my life would fall apart if I didn’t have those KISS cassettes? Did I understand how mortified she was to have raised a child who didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong?
All I could do was apologize and promise it would never happen again. When she expressed her profound disappointment in me, her words wounded, but I was even more worried by what Dad would do when he found out. I’d be grounded for a year. But then, for the second time that day, I was given a pass.
“I’m not going to tell your father,” Mom said.
WHAT?! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was in shock. My mother never hid anything from my father. That would have been against her code. But I guess she knew that if she told him, he’d go ballistic, and our relationship might not ever recover. The woman had serious ethics, but she chose me over them.
* * *
Musically, I was growing. I was absorbing an enormous amount of technical information that, in ways I didn’t yet understand, would serve me even as a rocker. The performances were always exhilarating. They were my first live gigs. As a first alto, one of forty boy singers, I got a good taste of what it means to please an audience. Concert halls like the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion are musical temples with their own legendary vibes. You’ve got to deliver. Being part of operas like Verdi’s Tosca or Mozart’s The Magic Flute was surreal: the costumes, the contraltos, the high drama. I remember making our entrance in Carmen, and they actually had live horses onstage! Being in the pit with the symphony and singing along as the Joffrey Ballet did the Waltz of the Snowflakes from the Nutcracker Suite was a memory to last a lifetime—not to mention the ballerinas.
Nothing, though, could compare to our biggest concert: at the Hollywood Bowl. From the Beatles to Leonard Bernstein, the Bowl had hosted the best. That night, I dressed at home in my choir outfit then rode the chartered bus with Phineas, Joey, and my other choir mates. We were over-the-top excited. I couldn’t wait to hit it. At the Bowl, we were led to the stage and shown our places. There we were joined by the Roger Wagner Chorale and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, directed by Maestro Erich Leinsdorf.
The Bowl is cut from the side of a hill. From the stage, I looked out at its tiered rows. There wasn’t an empty seat: 17,500 patrons. The sun was setting. The stage lights went up. The first selection was the traditional hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus,” “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Come.” Singing “Veni, veni, veni” blew my mind. I got goose bumps. Later, we sang during the fifth movement of Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony, entitled “What the Angels Tell Me.” The Boys’ Choir voiced the angels. The feeling was angelic. We were flying.
Backstage, Mom and Dad were waiting, all smiles, with—surprise!—Grandma Bessie standing next to them. I flew into her arms. I couldn’t believe it. She’d taken a plane for the first time in her life just to see me perform. It was a beautiful night.
NIGHT OF NIGHTS
Beautiful is too weak a word to describe the next chapter of my choral experience. The right word is epiphany.
August 1977. That summer, I turned thirteen and went to the Boys’ Choir summer camp at Loma Linda University, sixty miles east of L.A., where we rehearsed the repertoire slated for the new season. We weren’t allowed to listen to pop music—with one exception: the Beatles. I wondered about that. Sure, the Beatles were geniuses, but what about Elton John? Or Bill Withers? Or Carole King? Why couldn’t we play their records? I didn’t argue, but Phineas, Joey, and I listened to whatever we wanted to anyway. Choir camp turned out cool—until I came down with the flu. So did another boy, David Alba, who was a year younger than me. To avoid infecting the others, we were quarantined together in a dorm room.
At one point, Choirmaster Neslund looked in on us and mentioned that Elvis Presley had just died. Even though Elvis was way before my time, I knew he had impacted the world of music. And I was sorry that he had died so young.
My new roommate, David, was Latino and from Boyle Heights. His dad was a preacher. David was a low-key kid with a sweet nature. We were isolated for three days with nothing to do. We didn’t