Clarke Egerton - on the success of the Lincoln High School marching band (clip)
Interviewed by Bob Gilgor on April 10, 2001
RG: You know I hear so many people comment to me about how wonderful the marching band was. And you've touched a little bit on moving the instruments, maybe high stepping. Can you describe a little bit more what a parade was like for the Lincoln High School marching band?
CE: Oh that was the top that was the top of the thing. If there was going to be a parade, you could expect to have a good turnout. They used to say oh, they're gonna show out. I never did like that term so much, they're gonna show out. But they did use that. And it was a chance for the students to say "Look mom, what I can do." And it gave them so much pride to be in a marching band, and everybody's just alike, all step together. We played music together, and it's just a wonderful skill. I just get goose bumps just thinking' about it right now, the way the crowds would just cheer us on, and especially when we got up there by Fowler's, where the Christmas Parade went. Just one parade - two parades: Homecoming Parade and Christmas Parade. Get up there at Fowler's Food Store and all of the white students from the university would come down to see the Lincoln band and they would just cheer us on. And the students just enjoyed that. And the band would step high, and play, and they enjoyed the discipline. I'm a real funny guy and we can have all the fun in the world, but they knew when it came time for the marching band or the concert band, I was a different person. I had two personalities. Time to get this job done. There was no fooling' around. And they accepted that discipline, and even today, when I retired in '97, I still had that same discipline. Students were wearing caps in the halls and wearing their pants slouching, but not in my band. Everything changed once you hit that door, and of course I'm happy that I'm out now, because maybe somebody would have challenged me, but, (laughs) but they didn't. And it lasted for 41 years, so I kept that same rules. I found that things seemed to work much better when the student knows you mean business. James Scott Farron or whatever, that thing that comes on the television, (laughs), I meant business, and they know that. So they enjoyed it because we had good results by doing' it that way.
RG: Did you, along the parade routes, stop and do any dance steps or any kind of routines?
CE: That was the highlight. Sure! (laughs)
RG: What were they like?
CE: Great. I mean, whatever was popular during that time, I would try to score some music for them. But, 20 measures or so, or whatever was popular during that time. I wouldn't want to ask ASCAP to come after me, but you could get a record. Get a record and listen to it and sketch out a little something for your band, and they would play the latest thing. And everybody enjoyed it, and the majorettes would make up the little dance steps. Of course in my early years I guess I was making' up some of them. But as time went on naturally I couldn't keep up. But they'd make up the little dance steps and we would stop and perform, and that was a highlight. They really enjoyed that.
RG: Did any of the children trail along behind the band and try to copy what they were doing?
CE: Ah, yes. (laughs) I guess you heard that. I've been known to be the pied piper of music, because once the Lincoln band would come along, they would sort of follow along toward the end. I loved it. I enjoyed that, and I always marched with the band. A lot of my colleagues said "You don't march with the band." I said "Oh yes I do." I 'm right there, because I wanted to be sure that everything is going to be like J would like for it to be. You'd have to keep some of the public from coming out and bothering the girls. You know, your majorettes, you have your pretty girls out there, stepping and, they want to come out and make a date or something, but naturally I was up there and I wouldn't allow that.
