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SOUTHERN Music Studio: A Generation of Musicians Were Encouraged By the Southern Family

Posted on: Sunday, 19 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By Glenn Ayers, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

Feb. 19--The large Victorian home at 702 W. Davis St., in Burlington still stands resplendently. It's today the home of Steve and Debra Scott, and has housed a number of families before and since its halcyon days when it was the "Southern Music Studios." You may remember its small sign near the sidewalk. Or, you may recall its larger, long-gone sign that announced it as not only a venue for studying music, but a store selling musical instruments and sheet music.

The "Southern" in the title may have been a double entendre, but probably was only chosen because its owners were Clarence and Louise Southern, who taught voice and piano to the town's citizens in what was the home that included their three children -- Martha, John and David.

Clarence Southern had a somewhat difficult childhood in Winston-Salem. While in school, he worked a full shift at the Hanes Mills. The Hanes family were Moravians and came to recognize the young man's intelligence and musical talent. They arranged for him to complete his secondary studies, then attend Westminster Choir College, where he met Louise. After their graduation and marriage, they began serving church choirs and congregations in various locations. Their first two children were born in Portsmouth, Ohio. Clarence and Louise came to Burlington's First Presbyterian Church as choirmaster and organist, respectively, in 1937.

Standard operating procedure at this time was that when the head clergyman was replaced, the new minister would bring his own staff with him. Apparently, the Southerns had gone through this process several times before, so when the same situation arose in Burlington in 1940, they decided it was time for a change. That change ended in the purchase of the Davis Street home and establishment of the Southern Music Studios.

THE SOUTHERNS' youngest child, David, was born in Burlington, and retains a keen interest and memory of life in the house. From his office in Durham, he recalls the early school when the public could buy instruments as well as learn to play them. He claims there were once 14 pianos in the house. (Steve Scott found this amazing -- his family has one.) As a child, David once turned out a manuscript titled "The History of the Southern Cat Family." Asked if there were many cats in the house during the store's era, he answers, "I'm sure there was a cat for every piano." It's doubtful if the cat manuscript is still extant, but it may have been a harbinger of David's present fate: He's with Duke University Press, today, editing the thousands upon thousands of letters in the nearly endless correspondence of Thomas Carlyle.

The old house produced another manuscript that has affected David Southern's view of life. As a boy of 11, his ambition was to become a private detective. At this time, he came into possession of a seemingly ancient piece of paper purporting to deal with the life and times of one Caleb Morgan. A scrawling hand explained how treasure was to be found somewhere between the cellar and attic. David worked industriously to solve the riddle.

There is evidence that there was a sort of "Piltdown Man" quality to this document. Dim in the minds today, of his sister, her friend and her friend's fiancee, are memories of writing in thin ink, then baking the paper in an oven. "I believed all that stuff," laughs David. Indeed, he did. He named his son, Caleb.

In time, the Southerns gave up the store venture, and concentrated on instruction. Clarence taught voice.

ONE OF HIS STUDENTS was Don Bolden, editor emeritus of the Times-News. "I took voice lesson from him for six years," says Bolden, "and was a member of the Burlington Boys' Choir that he directed in those days over at the Episcopal church." Louise, and as many as three to four other teachers gave piano lessons. One of these was Martha Southern, who after attending Salem College one year, graduated from Westminster and taught at the Davis Street school for two years. She then joined Western Electric, ending up in Warren N.J., where today she is Mrs. Al Hirsch.

John Southern, a talented pianist himself, followed the profession of cost accounting, and today lives in Sanford. His late wife, Rita, however, was one of Martha's piano pupils. Later, his son, Scott, became a Southern student.

John, being older, has a good recollection of the students who came and went at the Studio. "Two of Mother's last students, Marie and Jay Coble, were her most talented," he relates. Today, Jay Coble Jr. has a Ph.d in music and teaches at the University of South Florida.

Not all students were that musically successful, but recall the Southerns' quiet encouragement. Grace Walsh writes from New York that "Mr. Southern said I talked beforehand because I was nervous, and Mrs. Southern said I had more feeling for some music before I mastered the notes." But, Walsh adds, "I learned classical music." A 1953 pamphlet titled "A Spring Festival of Music," features Martha Southern, Barbara Alley and Joan Blanchard as recitalists. Their renditions include Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Tschaikowski, Liszt and George Gershwin.

Today, Alley, now Barbara Simon, speaking from her home in Las Vegas, says "Mr. And Mrs. Southern gave a touch of culture to Burlington that it didn't otherwise have. They were perfectionists. I began with them when I was seven years-old. The piano is wonderful, and they made it part of my life. I've played for glee clubs in college and once on TV in Greensboro. I still play when my husband has the TV off." The Southerns, beset by age and ill health, closed the studio in the early 1970's The house was sold in 1974, and they went to live in the N.C. Lutheran Home in Salisbury in 1978, where son, John, was administrator. Clarence Southern died in 1983; Louise in 1988. They are "home" in Pine Hill Cemetery today.

As this is written, Martha Southern Hirsch lies clinging to life in a New Jersey hospice. We all pray choirs of angels sing her "Southern" strains.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

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Source: Times-News

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