William Grant Still

At his home in Los Angeles, Calif., 1974

S = Jim Standifer
Still = William Grant Still
Mrs. Still = Mrs. Still

S All right, Dr. Still, how did you enjoy the program last night?
Still Oh, gee, I enjoyed it greatly. That is a brilliant beginning.

S What were some of the activities on the program?
Still They showed what the young people are contributing and what they have gained in their studies. They came through with flying colors. Those kids are certainly well trained. The conducting was good and on the whole, it was a very fine program.

S All right, Dr. Still, could you tell us something about your early life, where you were born, something about your parents and your brothers and/or sisters?
Still I was born in Mudville, Miss., May 11, 1895. Both my mother and father were teachers and after they married they moved to Woodville Miss. They had lived before in Huntsville Alabama, and both of them taught at normal school there. Mr. Konsel, I think, was the head of the school. Then they moved, both my mother and my father, they married and moved to Woodville. Now, it was a fortunate thing for me that they were both interested in things, reading books is more or less of a nature whose function it is to teach young people new things.

S How many children were there in the family?
Still I was the only one. So I got all the lickin's,

S Were you parents very much interested in music in those early days and did they sort of push you in the direction of music?
Still No, they didn't do that. My mother taught literature in the high school, English literature, in Little Rock. Anyway, it placed me on the spot and I am getting ahead of my story right now. My father died a very short while after he and my mother had married. Then she took over the job of raising me and all the things that go along with that. I must say that she was a person who was very thorough about everything. I'll tell you it is very hard to be the subject that is being used. I can see now where she feels she was very wise indeed she realized that she had a job being mother and father to a boy who was always into something. She liked to do needle work and things like, things where she needed her scissors and everything in good condition. I just loved to cut tin cans with those and each time she would get more scissors I don't know why I had to cut those tin cans.

S Now when you cut tin cans, what did that consist of?
Still You get a tin can and you want to get rid of the top or cut a hole in it or something like that.

S What did you do with it after you had done that?
Still That's the trouble. I couldn't do anything well enough. I just had to cut the can up. And a lickin' I say this and I am serious with thanks. I thank her for the things she did because I was rather hard headed and I needed someone who would be not severe, but just determined to accomplish in the end and who knows just how to go about it.

S Are you saying, then that she was a firm parent? She was very stern and strict?
Still No. I think they were normal except that their tastes were on a highest.... Naturally, she being in literature, I have forgotten how old I was at the time, I had on the tip of my tongue a book that was popular at the time. I think I had better let that go, what I said right there. Now I hope there won't be too many of those things because I recently had several strokes and it impedes my memory.

S Let me ask you another specific question. How did, while your mother taught, were you in private school, or did you have a
Still No, she taught in the high school and I was in one of the grammar schools there. Until I got in the 8th grade they moved me to another school, Union School, which was not to m, liking because I didn't know the boys who were there.

S Were these integrated schools at that time or were they all black
Still Oh, no, no integrated schools at all,

S About what year was this? Around...
Still I think, do you recall Wanda? Did I ever give you any dates of things that I am speaking about that occurred while I was in grammar school and in the 8th grade.
Mrs. Still You would have been in grammar school from about 1901 on. High school would have I think you graduated from high school in 1911, didn't you?
Still Yes

S So about old did you say he was Mrs. Still?
Mrs. Still I think it would have been 1901 when he went into grammar school and then. . . . . and graduated from high school in 1911. That's when he learned to play the violin. He was valedictorian of his class and his mother used to try to get him to practice the violin but he didn't really get interested in practicing until she told him to memorize his speech at which time he started frantically practicing the violin.

S When did you start piano?
Still I didn't study piano. I think I am much better off for it actually because my, I have always been greatly interested in instrumentation and wanted to study it. Of course the opportunities for a boy to learn the instruments of a symphony orchestra when there is no symphony orchestra in your immediate surroundings and your city, you are just at a loss. It became possible after a short time to remedy that state of affairs because the victrolas appeared and it was possible to hear what I loved most of all and that was .... I let my mind stray there f or a minute, I hope you will forgive me.

S You mentioned the victrola appeared and were there certain kinds of music being played at that time that you seemed to like?
Still Yeh, the operatic music. The ballads and things like that, people would sing just about as they would now. They would have popular songs, sing about anything at that time that was available just as they would do right now.

S So you are saying that as a young boy though the operatic music was the kind of thing that you seemed to listen to.
Still Yes, because I loved it. I remember after my first year in Wilberforce and I had gone home for the summer vacation. I had no idea but the place was there just as it had been all the time and the other things connected with it and so on. No changes would be made. But I got the door open and looked in and there was a victrola and a pile of records. My stepfather had bough these instruments for me. When I saw them I didn't know what it was but I knew it was something that I had to have. That was one summer I spent playing the victrola. The records that he bought indicated his taste, they were principally operatic records.

S This is what your father bought for you.
Still My stepfather. My father died when I was, I believe, 9 months old.
Mrs. Still Now don't say how many because you don't remember.
Still I thought it was 9
Mrs. Still Well Billie at various times you have thought otherwise.

S I am going to ask Mrs. Still to sit if you would over here. This way when she says something we will hear her a little bit better and also we will be able to, people are going to wonder what is that little noise every now and then and we might as well identify her as being whomever she is by putting her on camera. Anyway, after your stepfather bought these recordings and things, what happened following that.
Still Well, I had to finish my college career. I only had one year to my credit and I had three more years to go.

S How old were you when you got in college?
Still I was 15

S Very young.
Mrs. Still Maybe 16.
Still Yeh, that's right

S Who is the most, that you can remember, one of the more influential teachers, particularly in music that you can recall, while you were in college.
Still At Wilberforce I was...... the boys and girls that were my college mates because they were the ones who encouraged me. I can't even imagine how it would have been were it not for they were lovers of music and they would encourage me to do things and show a deep interest.

S Who was this?
Still The students.

S Your peers while you were at school.
Still Yeh, that's right. It seems strange I suppose to some people that didn't realize that these kids could have definite tastes and things that would differ from what the people on the street want to hear. That was a very, very valuable asset.

S At that time was there a bona fide music department at Wilberforce?
Still They never had a regular music department at that particular period. They had teachers 0 piano or something like that.

S But this was one of your first at least collegiate experience with music at Wilberforce?
Still Yes, it was at Wilberforce and in the course of time, the period I spent at Wilberforce I was named band master

S While you were a student?
Still Yeh, while I was still a student. There, again, the gate was opened, an additional gate so to speak. Being the band master required some very special preparation because a person can",-- get up and say I'm going to, you know,.... everybody's not equipped to do that. Very often you have to play instruments that you don't know. This happened to me in several 6 instances.

S At that time, as a student, who were some of the individuals before you became band master, for example, that you might recall that helped to prepare you to be the band master, for example, at that college?
Still Our band master was named King. I don't recall the rest of his name, now. He was very good. He had the knack of making something interesting for the students and there was never any desire on the part of the students to get out, to go and rehearse and things of that sort.

S When you became band master, then, this was after your second or third year at Wilberforce?
Still Yeh. It was in my third year. I think it started in my second year, the latter part of it. I am not sure about that.

S Were you able to use the band and the instrumentation that you had at your disposal to help you with your composition. Were you composing then, or before then?
Still I was writing my little melodies and so on. They had a job to do also. They were teaching me how to handle the small things, believe me it is very important to know those things. They'll come back and get you later on.

S Where did you get your first grounding and theory and harmony?
Still That came later after I entered.

S Then you are saying that much of your early grounding in music came as a result maybe of two areas, the people that you met at Wilberforce in those early days and your studying on your own, and reading books?
Still That is right. My allotment that my mother sent me for spending money, I spent all of that buying music books. I bought they had one of the old fashioned oboes there, not at Wilberforce, I bought the thing,at Wilberforce. But the instrument that they sold me was one that was out of use by musicians.
Mrs. Still Even then?
Still Yeh. They had made the but I still had the name of this

S This instrument company, or?
Still Yeh, what they call it. It is useless for me to try to dig that up in my memory right now.

S Sure, that's all right. How long, then, after two or three years you left Wilberforce and then where did you go?
Still I left four years

S Wilberforce, just a little background, is an African Methodist Episcopal Church supported school?
Still Yeh, that's right.

S I want to say all of that because my mother happened to be African Methodist Episcopal and she says that she wants the whole name. Then, after four years there you went where?
Still I went to Columbus, Ohio. I wasn't in school anymore then and I couldn't expect my mother to keep me going. I wasn't doing anything, you know, what I should be doing. So I joined the union and come to Columbus

S This is a musicians union.
Still Yeh. That was among Afro-Americans. I think that was one of the best groups of professional musicians, as good as any in the country

S At that time obviously the unions were still all black unions
Still No, they had separate unions. The commitment... the jobs that came to the negro musicians were plentiful because they were in demand. You could live there and...

S Then this union, you were just mentioning the union, and it permitted the black musicians to perform regularly, I assume then. You said the jobs were plentiful.
Still Yeh, they weren't mixed unions. They had a white local and a Negro local.

S How much were your dues at that time? Do you remember, about? I am trying to compare now for example the union dues with say what you paid when you were twenty.
Still I wish I could remember. I don't want to say something absurd. It wasn't much. It was not...

S Did you have to renew every year, or every six months, or something of this sort?
Still Yeh. It was every year, I think. They had a very large union there because Columbus was supplying musicians for dances and various things that occurred in Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia. All through that district.

S You started out, then. Did you play for social engagements or compose for these?
Still ...

S And at that time you were playing what instrument?
Still Fiddle, but I changed to cello.

S Now when you said dances were these like waltzes and things of that sort?
Still Oh, yeh, waltzes and the popular tunes of that day, very good things to dance by...

S Were there rag music, did you play also?
Still Rags were going out of use. In other words, they...

S This was about 1920 then. This must have been about the 1920s or 30s that you are talking about?
Still I am trying to be exact on this. Yes, I would say it must have started around the 20s. No,...

S This might help you a bit. In the late 19th century rags were very, very big, 1889, and then about the 1920s
Still Memphis Blues came out. That was very, very popular. People began to play piano. Everybody of any importance would have their pianos. The player pianos came in and they would sound very good, naturally they had proficient musicians play for them. The direction the music was taking then was step by step towards jazz and the things that we have today. No one knew anything about jazz that I know of and I was told a story by a trouper there, I can't recall the names of the shows there, they wouldn't be of importance now.

S When you were playing for the dancers and so forth, what happened then after Columbus? What was the next step in your career?
Still At Columbus. I played there for quite a while.

S You were in your twenties then I guess when you were in Columbus, right?
Still I think so. I never did keep up with dates at all.

S I was just thinking about giving us some reference points about how old you were whenever you were wherever you were. If you had just finished Wilberforce, and you got to Wilberforce when you were 15, you might have been about in your 20s then in Columbus. Did anything else that you think of that was of importance that happened in Columbus before you left there?...
Still of importance happened besides drafting.

S So you were drafted from Columbus?
Still I'm telling you all incorrectly. I got a legacy from my father, a modest legacy, and my strongest wish was to go to Oberlin. This check came, 1 right away I went and applied for admission to Oberlin. I was happy and it went all right until I received my command to go to the draftboard.

S Are you saying then that you did not get to Oberlin at that time.
Still Yes, I was at Oberlin.

S You did go.
Still Yes, just as soon as my legacy...

S We are a little bit mixed up I think. You mention that while you were in Columbus you got notice of the draft, right?
Still I think it is a little premature. I was at Oberlin when the draft came through.

S All right, then. You left Columbus after you received the legacy and you went to Oberlin. How many years were you at Oberlin before the draft came up.
Still Well, it was a very short period. They drafted right and left.

S Were you at Oberlin a year? More than a year?
Still I don't think it was even a year.
Mrs. Still It was the Navy
Still I don't think it was even a year. I was still playing the dance orchestras there in Columbus. Then when I went back to Oberlin I didn't do much playing there at all.

S The studies...
Still Yeh, I had to study.

S Let me just back up a little bit. In the dance orchestras what was the typical instrumentation? You mentioned you were playing fiddle and how many players might have been.
Still We had piano, flute, clarinet, trombone, probably one or two more things. Did I say banjo? We had a banjo there too.

S Would you have usual singer, or the singer was depending on
Still No, there was no singing at all. These people just came to dance.

S Did you have a conductor?
Still What was the name of that club? It was one of the important clubs. One night a week or more, I am not sure of which.
Mrs. Still He said,did you have a conductor?
Still no, the violinist, his name was Smut Smith. Those fellows can get some of the darndest names. They had another piano player and they called him Garbage.

S I know and just looking and reading the history of black musicians, the jazz musicians especially they have very unusual nicknames.
Still Yeh, but they didn't call it jazz at that time.

S What did they call it at that time?
Still Ragtime. There were a number of good songs, ballads and things.

S But the violinist for the most part took over the responsibilities of keeping the group together an...
Still Yes. And he had a marvelous technique, wonderful tone. It is too bad that. He was born on the stage almost. Being on the stage at that time for a colored man meant going around with traveling shows.

S When you say traveling shows, these are if there was a like a cast of characters and so forth and he...
Still They were just like regular guys. They really knew their subject.

S You took music history where did you say, with whom?
Mrs. Still No, he didn't take music history.

S Oh, you did not.
Still I left and the war took me away. After I got my paper that brings you the glad news, your greetings, I just gave up everything. I got away in a hurry. I didn't have many things goin' just my little bag and I went and got on the train in Cleveland and went on up to New York. Even in the navy I had a chance to, as a matter of fact my rating was mess attendant, 3rd class.

S Lid you have a chance to use your music in the navy.
Still Yes, I was coming to that. I was on a transport. The transport was armed because we had, going across we had protection of a cruiser and another ship. In them days it was a convoy.

S A fighter, maybe?
Still The cruiser was the biggest ship that went along on most all of those things. Anyhow. Now going across,the destroyers, their purpose was to keep the submarines away. Then coming on back we didn't have anything. The ship we had was sort of 6... ships and we were on our own and the ships would travel separately very often. We were attacked on two occasions when we were alone. There were two subs that attacked us. We had a gun crew that were great. You get those little one pounders going. The mid-ships.

S Did they have performer opportunities on the ship at that time?
Still Yeh, I was coming to that. Coming back had an opportunity because I was on the ship and played fiddle. They had a yeoman on there who played piano, played very well indeed. Our duty coming back was to keep these people entertained, the officers, coming back to the States. We played demonstrations, in the middle of the day, we didn't play very much in the middle of the day because it wasn't allowed too much time, but in the evening they would sit down for a long time. So that relieved me of any duties in the war, only a little while, and I wasn't the old waiter. They got me out of that job pretty soon. There was a navigating officer there who loved to dance, loved music and everything. When he found out that I played the fiddle and this yeoman in here too, and so changed, all I had to do was play in the middle of the day and play a little for dinner. Nothing else to do but sit around, never swabbed any decks.

S Were you a soloist or did you have someone to play along with you or what.
Still We played He played the piano and I played the violin.

S So it was violin and piano, like Pen am music and so on.
Still Yeh

S How many years were you in the navy?
Still I was in there for nine months.

S Well, it takes 9 months for a baby to be delivered.
Still Then we were discharged. When they brought the fellows in hurriedly and we got out in a hurry. And ready to go to Newport News tomorrow. Tomorrow you get to Newport News and you look around a little bit, go back home.

S When you got out of the navy did you go directly back to Oberlin or what was your next task?
Still Oberlin was my next task. I went back to Oberlin. In the interim when all these other things were happening I had to, I didn't get to tell you this I worked with W. C. Handy. He had establishment there in New York.

S Was Marion Blake at that time his secretary?
Still No, she wasn't.
Mrs. Still She was married to someone else. Rill: She was married to Willie Tyler. This was in the twenties, 23 or something.

S She was telling me at that time she was W. C. Handy's secretary, and I was just wondering.
Mrs. Still We thought you meant Eubie Blake's secretary. She probably was W. C. Handy's secretary.

S He had other secretaries but I was just wondering when you
Still No, she wasn't Handy's secretary though. They had another girl who was there long before. She was with Shuffling Along, Willie Tyler played the fiddle and he was in the orchestra.
Mrs. Still ..., was in the chorus or something like that, wasn't she? Didn't she sing and dance?
Still I guess so. I didn't, I would see her once in a while, but I just was interested in, her interests were different than mine.

S I am going to ask Mrs. Still to maybe at this point begin to ask him questions of you. Mrs. Still, I believe so far we have gotten to the point where he is working with doing some thing with W. C. Handy. He is out of the navy now, and perhaps he is getting ready to go back to Oberlin. Maybe at this juncture you could begin to ask some questions of him.
Still I had to work a little while though because there was very little money left to a hitch in the navy. So I got a job across the river, it wasn't... but one of the Jersey cities along the river - and had access to shipyards and so on. So I got a job over there and then I could do, in the dead of winter you know how cold it can get in New York, right there on the coast. My job was cleaning out the bilges. That is a cold job and sometimes I wondered why I didn't get shocked to death with those electrical wires down in the water.

S Had Mrs. Still come in the picture yet?
Mrs. Still We didn't marry until 1939.

S Oh, then he had left Oberlin then.
Mrs. Still Oh, yes, and he didn't come to California until he got his Guggenheim Fellowship.

S Did he get the Guggenheim while he was at Oberlin? I am trying to get away from Oberlin. We went back to Oberlin.
Mrs. Still Then he was back in New York and then he was working with W. C. Handy and with the Black Swan Phonograph Company.
Still I had succeeded Fletcher Henderson. He was a recording manager for a while. Then after Fletcher took that job at the dance hall...

S Fletcher then was a recording manager for Black Swan at that time?
Still Before. Fletcher was there when they set this place up and when he left I followed Fletcher into the job.
Mrs. Still That is when he began to study with Edgar

S Edgar was in New York at that time?
Still Yes, he came to New York I think it was about in 23.
Mrs. Still He offered a scholarship to a young Negro composer which you got, studied with him.

S How long did you study with him after you got the scholarship?
Still Two years, approximately.

S Then did the Guggenheim follow that?
Mrs. Still Yeh, in the thirties.

S What did you do with your Guggenheim?
Still About the thirties, the Guggenheim preceded
Mrs. Still No it was after the early thirties that you got the Guggenheim Still- I was on a Guggenheim fellowship, it was in the thirties.
Mrs. Still Before the Guggenheim came along you had traveled to Boston with the Along Show and you went to the New England Conservatory and asked to study with George.
Still I did ask the secretary.
Mrs. Still And Mr. Chadwick asked to see some of your work and he said he would teach you free. As in Oberlin, they saw his work and gave him a scholarship to study free.

S In other words at Oberlin he presented a few examples of his compositions and thing
Mrs. Still One. Mr. Layman gave the class Paul Lawrence Dunbai... Goodnight to set to music. When he saw his setting he asked him why he didn't go on to study composition and they created a scholarship for him.
Still That really was welcome too because I had... long range, I admired Chadwick very very much, he was a fine man.

S Chadwick was at Oberlin at this time.
Still No, he was in New England.
Mrs. Still First Oberlin, then Maurice came before Chadwick, and then Chadwick

S Then following Oberlin, I am trying to get you away from Oberlin now .
Still I have been away from there for a long time. I went to Shuffling Along before I went too...

S Before Oberlin or after?
Still No, not before Oberlin. After Oberlin.
Mrs. Still All that happened around the time of the war, back and forth. Then in the twenties that was over. I am sure Oberlin was over.
Still Oh, yes, it was because I left I don't know whether I was 17, or 18, no 19 because the war was over. They got us away in a hurry...

S How long were you with along?
Still I don't know, approximately a couple of years.

S And you were playing the fiddle during the whole...
Still I was playing oboe.

S While you were with Shuffle Along did you have many conversations of social processes with Cicil and Blake? Did you go to parties together or?
Still I knew them but we didn't go around together. I was too busy. Soon as I could get through with my jobs and the theatre I go home and study some more. I used to go on days... If yes I rather than lose time I would get the doorman to let me in the theatre and get to the theatre piano and do whatever work I had to do there. I didn't want to lose a minute as far as studying was concerned. It was all directed toward one end, and that was learning to compose.

S Speaking of directed toward one end, did the Guggenheim, how did that help direct your attention toward this goal?
Still It provided a means
Mrs. Still He didn't have to make a living while he had the fellowship. It gave him enough to live on and to compose without worrying.
Still Yeh, that is right, because I had a family out east to provide for.

S When you say you had a family out east, was this, had Mrs. Still come along at that time then ?
Mrs. Still There was another Mrs. Still then and she came on the scene soon after the Wilberforce era ended and during the course of their marriage there were four children born. Eventually, in case anyone is interested in the dates, in 1932 she took the children and went to Canada. That was the end of that.

S The children now are Canadians?
Mrs. Still No. Eventually she came back but she left and of those four children as far as we know, one of them has died in the meantime. The other three of course are grown and we assume they are pursuing their own lives.

S How many boys and girls?
Mrs. Still One boy and three girls. It was one of the girls who died. We don't have contact with all of them although we hear from the boy once in a while.

S When did you finally come to the West Coast, Mr. Still?
Still My first visit to the West Coast came in 1929. 1 was working with Paul. He had the Old Gold Hour then, Paul Whiteman. He had - Lennie Hadon...

S Lennie?
Still Yeh. To do the orchestrations. I stayed with Paul while I was there. Then after that came the depression. Those were...

S How did the depression, or did it affect you at all creatively speaking? Did you compose less or more at that time?
Still I went right on composing. There was nothin' I could do with it, there were no jobs.
Mrs. Still That is when he wrote the Afro-American.

S This was when the Afro-American symphony. That might explain something to our youngsters and certainly to us professionals about some of the things we feel when we hear the Afro-American symphony, the melodies and the harmonies and your choice of orchestration, even, at certain times during the symphony. How long did you work on that?
Still I can't tell you exactly because it went over a long, lone, period. I approached it very gradually. It was more so then because remember I was really a at that time. I had so much and I had to take it gradually. One thing that helped me was that I had stamina enough to work. My average day, and this is not a fib, an overestimation, was 14-16 hour 20 a day.
Mrs. Still That's right.
Still It was good. I thrived on doing it.
Mrs. Still I remember after he came out here he used to get up, have breakfast about 9 o'clock and then he would start in composing and he would compose up until about noon and then eat lunch. Then he would settle down to record what he had composed. That is, recording in the sense of writing it down. Then he would score it and extract the parts of what this particular passage he had composed - in the morning and that went on up to about midnight.

S Maybe at this time we will keep the Afro-American symphony, but is this about a time when you met Mrs. Still?
Mrs. Still We met in the thirties right after you came out.

S Let's back up just a bit, then. Where did you meet her first. Can you remember t first time you saw this beautiful young woman.
Mrs. Still When he came out here to work on the Guggenheim fellowship. The project was to do an opera and the for that opera was supposed to be a young man who was a fellow student of mine in high school and this boy, because he was then, was the only student in the high school who had tried himself to compose music. So he was to work with him and then we met through this young man and eventually, well what actually happened was that he had so much correspondence and so much people don't realize how much other work there is connected being a composer, correspondence and program notes to write and biography material and all sorts of things. At first he tried to handle it himself, but he couldn't do everything. He couldn't compose and do the extras, so I came in and took that over for him, the extras. Been doing that ever since.
Still Later on we discovered that she could pick words to music. When you are working on anything for the voice it is very good to have someone who can do that so you can pick out a word Sometime we would work for hours and hours to get one little word of a two - three sentence word that for one reason or another just wouldn't fit in, wouldn't be singable, something would be wrong with it. Wrong enough to the extent that you didn't want to let it remain. We used to work for hours and hours on...
Mrs. Still Yes we did, and just when I got something that I thought was wonderful, he would say nope, do it over. Finally, I wrote a complete for, well ail of the operas except Troubled Island but it was by accident that we found out that I could do In Troubled Island... and he went off to Spain and then the changes became necessary and wasn't there to work. So he had to write the music to fit the changes and then was not able to put the words to that music so I did it.

S So in other words you took the Langston words and in his absence you were able to.
Mrs. Still I wrote the words for those sections of Troubled Island. I wrote, particularly the end of the first scene and the second act, I think that was it I am not quite clear about the but Langston had ended that portion with the singers singing about economic conditions which my husband didn't think would be too theatrical in an opera so he changed it to a love at-fair between the two villains in the opera. So he wrote the music for it an

S Who published this?
Mrs. Still It is handled by Southern Music now, but it hasn't been printed.

S When did your children start coming along?
Mrs. Still We didn't get married until 193?. Our son was born in 1940 and our daughter in 194?

S Are both of your children here in Los Angeles?
Mrs. Still They are nearby.

S Do you have any grandchildren?
Mrs. Still Now that is a question that I would love to answer. I have four.

S Two from each?
Mrs. Still No, four from my daughter

S Boys and girls?
Mrs. Still One boy and three girls.

S What are their names?
Mrs. Still Daniel, he's 11 this year; Lisa, she will be 10; Colleen, I think she's 5 or 6; and Celeste is 4. Celeste is the one who says to her grandfather yes, I will be you sweetheart, and grandfather melts.
Still I love kids.

S With your materials, I notice that there have been several dissertations written on... works and you, Dr. Still, do you have any plans for your materials, the... that you have collected over the years, your letters, your manuscripts. I don't mean the Nixon papers, I am talking about the Still papers, if you will.
Mrs. Still They have all been committed to the University of Arkansas, which we did something like Carl Van did with his materials. We thought we wanted to get it set before we passed on. We committed the papers to the University president and whatnot, committed itself to caring for them and keeping them in shape and available when the time comes.

S How will they be displayed in a collection of... are they part of another library?
Mrs. Still ...it will be a William Grant Still collection in the library. They know what they a getting because the curator came out and looked. We have a scrap book for every year for way back, since the early 20s, which is a considerable amount, and numerous books which mention his name. OF course the correspondence which they want very much and other items. It is all...

S Mr. Still, how do you feel, how are you reacting to the music of today? You went to the MENC California night last night and you heard a variety of music, how do you feel about the things that you are hearing and the sounds that you are hearing.
Still I would say that a mixture of reactions to what I had heard. Let me say first of all I really was impressed with the enthusiasm of the young folks and also with their talent. They seem to be just cut out for the stage, they seem to be right in the atmosphere that they... probably better than any. I think that the kids are doing something that is important and I think the music educators undoubtedly are responsible for that, youngsters... about everything that they can possibly learn because among the many things that we have to chose from there is much to be gained. My experience has been that you have to dig for... to get it and that digging gives me a pleasant feeling to do that. Something was wrong with my head and I like to work real hard.
Mrs. Still Would you caution anyone against being too hasty, too sure of himself before he has the proper tools?
Still Yes, indeed. I think that a lot of people, it is possible for a lots, of people to get on the wrong track there and probably to give up a career had they maintained there interest and their work... mastering knowledge of whatever else they are working for.
Mrs. Still The tools of their trade.
Still Yeh.

S Do you think that if you had had as much of an opportunity as our youngsters have for studying music from the very early days that you would have maybe turned out a bit differently in terms of your compositional output?
Still Well, I think so.
Mrs. Still I don't think so. I believe that the fact that you had to work in commercial music had a decided effect on your compositions because otherwise you would have been writing in a traditional style and now you have added another dimension.
Still Yeh, I am glad you mentioned that because frankly I didn't want to write popular music, we called it popular music at that time. I couldn't see, I couldn't bring myself to see that it would actually profit me at that stage. But I changed my mind as I went along. I said now look am I going to let this conquer me or am I going to get the better of it. For a little while it was necessary to make a decision, not a decision that you would make too hastily. So I said to myself I am going into this with everything I have because

S All right, Dr. Still, you were just giving us some idea about your reaction to today's music and what you feel young students of all races should do if they expire to be a fine musician and to do some of the things that you have accomplished in your magnificent life. What, indeed would you, you might, continue by giving us some idea of what you would like them to know in terms of how to achieve that goal of magnificence.
Still Let me see if I can straighten out my thoughts here. Would you repeat that last sentence?

S I think that most of our youngsters today, the college students especially. Of course I am thinking of that little 10 year old and 11 year old too, as you saw at the MENC night, last night, want to know, how can I become a William Grant Still. He is a god to us because he's William Grant Still. How can I become the best of myself and be like William Grant Still. I cannot emulate him. What did he do that I might do in order to become as great as he is.
Still He welcomed working hard to get what he wanted. Took advantage of every opportunity and found that everything has some value and can be put to use. I think it could be possible that at some times youngsters are misled. They see a sort of glamorous life that goes with the musician. They find out that it is not always so glamorous when you are doing the actual work that leads to it. I think very often that people, I notice that a large percentage of the young folks who write for advice here obviously want us to solve their problems. I don't know whether they realize that that is what they are doing. I don't know what would one do, can you think of anything Ted that could be done. I won't 'put it that way, I would say what would you do to set the student who had feelings of that sort on the right track? I don't know exactly. I think they should be expose themselves to different kinds of music and from the experience simply try to be their own individuals self in terms of musical expression just as you have done rather than to lean to any particular style, popular style or any other kind of style, for the time being. For example, the ultra modern or, shall we say, style need not necessarily be the idiom of the style that he would have to follow. I think we should be very individual after having a lot of experience in different types and different styles of music.

S Mrs. Still, would you like to say a few words also in closing on the tape in terms of after having lived the number of years that you have with Dr. Still, how do you see your experience with him as a wife and with him as a partner and, perhaps very important I think because you will have some insights into the man also, the man as a musician, because you are a musician, you are a poet.
Mrs. Still I think mainly I would say that he is a person of humility not before fellow men but before God and when things come up that have to be done he simply goes ahead and does them without a lot of fanfare or ego or self praise. It is a matter of just, well as he said, just working and as you work the years go by and you do everything you have to do as well as you can do it. It piles up and it makes an achievement. It is not an achievement because you are praised from one minute to the next, you just simply work.

S It has been a delight being in both of your homes. It has been a pleasure meeting you sir. I hope that when the students see these tapes theatre will get as much pleasure as I have gotten from it just by having an opportunity to sit and talk to you. I have known you both for several years and I think that it has been a pleasure, I know it has been a pleasure for me and that each time that I have come to talk to you I have grown a bit because I know that you have touched my life a bit. I do hope that when the students research these tapes that they will go to them with the idea that they will work hard, that they will go to them with open minds, and to know that if they will get something from these tapes they must give something also, which means the hard work which... Still has talked about, the open-mindedness that I think that permeates this entire tape, and hopefully to try to document these things in such a way that it will provide a kind of history for other students to read and to use their own intellect to try make some judgments as to what was good, what might be accepted, what might be rejected, and then compare Dr. Still as an American composer. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Still Thank you. It is a wonderful thing in one way. In another way because I always said when he was coming up as a composer he wasn't virtually alone because there were other composers like... but we were speaking of him as an American.

S Vernon, would you like to ask Mr. Still anything as a historian yourself?
Vernon Yeh, I would like to ask him about a thousand things.
Still Yeh, and it won't come to you until it is too late.
Vernon I would like to ask you about that whole time of your early life, what thoughts you had about the way things were in the country, black people.
Still Oh, I have seen incidents that I abhorred. For instance, I saw a Negro being beaten up by a couple policemen I saw the old Negro man, poor old fellow, he was coming out of a market, in Memphis, I'll never forget it, this deputy right behind him, shot him and killed him. Those things could have made me bitter. But I looked around me, I looked at these groups that were treating these fellows this way. I looked around me, we lived in an integrated neighborhood. Everywhere I looked I saw a friend. Well, right away I was unable to see from those experiences that a person has to be careful. It is a matter of individuality. One man's a hater and he has to have his place, special treatment for a hater. I think that people get mixed tip on those things. It is too much of one statement that covers the whole topic that you are discussing.

S This brings a question up that I didn't ask but I know that the students are going to ask. Why University of Arkansas for your materials? Since you raised the question of hating, and Arkansas is not necessarily the brightest light in the black man's mind.
Mrs. Still Oh, yes it is.
Still I will tell you one thing that affected me. I was very pleased. I didn't know that they had Negro students in the University of Arkansas. I went there for a commencement, they were giving me an honorary degree. I looked and I saw all these Negro boys and girls. They were giving one of their students an honorary. There was just such a warm feeling. I said. Then there were other things They had a librarian there who was extremely proficient, I thought. Another thing they offered. I had heard of someone who gave a donation to of a library. The man who gave this library went back to see it. This came to me, I didn't witness this. When he went to the college to see what had been done, it was down in the basement covered with trash and other things. Nothing had been done to make it live longer and give it a chance to help someone.
Mrs. Still He was pretty mad about it.
Still I want to tell you one thing. I don't care who did it I wouldn't want to take a chance.

S I think this is want impressed Eubie Blake when he saw Dr. Jessye's collection in January. It is a living collection, it is displayed in three very beautiful rooms, the display changes every two or three weeks and he indicated the same thing. He said wherever his collection finally resides it will have to be a place where it is illuminated, it is expanded, it is added to and that it is always on display for some young person, or old person for that matter, to come in and view it. He did not want it to be in some basement gathering dust.
Still That is right. There is no chance then to do anything except to mold there in the basement...

END OF INTERVIEW