LAWRENCE TIBBETT IS MODEST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 47

LAWRENCE TIBBETT IS MODEST

His Own Voice Sobers Him HE fact that Lawrence Tibbett is one of the world’s most popular and successful baritones has _ spoiled neither the man himself nor his sense of humour. In a recent interview he re-

vealed that, at the age of seven years, he ran home from school, sobbing his heart out and looking fot sympathy because he’d had a fight

and "got badly licked"-to use his own words, " Did I get sympathy? I got a spanking from my father and was sent straight back to school." Those are not the words of 2 man filled with a sense of his own importance, "Four days later," he continued, " father was shot by a famous bandit who held up stage coaches in the finest tradition of the old days of the wild west, Father and he shot it off and father got the worst of it. Then father’s brother stepped in, took a pot shot at the bandit and killed him. It is a famous episode-in the history of Bakersfield, California, if not to the rest of the world." On the subject of his own recordings Tibbett was exceedingly frank and very modest. "If my self-conceit ever begins to get the better of me," he said, "I put on one of my own records on the gramophone. Listening to my own voice sobers me. Until I heard my first record I thought I was a good singer, The gramophone is my severest critic and my greatest surprise. I find it far more, nerveracking to make a record of one song than

to give a concert of twenty. I don’t like making records, and when I have made them I infinitely prefer listening to other peoplé’s." His evident dislike for his own recordings is not shared by the general public, however, and two of his best efforts will bring enjoyment to listeners during 4ZB’s weekly " Radio Matinee" on Sunday afternoon, September 29,