Robert Shaw Film, Cuban Missile Crisis and Me

Sunday evening we went to see the Robert Shaw film MAN OF MANY VOICES at the Rich Theater at the Atlanta Performing Arts Center.

The film editor is Amy Linton, a friend.  We met her through her mother Ruth.

We learned a lot about Robert Shaw.  He was a music conductor during changing times. He went where his ear for music led him and the decisions he made was based on the quality of music, which has nothing to do race or politics.  He was a conductor with guts.

Also Robert Shaw was a heavy drinker, womanizer, and not a family man.  He hardly knew his children of his first marriage.

The film clips sequences were well placed and his story from birth to death held us spellbound.  

The film also brought back plenty of personal memories.  For instance, Robert Shaw and his Shaw Chorale singers went to Moscow to give a concert.

This was in 1962.  The U.S.A. and Russia were facing each other ready for showdown over the newly discovered missiles headed for Cuba, which became known as the "Cuban Missile Crisis".   Both sides were ready use nuclear weapons.  If a balloon popped it might have caused WWIII.

I remember some of us local good old boys met over a few beers and decided President John Kennedy needed us to get him out of this mess.

I enlisted in the Navy because of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  But, because of the beer I drunk the night before they found sugar in my blood, so I had to come back after drinking plenty of water, flushing myself out, so to speak.  Then I was accepted.

When the State Department learned that the Shaw Choralers   planned to sing some very religious timeless Christmas songs, including Bach Mass, Minor B,  the State Department had a fit.  Russia was ruled by the anti-religious  Communist U.S.S.R.  Religious songs and services were strictly prohibited.

The State Department  warned this music could set off World War III.  I think  Shaw felt:  Good music deserved to be played.

He went ahead and played the music.

Which might have soothed the stress between the two nations, not tightened it.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was no longer a crisis.

And all this time I thought the Cuban Missile Crisis was all about me.