VISIT OF RICHARD CROOKS

Evening Star, Issue 22456, 29 September 1936, Page 6

VISIT OF RICHARD CROOKS

' ONE CONCERT BY FAMOUS TEHOR The/box plans for the ordinary booking, for the only concert to be given here •at the Town Hall next Monday evening by Richard Crooks, famous American tenor, were opened at the D.I.Ci this morning. Although the preferential booking was very heavy, there are still a large number of available seats in central positions. Though still a very young man, Richard Crooks has been before the public longer than many of the veterans. He began his career at the age of nine, when he was boy soprano soloist at the Great Ocean Grove Auditorium. When he was 12 and in the eighth grade at ' school, the Trenton Music Festival gave a special programme. There was a chorus of 3,000 children’s voices, and two soloists—one was Trenton’s native son, Dick Crooks, and the other was Mm«. Schuraann-Heink. When Schu-mann-Heink heard the lad sing she pointed to him and grew emphatic. “That child—he has a great future; he sings like an angel; the world will hear from him—if only ho will work.” He did work. First of all ho worked to get the money to pay for music lessons which he would not have had otherwise. He got a job painting the great reservoir tanks of the Trenton Gaa Company. The job paid time rates, but they could get “ time and a-half ” if you mounted an 80ft ladder and painted the upper sections. That was the job young Crooks took. Later he loaded ice into wagons at 20 cents an hour. He had to bo on the job by 3 a.m., and he got pretty wet, but he tells you_ it was a grand means of adding to his chest expansion. He recommends it for aspiring young singers. At last he had enough money saved out of his earnings to go to New York to study. He and four other boys hired a room at five dollars a week, chipped in one_ dollar each, and slept in relays. He paid more than he could afford for singing_ lessons, and many a time he went without food a Whole dav in order to stand up at the balcoAy rail and hoar Caruso at the Metropolitan. He was discovered at last and offered a loan of IO.OOOdoI to go to Europe and study, but he turned the offer down. He preferred to be independent and earn his own way, as he always had done. Richard Crooks’s repertoire appeals to every section of the public, including ns it does grand opera, opera, and ballads. His delightful personality places him on happy terras with his audience directly he makes his appearance on the platform stage. i J