MARINE WHO HAS SUNG IN STRANGE PLACES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 212, 16 July 1943, Page 7

MARINE WHO HAS SUNG IN STRANGE PLACES

NE U.S. Marine in New Zealand () has had a pleasant round of duties recently-Private (FirstClass) Ray Baber, the possessvi of a robust bass-baritone voice, who was given leave to record some song recitals in Auckland for the ZB statioris, and who is now preparing for a public concert in Wellington to raise money for the assistance of missionaries who escaped from the Solomons, The son of the city chaplain of Denver, Colorado, Baber comes originally from Lexington, Kentucky, and has been a professional singer since he left school. At Denver he sang leading roles in the annual operatic productions in that city — King Henry in "Lohengrin," Barnada in "La Gioconda," Edgar in "Lucia di Lammermoor," the title role in "Rigoletto," and the High Priest in "Aida." A Feather in the Throat With the idea that one doesn’t go through five operas in five years without something interesting happening, we asked P.F.-C. Baber what moment he remembered best, and he recalled that once in’ "Rigoletto." during a duet with Gilda. . "I had my arm around her shoulders and her head was resting on my shoulder; I took a big; deep breath so as to take a high tone, and a feather from her hat got sucked right into my throat. It was a little downy feather, and it dried my throat up for a couple of minutes. I kept going as well as I could, and the orchestra kept going, but the audience was spellbound — they saw it go in!" Central City, Colorado, a ghost-town lingering on from the mining days, is the strange setting for a fairly big annual festival at which Baber has also sung. Not only the artists, but even the audience, come from far afield to this festival, which has heard the voices of Charles Kullman, Anna Laskas, John Carter, and others. The opera-house, an old stone building, has walls eight feet thick, and the county it is in-Gilpin County — once produced more gold to the square mile, Private Baber told us, than any other land. Since he joined the Marines, Baber has sung in places strangely different from American hotels, radio studios and opera-houses

On Guadalcanal, where he was in action for six weeks, he had a guitar with which he used to accompany himself when he sang occasionally for his fellows in the gunpits, "when there wasn’t too much sniper alarm." And one evening in February when they were told that Japanese, resistance had finally crumbled, and the whole island was secure, Baber’s commanding officer asked him to sing a song over the battle communications. Then came another request and another, and soon he was singing to men all over the island, most of them listening through earphones. Baber made a set of recordings at 1ZB, which are being heard from 2ZB at present (Sunday evenings, 7.30), and later from 1ZB. These are light popular songs, Stephen Foster favourites, negro songs, and popular classics such as "None But the Lonely Heart," "The Song of the Flea," and "Within This Silent Tomb."