Physician as Musician
This story might read a little circuitously, but, c’è la vita!
It was November 1983. I got a call from the principal of the High School. They were planning on having a series of musical concerts for the benefit of the High School band. She was looking for acts to volunteer to play for one hour between the second Sunday in January going forward six weeks. That included the first three Sundays in February.
Now, I was playing keyboards in a three piece rock and roll band in the little bars going up an down Highway 61 (Yes, the same Highway 61 that is in the title of the Bob Dylan album, Highway 61 Revisited). And February 1984 was the 20th anniversary of the month The Beatles first performed in the USA. So, the principal wanted to know if we could do one hour of Beatle songs. Well, of course we said yes.
Tangentially, there was a guy who lived in the next town who owned a music store in Minneapolis (98 miles away) who had set up a little music store in his garage for us locals. The guitarist in our band was looking for a new amplifier; so, we went down to this guy’s garage to see what he had. The guy was also a performing artist doing C&W with this wife at the local nightclubs and in the Twin Cities bars.
The little music store had a spinet piano in the middle of it. I sat down at the piano and started playing “Stormy Weather”, a jazz standard. About six bars into the song, I heard a beautiful woman’s voice singing the song. I looked up and it was the wife of the guy who owned the store. Her name was Phyllis. After I ended the song, she asked me if I knew any more. “Sure”, I said. The next thing I knew we went through a half dozen songs. Then she asked me if I wanted to accompany her in the same concert series I had agreed to have our band play at. The principal had called her and wanted her to perform at their last concert. Phyllis said, hearing me play those jazz standards, she immediately decided she didn’t want to do C&W with her husband, she wanted to sing “the songs my mother sang around the house when I was a child.”
Well, musicians rarely turn down a chance to play, so I said OK. We wrote out a set list, the last song being “The Party’s Over”. More about that later.
Back to The Beatles.
The band immediately started rehearsing a one hour set of Beatles tunes, starting with “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band”, which, of course starts with “It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play”. Who gets to start a Beatles-song concert with that line exactly 20 years to the month from their first USA concert!?
I went to every school Sunday concert. They were very entertaining. It was amazing how much talent was scattered through this town of 1000 people and the surrounding dairy farm land. At one concert, a 14 year old girl was the piano accompanist. She stumbled several times. It didn’t bother me, she being 14 and probably nervous.
Finally, it was the Sunday for the Beatles-song concert. We were packing the truck at my house with our musical instruments, amps, PA system, etc. when I got a call from the hospital. One of my mothers-to-be had come in in labor. This was significant because I promised all of my pregnant women patients that, unless I was out of town and unable to get back, I would be available when they came in to help deliver the baby whether I was on call or not.
I gave my pager to my wife. The nurses would page me and give a report on the patient’s status while we were setting up and then playing our concert set. Every thing was going well, but, the reports of the patient progressing through her labor suggested to me that I was going to be lucky to make it through the one hour concert before I got called in to the hospital.
We started the concert. As I announced the band and the theme at the beginning, I also announced that it was possible that the concert could be interrupted by my having to go and deliver a baby. Everyone chuckled. We went into our set of songs. At just about midway through our set, my wife came up to the edge of the stage waving her arms wildly. “They need you at the hospital NOW!” she screamed. I announced to the audience that I had to go deliver the baby, but, I should be back within 30 minute, so DON’T LEAVE! I immediately ran up the aisle, out the door, and drove the four blocks to the hospital.
I knew the laboring woman well. I had delivered another one of her babies my first year there. She was a “Multip” whose deliveries went fairly rapidly and uneventfully. When I got there the baby was just starting to crown. I had learned how to “iron” the perineum to avoid episiotomies. This went well and the baby was born without my having to do an episiotomy. The baby’s APGARs were 10/10. I suctioned the baby and handed her to the nurse. I waited as the placenta delivered, ensured there were no complications and rechecked the baby again, who was now swaddled and on the mother’s chest. I congratulated the mother and reassured her that everything looked great. She looked up at me and said, “Doc, I know you are playing in the concert at the school today. We’re fine; the nurses are great. Get yourself back there now!”
I ran out of the delivery room, tore off my scrubs, got dressed and ran out the hospital door. As I rounded the corner at the High School, I saw my son running from the corner of the school yard where he was scouting for my return.
By the time I came through the school auditorium door it was exactly 35 minutes from when I left. Everyone was in their seats. I learned later that everyone had been out in the foyer murmuring that they were going to leave, no one could possibly make it back from delivering a baby in 30 minutes! They all ran back to their seats when my son came in yelling that I was back!
I ran down the aisle and yelled, “Mother and Baby are fine!” The crowd yelled, “What was it? A boy or a girl?” I yelled, “It’s a girl.” The place exploded in applause! We finished the rest of our set. The place went wild!
You can’t make this stuff up!
Now back to the last concert with Phyllis. Since I had brought my electric keyboards with me for the Beatles-song concert, I had never played the acoustic piano there. It was undoubtedly the worst piano I have ever played. The action was horrible, I had a hard time negotiating the keys. Now I knew why that 14 year old had struggled. And several of the other concerts relied on that piano for accompaniment. As we got ready to play the last song, I said to the audience, “Before we close out the concert series with this last song, I just want to give credit to the other pianists who have had to play this piano, because it is the worst piano I have ever played. They should all be congratulated for doing so well despite this!”
We played our last song. I got off the stage, getting handshakes from audience members. Suddenly, the little 14 year old girl from that other concert came up to me, took my hand and said, “Thank you so much for saying that that piano was the worst piano you have ever played. When my father yelled at me for making so many mistakes, I told him the piano was terrible and he said, ‘Yeah, blame it on the instrument.’ You got him to apologize to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
About six months later I bought a Yamaha grand piano (the smallest one). I donated my spinet piano, which was in near perfect condition, to the High School and told them to ditch the one they had. I often wonder if my donated piano is still there, 35 years later.