what you need to do so if I’m not here, this is how you move on.’ He taught the chorus that. So when we move on, we’re moving on with a little piece of Jack in our back pocket but we’re moving on.”
The chorus will continue to celebrate Anderson’s retirement during two performances of their annual show this Saturday, October 1st, at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts on the campus of South Sound Community College. Shows are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the door.
