Читать книгу My Life as Elvis - Bobby Sypniewski - Страница 8

CHAPTER 4

Stella

Once music is in your blood, it’s like an addiction that is almost like sex. While I was married, I found out about a local guy who I thought maybe could help me. He supposedly had some interesting connections. He was big in the garbage industry, and he also owned a club and restaurant not far from where I lived. I went to see him one night, and he introduced me to a guy named Charlie, who at that time was managing Rich Little and Joey Heatherton. This was exciting! He asked me to sit in with the band that was playing. The band was horrible, and the lead singer needed some voice lessons. Charlie liked what he heard and told me to get something together, but I never did get a band together because I just couldn’t find the right people and talent.

Shortly after, I auditioned for an oldies group. At that time, they were well-known around town. They liked me but lost my phone number, and by the time I saw them again, they had found someone else to be the lead singer. While I was there for the audition, I ran into a guy named Mike who was studying voice with a woman named Stella. I started asking him about her and what exactly she taught. He said just technique. I asked him to help me get in touch with her. He said he would give her my phone number.

Stella was a gorgeous redhead fifteen years my senior, a real glamour girl. I was stunned the first time I saw her. Anyways, we connected, and I started to take voice lessons. Stella told me that she taught what they called the bel canto method. Bel canto means “beautiful singing.” It’s a classical Italian style, and it happened to be the same method that Frank Sinatra studied.

She taught me how to breathe, build up my diaphragm, sing so my voice would carry, and enunciate so that every word was heard correctly. The breathing part was interesting, and she gave me very exercises to build up my diaphragm. Once you strengthen your diaphragm, you can hold notes forever, especially if you can learn to breathe while you are holding a note. (Frank Sinatra learned that from a trombone player named Tommy Dorsey.) The vocal exercises were working. Stella explained to me that we should sing on the hum, which means when we sing, our face should vibrate when we hum.

The first part of the vocal exercises she taught me were “Mee, me, ma, mo, moo.” When you first start doing this exercise, you feel weird singing this, but I learned that she knew what she was talking about. If she had told me to stand on my head and sing, I would have done it. When I first started with her, she told me about the qualities that I had, but she had to make me aware of what I had, and she did. One other thing that I learned from was that when you sing, it’s like acting out a story. You need to emphasize certain phrases like you are telling a great story. This will put feeling into the song and portray the story better to your audience.

Stella had studied opera at Curtis College in Philadelphia years ago. One time, she was singing at the War Memorial building in Trenton, New Jersey, and a guy named Ed Sullivan was in the audience. When she got done singing, he went backstage and asked her to be on his show. For those of you who may not remember who Ed Sullivan was, he had a hugely popular variety show that ran on CBS television from 1948–1971. He introduced a great deal of talent, including Elvis Presley and The Beatles. When he had Elvis on his show, the producers would not let them show him from the waist down because of the way he moved. When Stella got back to college, she told them that she was going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. The college told her that she was not allowed to do that while she was going to college, so she never wound up on his show. I told her that I would have told the college to stick it! She said that she figured she’d have other chances, but unfortunately, it never worked out for her. Stella could have gone places, but she got married and settled at home with her husband and five children.

She had me studying all kinds of music including opera. She worked me so hard that when I was done with a lesson, I felt like I had worked at it for three hours. But it did pay off. She was a great teacher. She also would have programs at her house with the students and their families so that the families could see the improvement. The holidays would bring us together with both of our families which was always nice. I wound up studying with her for ten years. I heard at one time that she got a divorce. I have lost track of her since, and I have no idea where she is or what happened to her.