E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
Mansfield / Terrill Rock and a Heart Place
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4245-5020-3
Verlag: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
A Rock 'n' Roller-coaster Ride from Rebellion to Sweet Salvation
E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-4245-5020-3
Verlag: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
KEN MANSFIELD's legendary career in the music industry began as a member of the Town Criers, a successful southern California folk group in the early 1960s. From there he moved to executive tenures as US manager of The Beatles' Apple Records and, director at Capitol Records, vice president at MGM Records, and president at Barnaby/CBS Records. As a record producer, he was instrumental in launching country music's 'Outlaw' movement in the 1970s, producing Waylon Jennings' number-one 1975 landmark recording, Are You Ready for the Country, and Jessi Colter's number-one hit 'I'm Not Lisa.' Ken also produced the Gaither Vocal Band's 1991 GRAMMY and Dove Award-winning Homecoming album, which also launched another historical movement, the resurgence of Southern gospel music via the Gaither Homecoming series of recordings, videos, and concerts. Ken is now an ordained minister, a sought-after speaker, and the author of four other books: The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay; The White Book; Between Wyomings; and Stumbling on Open Ground. He and his wife Connie currently reside in Florida. www.kmansfield.com.
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Weitere Infos & Material
RUTH POINTER
The Pointer Sisters
The legendary Pointer Sisters scored dozens of hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and they sold close to forty million records, making them one of the most successful female groups of all time. For almost four decades, their brilliant recordings and fascinating shows kept them in the forefront of pop culture’s newest trends, and they did it with great style and ease.
TWO
THE SONG OF RUTH
RUTH POINTER The Pointer Sisters
Ruth Pointer may well be the poster child for the old adage, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” Drugs didn’t kill her, although she walked a fine line. Racism didn’t kill her or her spirit, although ignorance and stupidity always hovered nearby. Motherhood didn’t kill her; her instinct kicked in and her tenacity and love won out. Faith didn’t kill her—it made her free. But it did take a lifetime of rebellion and pain for her to figure that out.
Ruth was born March 19, 1946, in Oakland, California, the daughter of the Reverend Elton and Sarah Pointer. Her father was a sweet-natured man with an obscure criminal past that he didn’t talk about. Her mother, the disciplinarian, grew up sheltered in a small family. Ruth had two brothers—Aaron Elton and Fritz Herman. Ruth was the third child but the first girl in the family, a role she never enjoyed. Her sister Anita was a good combination of both parents, while Bonnie was a rebel much like Ruth. Then there was feisty June, who was moody with a kind heart like her mother; but, like Ruth, she fell to the darker side of the entertainment business—drug addiction. Talking about her youngest sister, who died in 2006 from cancer, still brings her to tears. “She was very misunderstood,” Ruth says. You get the idea that maybe Ruth is also talking about herself.
The Pointer household was enigmatic, straitlaced, and controlled by religious values that allowed for little freedom. Ruth instinctually rebelled—a trait that seemed to follow her through adult life. “There comes a huge responsibility with being the oldest girl in the family. You’re expected to set a good example, to be the moral leader, to be the go-to person when the other girls have a problem, since you’ve supposedly gone through it first.” But Ruth wanted no part of the sibling leadership role. She highly resented the implication that solely due to birth order and not merit she was to be a guiding force with higher expectations forced on her than the others. The only thing she wanted to follow in her footsteps was her own shadow. Maybe it was a control thing. Maybe it was just wanting to be different, to find adventure. But with adventure often comes danger.
The early years were rife with church-related meetings and services. The week would begin Saturday night getting ready for Sunday morning. Bath, hair, getting out the white Mary Janes and polishing them with Shinola shoe polish, making sure Sunday school lessons were learned, which Ruth admits she never studied, always showing up unprepared. Church was Ruth’s life as her father headed the local Church of God with her mom by his side. You did what you were told, participating in church activities and contributing to the ministry as much as you could. Even though Ruth wanted desperately to break free of the constraints brought on by church precepts, she genuinely feared the fire and brimstone preached for those who sinned.
“I had a real desire to be adventurous and do the things I saw my friends doing that were not at our church,” says Ruth from her beautiful home just outside of Boston. “It seemed like the kids that were not in church were having much more fun than we were.” Ruth’s rebellion wasn’t so much against church itself or its dogma, but against its rules of order.
“Organized religion never seemed to click with me. I was hearing things like the Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, heaven and hell, stuff like that. I had nightmares about angels, horses, chariots, and colossal figures coming out of the clouds, and judgment day with the earth on fire. That was hell. I couldn’t sleep because there was so much preaching about fire and brimstone. That’s where I’d end up because I just couldn’t seem to get it right.”
Ruth recalls listening to her father and mother’s church services, thinking she would commit her life to the teaching that her father espoused. “The next day I would get in a fight with my sister or with somebody else, and my mind would go to a place that I was taught was sinful. ‘I’ve blown it. That’s it. I’m done. I am hell bound now. There is no hope for me.’ Most of my childhood I felt that way because there was so much perfection expected with no room for error. If you said a bad word or if you thought something wrong about another person, that was it, you were going to hell.”
It doesn’t matter that Ruth and I grew up in two diametrically opposed worlds, because there are certain coming-of-age experiences that make us alike. Here I am, the kid who grew up in the country, about as far away from Ruth’s city life and culture as you could get. Our paths never crossed, but they started out from a similar place. A path that was steeped in fire and brimstone, a teaching that insisted we attempt perfection through Christianity. I can see Ruth coming home from church along Oakland’s city streets, eyes down, with that same fear in her heart that I had. When I would leave our little community church—where we lived in the “Orchards,” up a long hill and a few miles from the small sawmill town where my father worked—I had been fed so much of that scary teaching that I was sure I was going straight to hell either before I made it home or at least before Sunday dinner.
My folks took my brother and me to that church (we were so rural that there were not enough people to have a denominational church, so we all attended a “community church”). Every time the doors were open. I sang in the church choir and attended Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Sunday morning and Sunday evening regular services, as well as all the picnics, special events, and workdays. I never felt any joy when I was on that property and had no concept of who Jesus was. I memorized some things so I would get my free Bible and gold stars on my Sunday school work sheets. The preacher scared me, and I never saw him smile one time in all those years. I find it interesting that he had two sons around my age and they were the most messed up kids in three surrounding counties.
One of the problems of that environment was being forced to try to reach perfection through Christianity—an unattainable goal that was set by the church, knowing it could never be reached. Only Jesus was perfect, and being held up to that standard meant guaranteed failure. The collateral damage to one’s youth is negativity and insecurity that carries into adulthood. Instead of learning righteousness and the beauty of God’s mercy, love, and grace, we learned failure and inadequacy. Then we grew up, walked out of the house, and tried to work through things in life, knowing that we’d never measure up. I didn’t have a sense of God’s unconditional love and how much more workable His way is than those rigid agitations. Of course, the way I handled this was, the day I left home to go out on my own, I not only left my toys behind but I also left God and all that mean stuff behind. As I am learning the song of Ruth, the tune is starting to become all too familiar.
Her church world seemed distant and contrived. Ruth tried to comply with the tenets her parents preached, to become what she describes as “a real Christian,” professing salvation to others, but nothing jelled. The predominantly black church body itself was a small one, less than one hundred members. It was an offshoot of a larger church run by white people in another state. Some of the members wanted to project a middle-class image even though a majority of the congregation was dirt poor. There was no real fellowship, just loads of time spent in church-related duties and activities because it had to be done. Ruth felt very stifled even though her father was driven to serve others.
“I remember we lived across the street from a park, and my father kept his binoculars near the window. He’d watch people and if they got into a fight, he’d grab his Bible and head out the door to smooth things out. I remember my mother telling him, ‘Somebody’s going to hit you on the head if you don’t stay out of people’s business.’ We also had a public phone number that was listed because my dad said, ‘We’re going to keep an open line in case someone is in trouble and needs prayer.’ It didn’t matter who or when, my dad would help people at all times of the day and night.”
Sarah was the polar opposite of Elton. She was the disciplinarian of the household and church—rigid, blunt, and to the point. The congregation looked forward to her taking the pulpit since they knew they would get out of church on time that Sunday. “I vividly remember my mother sitting in the choir stand, or in the pulpit when she was speaking, looking down into the audience at me and giving me an eye like, ‘You better straighten up and start listening!’ That look just terrified me.” But Sarah Pointer had a big heart and worked very hard to help provide for her family before herself.
Ruth recalls, “I know...
