WOW!
I am from Gary and know Blakely's COGIC Church over in East Chicago very well. The market is extremely competitive in the Chicagoland area. I have been playing for churches since 1962 and I have never seen that happen before. I used to play for the First Church of Deliverance in Chicago and so did Charles Miller who is from Gary also. It was so competitive I would only get a chance to play one tune before some other guy would be sitting on the organ bench with me, in an attempt to move me over so he could play the next tune. It was common courtesy to move over and wait after the other organist had finished the next tune before you sat on the bench and moved him off the bench so that you could play the next tune. We would play musical chairs all the time. There were no fights though.
I live in middle Michigan now. I am about an hour from Detroit. It is not nearly as competitive here, however I am from that kind of competitive environment and welcome all challenges. The people here in Albion are taking good care of me. I had one semester as a college music teacher, but ran my students away because they said I was giving them too much work to do. All of my students dropped out from the pressure of having to learn what they saw as too much work. However if you want to play any tune and harmonize it well, or understand the counterpoint between all the vocal parts then it requires effort. To whom much is given, much is required.
brother scott
