Monday, 14 August 2006 04:03

The purpose of this article is not simply to tell Spann's story, but to introduce you to someone who has a love and passion for music that runs deep, deeper down into her soul than anyone I have ever met. The way you love your mother is the way she loves music.

 

In the back corner of her apartment, Pat Spann runs a hospital. Her grandson Kenien, my lifelong friend, laughs at the medical center that sits on top of the air conditioner, but for his grandmother, it's a subject of immense pride. Spann's patients are plants-most are on their death bed when they arrive, and most leave an entirely healthier shade of green, moved to the other side of the apartment next to the 54 other plants she keeps.

Please take the fact that she has a hospital for sick and dying plants as a larger, more global statement about this woman. She doesn't merely water her plants, or rid them of their sick leaves, but she has a love for them. Love pours out of this woman from the curlers in her hair to the worn house shoes on her feet. Love for her family, for her friends, for her church, for her plants, and for her music.

For many of us, loving music is a romantic relationship. We fall in love with songs like we fall in love with a beautiful girl. Listening to Spann talk about music-watching her face as she speaks-it becomes clear that she loves music in an entirely different way, the way we love family. Music got her out of the Youth House for Girls when she was a teenager. It lifted her out of a bathtub and into the studio with the Cleftones, and sat next to her on the road for the five years she would be with the group. It was there with her on "Heart and Soul," and walked her up the stairs to the podium at the Doo-Wop Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1998. It has its arm around her every hour of the day.

The purpose of this article is not simply to tell Spann's story, but to introduce you to someone who has a love and passion for music that runs deep, deeper down into her soul than anyone I have ever met. The way you love your mother is the way she loves music.

People with voices like hers don't live life with the mute button pressed; they sing when people are around, and when people aren't. Spann sang at the Youth House in Troy, N.Y., which would eventually get her out of the House and into the home of Gene Pearson. Pearson, a Doo-Wop legend, needed a babysitter, and he chose the local girl with the incredible voice who needed a new home. A few months later, Pearson overheard Spann singing in the bathtub; within two hours, she was a member of the Cleftones. Spann's higher-pitched voice lent a greater range to the harmonies already provided by Pearson, Charles James, Herbie Cox, and Warren Corbin.

The songs she appeared on sold more than those she was absent from. Pearson was right; the higher pitch adds something to the harmonies, vaulting these records above the rest. "How Do You Feel," "Please Say You Want Me," and the Cleftones' most famous song, "Heart and Soul," are classics.

From 1960 through 1965, Spann recorded and toured with the group. They performed at New York's Apollo Theater, the Howard Theater in Washington, and in front of Dick Clark on American Bandstand. The highs were the highs, but even the lows could never be that low because, for her, the life she was living was far more believable as a dream.

Whatever money she gets from singing helps, but she's never been in music for the money. She seemed flattered that I wanted to write her story, but she doesn't need the 750 words. What she needs is music-a song to sing and a voice to send her soul out into the world. She was almost robbed of the latter, when a disease in her throat threatened to steal her voice. The doctor said that, unless she rested her voice for six months, she might never sing again. For those six months Spann walked around her apartment with a bell and a pad, never speaking a word, all the while taking in sick plants and nursing them back to health. And, miraculously, the very same love that healed the plants restored her voice, and gave Pat Spann once again a song to sing unto the world.