George Beverly Shea by Paul Davis

Author:Paul Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Ambassador International
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

FORGOTTEN WORDS

Clearly, no singer of sacred songs captured the hearts of gospel music lovers more completely in the fifties than the Billy Graham soloist. Bev Shea’s stardom rose steadily in the decade and by 1958 his music was loved and respected wherever the faithful congregated. The album simply titled George Beverly Shea featured many Shea favorites of the day including Walt Disney star Jimmie Dodd’s “He Was There,” Stuart Hamblen’s “Known Only To Him,” Doy W. Ott’s “Mercy, Lord,” Fannie E. Stafford and Homer A. Rodeheaver’s “Somebody Cares,” Ida L. Reed and BD Ackley’s “Only A Touch,” John W. Peterson’s “No One Understands Like Jesus,” and Norman J. Clayton’s “Now I Belong To Jesus.” Bev’s orchestrator, Charles Grean co-penned “There’s a Time.” To complete the set were the Gene Autry favorite, “Somebody Bigger Than You and I,” Basel Androzzo’s “If I Can Help Somebody,” Warren Roberts “Somewhere Along the Way,” and Bev’s co-penned “Sing Me a Song of Sharon’s Rose.”

A nightmare for any performer is a time when his or her mind goes unexplainably blank and the lyrics to a song just cannot be brought to mind. Unquestionably, it happened to Bev on more than one occasion through the years. What made such situations worse for him was they happened in front of tens of thousands of people! “I’ll never forget,” says Bev, “the night in 1958 at San Francisco’s Cow Palace—the Giants’ baseball stadium—when I forgot the words before a full house!”

Often pianist Tedd Smith and organist Loren Whitney were unaware what Bev’s chosen-song would be until he started singing. That evening, Bev moved positively to the rostrum, secretly signaling to Tedd that the song would be in two flats. He then launched into the opening lyrics. “Holy, holy is what the angels sing and I expect to help them make the courts of heaven ring…”

While Tedd continued faithfully into the next verse on the piano, the next lines failed to come to the vocalist’s mind. Bev turned to Cliff Barrows and smiled. Over the sound system he spoke jokingly, “My mother warned me that this would happen one day, Cliff! Why did it have to happen at the Cow Palace?”

Cliff and Billy and others on the platform broke out in laughter at Bev’s embarrassing predicament while the vast audience erupted into heartfelt applause. Grinning broadly, Bev picked up the song at the chorus point, then Cliff gently reminded him of the elusive words so that he could complete the song to the crowd’s delight. The song over, the quick-thinking Cliff led the crowd into a further round of laughter with some appropriate jovial quip.

“From that time on,” said an unfazed, elderly Bev years later, “I knew that I couldn’t absolutely rely on my mortal memory, so I started to tote a little pocket-sized black notebook that had the lyrics to my solos—just in case!”

Also Bev recalls a special moment of paternal joy that occurred at the same place a few days later. “In the Cow Palace during the San Francisco Crusade, our daughter, Elaine came forward.

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