Posted on

Meet Milton Charles, organist of silent movies

The following article first appeared in the Wednesday, February 15, 1978 edition of the “Ojai Valley News” on Page A-9. It is reprinted here with their permission.

Meet Milton Charles, organist of silent movies
by
Brenda Loree

“Critics consider him one of the greatest organists in America,” says Arthur Eddy of his friend Milton Charles, who is now retired in Ojai.

Charles was born in San Jose “a long time ago,” and reminisced recently about what it was like playing the organ in the silent movie days of the 20’s among other things.

Milton was taking piano lessons by the time he was seven — he was part of a musical family — and considers that his first lucky break was when well-known San Francisco teacher Benjamin Moore accepted him as an organ student at no fee.

His first paid job was at age 13, when he “got my first church” at $25 a month. He continued with his lessons, too, until he heard that they were using organists in movie theaters. At age 15 he was earning $50 a week playing San Francisco movie theaters, very big money at that time. And no longer took lessons because his teacher highly disapproved of his new job.

MILTON SAYS the musical accompaniment he provided for the silents was strictly improvisation. He never played the same thing twice, although he would occasionally keep using the same musical theme if he hit on one he liked.

He was still a teenager when he got his first “big time” break. “I got a call from Sid Grauman (of Grauman’s Chinese Theater) one night. He offered me a job at the Million Dollar Theater in L.A. at $85 a week.”

Milton took the job and began a friendship with Grauman which ended up spanning decades, many hirings, firings and hirings again, and Milton’s introduction to such Hollywood notables as Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin, both of whom became big fans of his music.

Milton told of being second organist at the Million Dollar Theater, taking turns playing with the lead organist, C Sharp Minor, from 11 in the morning until midnight.

“MR. MINOR would occasionally just disappear,” smiles Milton, “and I’d be left playing straight through from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. We always did a concert in those days before the silent movie started. They’d send out to the Owl Drugstore nearby for sandwiches and milk for me. Afterwards, I’d often get a call from Sid Grauman to come over to his house and play for a few of his friends out from New York. Gloria Swanson would sit on the bench with me a lot and sing along. She had a beautiful voice.

“Sid was an eccentric guy,” remembers Milton. Often Grauman would have all of those people wanting to break into show business come to his house to audition in the evening, with Milton accompanying. Some of them were good, says Milton, but he remembers some nights being so bad as to remind him of today’s Gong Show.

As one of only three or four professional organists in the country in the 20’s, Milton came to be in big demand, playing the Tivoli Theater in Chicago — by this time jus solo numbers — and back to the Metropolitan and then Paramount Theaters in L.A. again.

MILTON remembers when the Paramount Theater was about to go up at 6th and Hill in L.A. “They’d just started excavating, and it was just one big hole in the ground. Sid Grauman came around for me and took me to the site. ‘Okay, Milton, you stand here and yell at me when I get to the other side,’ instructed Grauman. ‘Hello, Mr. Grauman,’ I yelled. ‘Okay, kid, I just wanted to check the acoustics,’ Grauman yelled back.”

Milton was, to his knowledge, the first performer to use a microphone (carbon mike) in his act. He came up with the idea accidentally, while trying to solve an acoustics problem in a theater, and just stayed with it.

By this time Milton was touring Europe and the Eastern United States, playing the Mastbaum Theater in Philadelphia with a 200 orchestra. Milton remembers going to Paris to begin an engagement at a theater and having such a good time he never showed up at the theater.

By 1930, sound movies were in, and Milton appeared, playing and singing, in the movies for a while. He then began a long stint playing background music and lead-in music for CBS Radio in Chicago, finally rising to Music Director of CBS. But before he was named director he remembers mad days of playing for five soap operas a day.

“THERE WOULD be a sound stage for every show, and I would race — I had 20 seconds — from one studio and organ across the hall to another studio, organ, and another soap,” he said. Milton adds that he would usually get a copy of the story line an hour before going on the air, and he would score the shows as much as he could in that time. Ma Perkins, Road of Life and Amos and Andy Shows were some of the ones he did.

Missing California, he signed on with CBS Radio in L.A. as a staff musician and played the background music for both the Roy Rogers an Gene Autry radio shows, besides playing with the CBS Orchestra for many years, when he lived in Toluca Lake.

As he approached retirement age, he took on another career. He began playing at a plush new restaurant in L.A., the Kings Arms, as a sideline career, and ended up staying there almost 20 years.

“I really loved doing that, and you have to, since most of the people around you in a lounge like that are feeling their oats,” Milton smiles.

MILTON STARTED coming to the Ojai Valley Inn occasionally in the early 70’s and fell in love with the valley.

He moved to Ojai permanently some five years ago and thinks he has the best of all worlds — 1 1/2 hours from Los Angeles, 45 minutes from Santa Barbara, while living in one of the “most beautiful places in the world.”


MILTON CHARLES scores the wedding march he’s writing for his granddaughter’s upcoming marriage. (Seba photo)
Posted on

Cash rings register

The following article was first seen in the Thursday, February 8, 1962 edition of “THE OJAI VALLEY NEWS” on the front page. It is reprinted here with their permission.

TINKLE, TINKLE

Cash rings register
by
HANK PEARSON

On May 10 next several hundred people will be crowding into New York’s famed Carnegie hall to listen to a tall, dark haired handsome young man from Ojai valley as he sings many of his songs that have led to his being called America’s Number One country singer.

That man will be Johnny Cash, a man less than ten years ago was totally unknown in the world of music, but who today has become recognizes as one of the country’s leading mail vocalists in the field of folk songs and religious hymns, as well as a top-notch composer.

Johnny Cash has lived for the year in a beautiful home located on a hillside overlooking the Ojai valley, above Casitas Springs. With him are his attractive wife, Vivian, and the couple’s four daughters, Rosanne, 6, Kathleen, 5, Cindy, 3 and Baby Tara, five months.

Johnny’s appearance at Carnegie Hall is a tribute to the 29-year-old singer’s excellent rendition over the past several years of songs that are typically American – songs that have their roots deep in the soil of the country’s past.

Most of the people in America today are well aware of Johnny’s musical performances. He composed and introduced such songs as “I Walk the Line”, which sold well over two million records; “Folsom Prison Blues”, which did almost as well; “Ballad of a Teen-Age Queen”, and a host of others. His religious albums have been instant hits. He has made many personal tours, both in this country and abroad. He has made many guest appearances on television and twice has been name America’s number one country singer. The list goes on and on.

In spite of such successes, however, Johnny Cash is not by any stretch of the imagination overly concerned with his own importance. He is a devoted family man, loves to hunt and fish; and beneath his quiet and composed mien one senses a deep reverence.

Johnny grew up on his parent’s 20-acre cotton farm in a rather remote area near Pine Bluff, Ark. (His parents now operate a trailer court near Casitas Springs.) It was not an easy life and Johnny can still recall vividly the days he spent behind a mule plowing the fields and the endless hours he spent picking cotton. With four boys and three girls in the family, and the pall of a depression over the land, there was never anything but three meals a day – and often that consisted only of beans and bread.

But it was during those days that Johnny started to sing – mainly to himself – and to make up songs as he did his chores. It was there, too, that he became thoroughly acquainted with folk songs – songs that had drifted down through the years from one person to another, without benefit of the published word.

Johnny’s break came in 1955 and for two reasons: first, of course, he had a natural talent that wished to express itself, and second, because he was about the worst salesman in the country.

Johnny had been married then just a short time – following a four-year hitch in the Air Force – and had taken a job as a salesman in San Antonio, Tex. His job was one of those door-to-door varieties and no matter how many doors he pounded on, no one seemed a bit interested in buying. He had to do something or face the dismal prospect of not having anything to eat for either himself or Vivian.

Armed with a song of his own composition entitled “Hey Porter”, he headed for Memphis, Tenn., and a newly formed recording company by the name of Sun Record company. He didn’t get much past the front door. But he didn’t give up. Several months later he came back and this time luckily, the owner, a gentleman by the name of Sam Phillips, was having a coffee break.

After considerable pleading on the part of Johnny, Sam condescended to listen to the song. He like it, later put it on wax, and Johnny had his start. Sun Records, by the way, had a pretty good start then with another lad – by the name of Elvis Presley.

For years now Johnny has had three musicians with him: a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer. They all have one thing in common with Johnny – none of them can read a note of music.

Not being able to read music has not hindered Johnny because things work out satisfactorily these days in reverse anyhow. Johnny can think up a melody and the lyrics that go with it while, for instance, puttering around his Ojai valley home. He then puts it down on tape in a small music room he has and the proper notes are put down on paper afterward.

When I visited Johnny this week he had just thought up a melody and most of the words for a song entitled “Lost on the Desert.” It was a sad but beautiful ballad – typical of the old folk songs that were sung over campfires years ago or on the front porch of a farm house in the still of a summer evening.

He is also working on a song concerning a disastrous flood; this one from memory of an event which occurred on that small cotton farm when he was a boy. Like he says, these songs just sort of “come to him.”

He will have the big opportunity on May 10 to show people just what he means.

A NEW HIT? Johnny Cash is shown here in a small studio at his home near Casitas Springs as he records on tape a new song he thought up last week. He will take the recording to a studio in Nashville, Tenn., where instrumental music background will be added and, a certain amount of “polishing.”
Posted on

Maynard brings back memories

The following article first appeared in the Wednesday, January 9, 1985 edition of the “Ojai Valley News” on Page A-10. It is reprinted here with their permission.

ABOUT FOLKS IN OAK VIEW

Maynard brings back memories
by
Nancy Breese

It will be a great get-together for a great cause Saturday, Jan. 19, at the Nordhoff High gym when popular jazz musician Maynard Ferguson is presented in concert, to help raise funds for the valley’s annual summertime gala — the Fourth of July celebration. Oak Viewians have always been very much a part of the day-long festivities. The Oak View Women’s Club, individual horseback riding groups, 4-H Clubs, Little League, Civic Council, and the Oak View Lions Club have, through the years, been caught up in the spirit of the day, and many local youngster and adult has added a page to his memory book from parade-day experiences. Marge Hatton was kind in providing the following “trips down Memory Lane.”

“Barbara Smith particularly recalls the year of the Bicentenial, 1976, when she was chairman of the prize-winning Oak View Women’s Club float “100 years of Womanhood.” Well over 1,000 tissue-paper flowers of red, white, and blue adorned the float. So you can imagine the chagrin of this energetic group including, among others, Lovell Willis (then president and now living in Visalia), Anne Gutierrez (still an exceptionally active member and officer) and Judy Dickens (now of Ojai) when the fog came rolling in late the night of July 3. The dyed paper in the flowers began to weep — and so did the participants. Smith, always ingenious when it comes to “saving the day” under pressure, remembered the giant parachute her family used for camping, located it, and covered the mammoth flower-covered canopy for the night. Needless to say, all turned out beautifully.

“THIS WAS by no means a first parade experience for Smith. In the mid-60s, her husband Mike enlisted her help in using his entire baseball team, on which her son, Mike, Jr. (Butch), was a player, and setting up a baseball diamond on their float, with a game in full swing. In 1970, daughter Wilma, now grown and still a valley resident, walked the Indian pony “Judo,” ridden by owner, daughter of Jim and Loretta Wagoner, who was 11 years old at the time. The girls not only walked the parade route, but also walked to and from their homes on Valley View — approximately eight miles each way!

“Oak Viewan Kathy Moore and Topa Topa 4-H Club leader Kathy Caywood really had their hands full getting kids and animals (including a tiny bottle-fed lamb of Merilee Sherman’s) organized at the parade grounds last year.

“With a giant wedding cake as a central point, a miniature “bride and groom” had a slight difference of opinion. No problem for four-year-old Brandi Azevedo, daughter of Rick and Linda Azevedo, who has been center-stage often as a frequent beauty contestant and winner. But five-year-old “groom” Brian Haley, son of Roger and Chris Haley, decided that darn “thing” was just too far up in the sky for him. Leaders and parade assistants, including Shari Skinner and Linda Warner, finally convinced him all would be well. It was, until the float started to move and Tamara Caywood, trying to retrieve an American flag that was taking off for the “wild blue yonder,” nearly tumbled off the tractor herself.

“The Old-Time Fiddlers’ Association, with cut-up Larry Shellnut, was a popular entry in the mid-70s with their fiddling and outhouse antics. Another popular group was the 3/4 Midget Racers with Rick Taylor and several other drivers from the California Motor Association. Local Shriner Milt Taylor and his wife Marge, who have a miniature antique car, have been in more parades than they can remember and could fill a book with happy anecdotes.

“THE PARADE grounds on Country Club Drive are a hub-bub of activity for hours before the parade. Two yeas ago, three-year-old Danny Jones, son of Randy and Jenice Jones, wore himself out (not really, Danny never wears himself out) running back and forth, trying to decide whether to ride with his mom on the Oaks fitness float (where there was lots of action), or on the Century 21 Little House float filled with youngsters three to eight years old. After being boosted innumerable times off the ground onto the Century 21 float, he decided that’s where he would stay. He did — until the parade was underway, and he THEN realized he should’ve located the outhouse when he was on the ground. 6’3″ Century 21 broker Bruce Hibberd came to the rescue and air-lifted Danny off and back on again.

“LAST YEAR the Jones’ rode together on an entry from their own Flexation Fitness Center. They are just one of the Oak View families who consider Ojai Valley’s Independence Day celebrations “the greatest.” They whole-heartedly support the Maynard Ferguson benefit concert — for two reasons, not the least of which is that they are avid fans of Ferguson.

“Tickets for the concert are available at the Fitness Center, 655 Monte Via St., and at the Century 21 offices in Oak View and Ojai. It’s an entertainment bargain at $6.50 per person. Newspaper editor Earl Reeves once stated, “A boom and a sparkling burst in the night sky may not make a whole lot of fiscal sense, but it does wonders for one’s morale and sense of tradition.”

“Oak View and the Ojai Valley’s morale is good, their sense of tradition intact. Indications are that locals will turn out in force to hear Maynard Ferguson an Jan. 19. It’s certainly an easy, enjoyable way to suppost a worthwhile cause.”

Thank you, Marge. I really appreciate your contribution! Have any news you’d like to share? Please call me at 649-9416.


Nancy Breese