Newswise — Thelma Jean McClung Gibson's Christmas came two months early this year, and the gift she received far surpassed all her 64 Christmases rolled into one. She finally met her father—who died when she was just 18 months old.
T.J., as she likes to be called, lives in Van Buren, Ark., and loves gospel music. She comes by it honestly. Her father, J.A. McClung, was a composer and performer with the Hartford (Ark.) Quartet in the late 1930s and early '40s and co-owner of the Hartford Music Company. Her mother, Minnie, taught piano.
Eight years ago, T.J. found two 16-inch records in her mother's closet that had been packed away for more than 60 years. One read "The Hartford Quartet, 10-28-29/1940," and the other, "The Hartford Quartet, 6-20/1941."
"Every year I went to the Brumley Singing held in Springdale, Arkansas," T.J. said, "and I took them with me to display with the Hartford Music Co. Mini-Museum that I had put together." When a vendor questioned her about the possible value of the disks, she decided not to take them with her on subsequent trips.
The following year at the Brumley Singing, the singer James Blackwood, who had heard about her finding the disks, asked to see her "radio transcriptions."
"That was the first time I ever heard that term," T.J. said. "I told him I kept them back home in a safe place." She still didn't know what she possessed.
This past August, she met Dr. Stephen Shearon, MTSU associate professor of music.
"I met T.J. on the last evening of the 36th annual Albert E. Brumley Memorial Gospel Sing on the campus of the University of Arkansas," Shearon said. "I was preparing to write several articles for the forthcoming 'Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music' and was also beginning a larger project."
Shearon wound up spending several hours in conversation with T.J. She told him all about the Hartford Music Company. In turn, he shared his knowledge about the history of southern gospel music. Little did T.J. know this meeting would change her life.
"She began to talk about the radio transcriptions," Shearon said. "'You have radio transcriptions?' I asked. I was stunned."
Shearon told her about the Center for Popular Music at MTSU. He suggested that she contact Paul Wells, Center director, and Bruce Nemerov, audio specialist, and tell them about the radio transcription disks. He wrote the contact numbers on a business card and gave it to her.
After T.J. returned home, she called Wells and set up an appointment to come to the university.
"The thought of the possibility of hearing my father's voice had always been so out in left field "¦ until now when I spoke to Mr. Nemerov," T.J. recalled. "Suddenly, I had a glimmer of hope. Questions kept me awake night after night. How would I know my father's voice? Would the sounds even reproduce?"
Two months passed.
"When I arrived at the university, Professor Wells and Mr. Nemerov and Professor Shearon were waiting for me," T.J. said. "We took the transcriptions into the studio. I was amazed at the gentleness in which they were handling them, as if they were rare diamonds and would crumble at the slightest touch. We watched Mr. Nemerov gently clean them and check them over with a magnifier."
"With a 16-inch disk at 33 1/3 rpm's, you can get a half-hour program per side," Nemerov pointed out. "These were 15-minute programs, so there were four 15-minute broadcasts. Three were in good shape—one had started to degenerate. The materials were such that they weren't meant to be permanent recordings."
The disks were made out of aluminum and covered with thin sprayed-on layer of acetate. It was quite probable that the programs were recorded while being broadcast live, Nemerov noted.
"She was very lucky in many ways," Wells added. "She was taking these disks along with her photos to put on display. She didn't know that she shouldn't have been exposing them to the elements. The best place to store them would be in a cool, dry place. Here they had been stored in an attic closet. It was the luck of the draw that they lasted.
"I started to catch on to the fact that T.J. was really on pins and needles," Wells continued. "She said, 'I didn't bring any tissues.' I said, 'Well, we need to find you some.'"
"My brother's voice always sounded like my dad's," T.J. said. "When he put that needle down, I gasped. I heard my brother's voice! It was my father!"
Sure enough, The Hartford Quartet—Austin Arnold, Clyde Garner, Al Halp and J.A. McClung--was recording on KTHS Radio, Hot Springs, Ark.
"When she started crying and told us she never knew her dad, it was a very emotional moment," Nemerov said.
"It was really goose bumps for all of us at the moment she finally heard her father," Wells echoed. "That's not the kind of feedback we usually get here. Much of our work is when there's no personal connection at all. It was really satisfying to us to do this for her."
Everyone was silent for the next several minutes, Wells noted.
"It was the sweetest music I have ever heard," T.J. said. "It was overwhelming. Tears streamed down my face."
T.J. called her siblings on her cell phone and held the phone to the speaker so they could hear their father singing with the Hartford Quartet. One of the selections they heard was his own composition.
Wells said that T.J. decided to leave the disks at the Center along with newspaper articles and other memorabilia. He added that he and T.J. also discussed the possibility of donating all of her material to the center at the point that she can no longer transport it all to various conventions.
"T.J. sees the value of placing the material in an archive where it will be kept properly," Wells noted.
Both Wells and Nemerov expressed their gratitude to "friends on this campus and Steve Shearon is one of them," who demonstrate a collegial spirit by telling others about the rich resources at MTSU.
Thelma Jean McClung Gibson is grateful, too.
"I keep thanking God for this miracle, said T.J., referring to her dramatic encounter in MTSU's Center for Popular Music. "They have given me back my father."
In 2003, J.A. McClung—composer of hundreds of gospel songs, two of which were "Death Will Never Knock on Heaven's Door," and the last song he wrote, "Just a Rose Will Do," —was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in Dollywood.
Founded in 1985, the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University is considered to be one of the leading popular music collections in the country. Established under a program by the General Assembly and the Governor of Tennessee, its mission is to foster advanced research and scholarship in American popular music and to promote an awareness and appreciation for America's diverse musical culture. The Center is national and international in scope. Over the years, it has provided assistance to researchers in more than 40 states and 15 foreign countries. It contains an extensive archive and library, and its Audio Restoration Laboratory is capable of reproducing obsolete commercial formats and providing clients with the latest audio formats for broadcast and commercial music applications.
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