[insects chirping] ERNIE BEDELL: To understand life, you have to talk to people while they living so you can get the truth and you can get the heart.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Because when a person tells you something that they have experienced, they're telling you the truth.

[bluegrass music] [birds singing] [tractor engine clacks] [insects chirping] [bird calls] [saw buzzes] [bluegrass music] [train whistle blows] [chugging of train] [bluegrass music] Music has long been a tradition in the Ozarks.

Many popular musicians have called Springfield home over the years, and the music scene today continues to be a vibrant part of our culture.

On this episode of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," we are joined by a remarkable individual who has not only been making music in Springfield for more than 50 years, but is also working to chronicle its rich history.

Ernie Bedell was born into a family steeped in music, picking up the bass guitar just 15 years old.

And he's been playing around the Ozarks and the country ever since.

His book, Generation B Music & Melodies shares the untold stories of the Bedell family of musicians and the significant contributions made by the Black community to Springfield's musical heritage.

Join me as we talk about his life, his legacy, and his enduring passion for music.

[insects chirping] [bluegrass music] ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

[bluegrass music] You know, it's not every day you get to sit down and visit with music royalty.

And it's really a rare day when you can sit down and visit with music royalty that represents several generations of music royalty.

Hi, I'm Dale Moore.

Welcome to this edition of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

As always, it's good to have you along.

And my guest today is the one, the only Ernie Bedell.

Ernie, welcome to the program.

Well, thank you.

Always good to be here.

DALE MOORE: Man, it is good to see you.

And we've got so much to talk about that they may need to give us an hour instead of 30 minutes-- ERNIE BEDELL: Well-- --to do this.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah, at our age, time goes like this.

Time flies when you're having fun.

[laughs] You have written a book called "Generation B Music & Melodies," and I want to talk a lot about that book.

But before we start that, I want to wind back the clock a little bit here.

Because when I read this book, and I've read it twice, it made me smile.

It made me a little sad.

It made me happy.

It had all of the emotions you would expect from a good book.

ERNIE BEDELL: Right.

DALE MOORE: Because you tell some stories in here about what it was like to be an African-American young man back in the late '50s and the '60s.

Mm-hmm.

DALE MOORE: And you wove that into a story about music and family.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

And gosh, I can't just-- I can't wait to talk about it.

Take us back to your early days, the early days of Ernie Bedell.

Well, the early days included-- believe it or not, it happened in elementary school, of all places.

DALE MOORE: Mm-hmm.

Of all places, elementary school.

Me and gentlemen by the name of Noble Lynn Clay, Richard Allen, and Bobby Shockley.

We used to sing in elementary school.

And the teachers would come in and get us out of class and go sing to other classes.

DALE MOORE: Now, where-- elementary school, where?

ERNIE BEDELL: We went to Weller.

DALE MOORE: Weller.

Yes, sir.

ERNIE BEDELL: Weller School Division.

Yeah.

Now, it's Boyd.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Yeah.

And so if it wasn't for the teachers seeing something in the students-- and that's how we got started.

Then the singing turned into-- musically in the seventh grade.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And then I thought I wanted to play guitar.

Yeah.

And then the two guys played drums.

Yeah.

Richard Allen took on drums.

And then some more guys in the neighborhood, Charles Ingram, Bobby Shockley, we all-- they all played saxophone.

Yeah.

So the music thing turned in when-- DALE MOORE: We got back up here, though.

Now, we're starting way too soon.

We need to go back.

Your family music roots, man, go way back.

Go way-- my generation's-- DALE MOORE: Let's start there.

My grandmother-- DALE MOORE: Let's start there.

--family, the minstrel family, they had a traveling minstrel show.

This is my grandma.

This is my great-great-uncles and aunts.

They were fiddlers, drummers, guitar players, which I didn't know about that.

And I'll tell you, I thought I k But all the kids on my grandmother's side, they traveled in Europe and in the States.

And then my grandmother and my grandfather, Josie Bedell and Ernest Bedell, my grandparents, their son-- they had five sons.

And all the sons were musically inclined.

They had two daughters.

So all my uncles were musicians.

Drummer, drummer, drummer, pianist, and a fiddler.

So the music started right there, from Ernie and Josie.

And then my mother and father, Leo Bedell and Katherine had five sons, five sons that were all musicians.

So it grew from Ernest, Josie, Leo, and Katherine, to generation, at the generation, at the generation.

And, of course, the Wollards, the Wollard side of the family.

The Wollard side.

That's my grandmother.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And that was really the minstrel shows-- Yes.

--that you were talking about?

Yes.

The picture on the cover of the book covered the beginning.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: The minstrels.

Then it went to my uncle Dave, which everybody knew throughout the world, believe it or not.

Throughout the world.

Then it went to my brothers.

Then it went to our kids.

Then it went to our grandkids.

So that's five generations.

You know, it's not uncommon, when you think of African-American families and traditions, and even for that-- I mean, even white folk-- ERNIE BEDELL: Right.

--music has always been, I mean, church singing.

Right.

DALE MOORE: But it seems like in your tradition in your family, man, the music goes way back.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

And multi-talented people.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

Yes.

Well, how do you account for that.

[sighs] Well, you know-- DALE MOORE: Just a gift from up above?

Yes, it's a gift and the DNA.

You know?

I'm not a medical professor.

But if you think about when hate runs deep, generation after generation, and you're like, man, they've been hating for years and years-- DALE MOORE: Years and years.

--well, this is a good thing.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

The music is the thing that had taken hold from generation after generation.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, ERNIE BEDELL: And, like, it hadn't stopped.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: That DNA is tough.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

You know?

You think that you may not be into the music scene.

And all of a sudden, you find yourself and your soul floating through the music scene.

It can be entertainment.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

It could be-- it can be anything on the pop scene, like dance, choreography, or writing, you know?

DALE MOORE: Right.

It's endless, and that's a good thing.

I've got a T-shirt that my wife has been trying to get me to get rid of for years, and I refuse to get rid of it.

I've had it for 20 years.

And it says, not Black, not white, just the blues.

ERNIE BEDELL: The blues.

DALE MOORE: [laughs] That's right.

DALE MOORE: Just the blues.

Just the blues.

And every time I drag that old thing out, I think about music that I grew up on, the music that I loved back in the day.

Yeah.

You describe in your book-- and you call it 1448 North Prospect.

[exhales] DALE MOORE: And you describe it as live at the Apollo.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

DALE MOORE: Let's talk about that.

The 1448 was the address of my parents, Leo and Katherine Bedell.

That house is still on Prospect.

It hasn't changed.

It still looks the same.

All the other houses in the neighborhood have changed.

The look-- Wow.

For some reason, 1448 remains the same.

Yeah.

In that house, it was always laughter, always somebody trying to sing and thought they can sing.

You know?

Always drums, always somebody beating on-- it's always something entertaining.

And I think what played a part on that, my grandmother lived right next door.

And early in the morning, you know, if you live on a farm-- even though they say Springfield is a city, it's not the city.

It's just a little old farm town.

Yeah, yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: And, you know, you can raise chickens and slaughter hogs right there on National and Division.

You know?

Yeah.

It wasn't no-- there wasn't no-- it was just like a farm.

Yeah.

And my grandmother would, in the morning time, at sunrise, you'd hear piano playing and singing.

So as you grew up, you're like, man, I wake up, I hear music.

Yeah, yeah.

Good-sounding music.

So that's like-- it feeds your soul.

Yeah.

And you think you can-- no, I don't pay no attention.

Yes, you do.

Yeah.

You can't help but pay attention.

Next thing you know, you go back in the house.

And you try to sing and play piano like grandma and Uncle Lloyd.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

So it rubs off on you.

And then you have the older siblings that are your judges, and they'll clobber you with criticism.

So you learn how to take criticism.

Take it with a grain of salt, and go back and practice on it so at the next talent-- in the house, the talent show, you'll be able to get a little-- extra little pluses instead of that hard knock criticism.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

But it's all in fun and games.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got to talk about Uncle Dave, Dave Bedell.

So I'll tell you a story about Dave Bedell.

So in 1967, '68, I saved up enough money to buy a champagne pink set of Ludwig drums.

ERNIE BEDELL: Ooh.

DALE MOORE: Oh, yeah.

And I got my Zildjian cymbals from Dave Bedell.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

DALE MOORE: And in your book, you show a picture in there of Joe Morello.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

DALE MOORE: And I remember when Joe Morello came and played along with Dave Brubeck at Drury.

They played a concert over there.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

My brother-- DALE MOORE: And Jean Wright-- ERNIE BEDELL: --picked them up.

DALE MOORE: Jean Wright was playing stand-up bass and Paul Desmond playing tenor sax.

And I thought, man, I've died and gone to heaven.

I've got Ludwig drums, just like Dave Bedell and Joe Morello.

Yeah.

DALE MOORE: And then here, all these 50 or 60 years later, I see a picture of Joe Morello.

And-- ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah, you see?

You knew.

DALE MOORE: He hung out with-- You knew.

DALE MOORE: But Dave Bedell hung out with cool cats.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah, yeah.

People don't understand.

They really-- when I say-- I say understand in big, bold letters, because my uncle Dave was way more than Springfield thought.

DALE MOORE: Oh, yeah.

[laughs] ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

Yes, he was up there with all your world-class drummers.

DALE MOORE: Gene Krupa.

ERNIE BEDELL: Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I remember when it was either Ed Shaughnessy or Buddy Rich.

They had two drum sets set up in my mother's screen-- in my grandmother's screen porch.

DALE MOORE: Wow.

ERNIE BEDELL: And the next thing you know, we heard all these drum rudiments.

You know?

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: I was little, but I remember that.

And my older brother, Tommy, remembered all of that.

And, you know, it's like-- and then you grow up.

You say, wow, man.

There were world-class drummers right next door.

About as good as it gets.

And they were in Springfield because Dave did clinics all the time, I guess, at his store.

Yeah, they still did clinics.

My first-- the band, the Fabulous Elites, our first show that we played was at The Lamplighter for my uncle Dave's drum clinic.

That was our very first show.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Yeah.

Who were your earliest musical influences?

Who did you listen to, or want to emulate, or-- Dallas Bartley.

DALE MOORE: OK. ERNIE BEDELL: Dallas Bartley.

James Jameson.

Stanley Clark.

These are the guys that I liked to play bass after.

Entertainment, knowledge, Uncle Dave, my dad, my brother, Tommy.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

I watched them.

I listened to everything that they said.

You know, all my brothers did.

We listened to everything, what they said.

And then my brother, Tommy, Nick, "per se," Anthony, he always said, don't shame me.

[laughs] Huh.

Yeah.

If you don't know what you're doing, you better go practice.

But don't get out there and shame me.

You know?

You tell a story in the book about how you started playing music.

And it started kind of in detention.

You got-- [laughs] DALE MOORE: Tell that story.

I hope Mr. Donald Sharp is watching this.

Donald Sharp is a school teacher back at Pipkin Junior High in the '60s.

He's still living.

Thank god for Mr. Sharp.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

People-- as adults, sometimes we under-- we don't give teachers room enough to push the kids.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Mr. Sharp-- yes, I was in detention after school, after Pipkin Junior High School.

And I was walking.

Mr. Sharp had his acoustic guitar out, and he was practicing.

And I stuck my head in there and said, Mr. Sharp, man, I want to play guitar like that.

He said, well, if you can get you one, man, I'd be happy to show you.

Yeah.

And I got me one.

It was ragged out, but he put some strings on it.

And Mr. Sharp, he was my inspiration to play guitar.

And he's a cool guy.

Cool teacher.

Great teacher.

You know, and I've said this before on other occasions, that some of the greatest memories that most people have of school will be of their music teacher or their band teacher.

Mm-hmm.

And were you active in the band and all of that when you were-- ERNIE BEDELL: No.

DALE MOORE: --in school?

No.

DALE MOORE: Really?

No.

I didn't.

I was in the choir in high school.

I did sports.

And the only music I played with my brothers and coming up with the guys in the neighborhood.

I didn't play.

I didn't play.

I didn't take no music classes in high school.

And all the music that I learned, I learned it from right there at 1448.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, at the-- what did you describe it as?

You described it as the live-- Live at Apollo.

Right there.

[laughter] Well, what about the bands you've been in?

Your first band was the Fabulous Elites?

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah, the Fabulous Elites.

DALE MOORE: OK. Talk about that.

The Fabulous Elites.

It was just like, poof.

A cloud of smoke went over Springfield, and then Springfield didn't even recognize these little kids, these little Black kids in the neighborhood.

You know?

And we would-- And when I say kids, we are talking about kids.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: Eight-- DALE MOORE: Who all was in the band?

ERNIE BEDELL: We had from eight-year-olds to 16.

DALE MOORE: Wow.

ERNIE BEDELL: From all the neighborhood, we had my brother, Larry.

The youngest one, he was, like, eight.

I was, like, 14 or 15.

My brother, Joe, was 16, 17.

And then we had more guys in the neighborhood.

Bertrum Coker was, like, 13, 14.

Richard Allen.

Rod Thomas, trumpet.

Danny Adams, tenor sax.

Then, later on, down the line with Anthony Brown that played trombone.

All these guys were located right within a three or four block neighborhood.

And we all decided-- and my brother, Anthony, Tommy, once again, was the manager.

And we had three girls that-- DALE MOORE: The king of one liners.

[laughs] He was the-- ERNIE BEDELL: The king.

The master of one liners.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

[laughs] ERNIE BEDELL: And he recognized the talent.

And that band was a good band.

Yeah.

And it was just overlooked.

Where all did you play?

ERNIE BEDELL: Shoo.

After we-- And where were-- --started-- after we started with Uncle Dave, we got-- there's another gentleman by the name of Milt Adams.

He had a little sportsman club down on Tampa and Jefferson.

And he had a club there.

And he rolled the dice and said, I'm gonna let y'all play here.

We had to have some escorts, because some were too little to be in-- But you know what?

He gave us that chance.

And after that, it started growing.

It started growing.

We started playing more shows.

Not that many shows in Springfield.

Springfield was still tough.

It wasn't cake and ice cream from all Black R&B groups, kids.

Yeah.

And Tommy set up some stuff.

The social clubs started getting us around little private parties.

And then next thing you know, we're taking bus tours up around Kansas City and Clinton.

And so that group was a good group.

Good group.

DALE MOORE: How did you come up with the name, the Fabulous Elites?

[laughs] Well-- DALE MOORE: Do you remember where that came from?

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

My brother, Joe-- man, we need an upgrade.

He called it, man, something great, something fabulous.

Then somebody said, Elites.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

I think it was Joe or Tommy who came up with Elites.

And it felt right in.

It fit right in.

Did you have a sense at this point in time that you wanted to be in the music business, like, make a living at it?

Or were you just doing it for fun?

ERNIE BEDELL: Well, it started out in the neighborhood for fun.

And then, when you realized that, huh, we're getting pretty good at this-- you're getting pretty good.

And then when you start meeting people in the music industry and they say, have y'all-- do some recording.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And then we started doing some recording out to KWTO.

Bob Millsap, he let us record some of his songs.

He recorded a 45 with the Express later on.

But we went to Kansas City at Damon Studio and recorded our 33 and 1/3, our promotional 33 and 1/3.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Now, you had a hit on Stax Records.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yes.

That's out in Memphis.

Yes, that's of Memphis.

That's out of Memphis.

That with the Express, KC Express.

That's on the Stax label called-- we produced a label out of Stax.

That's correct.

And that 45, "This Is the Place," still doing great.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

[laughs] ERNIE BEDELL: It's holding its own real good.

DALE MOORE: It's the gift that keeps on giving.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

[laughter] DALE MOORE: Ain't that right?

ERNIE BEDELL: Ain't that right?

Yeah, I hear you.

DALE MOORE: Well, you know, when you think of Stax Records, I mean, you immediately go back and you think of Jerry Lee Lewis and, I mean, all-- I mean, anybody who was anybody wanted to record at Stax Records-- That's right.

DALE MOORE: --back in the day.

So-- Yeah.

Stax or Sun.

DALE MOORE: How'd you wind up-- Yeah, or Sun.

How'd you wind-- ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

How'd you wind up over there?

Well, we happened around-- Bertrum Coker, his brother, stayed in Memphis.

And he said, man, y'all should see if y'all can come in and do a-- get signed.

So we put-- we done "This Is the Place" here in Springfield at American Artists Studio-- DALE MOORE: Joe Hayes.

ERNIE BEDELL: --the only Black R&B band that even cut anything at KWTO American Artists.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

You know?

And we used that as our promotional to get into Stax, and it worked.

Yeah, yeah.

And after that, it was on the road.

One after another.

And the KC Express, I mean, boy, that was an era when big sound and big-- Horn sound.

Oh, man.

Yes.

Love that big horn sound back up on all those records.

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah, that was the song-- that was the horn era.

How big of a band were you traveling with with the KC Express?

ERNIE BEDELL: We had a five-piece rhythm section, trumpet, tenor, equipment men, and a driver.

And, of course, we had our-- we traveled in a 29-foot Winnebago.

And we had a camper.

Back then, we had our own Winnebago.

You know?

And that kept the group together.

You know, we didn't have to branch out and drive, you know?

And plus, we all were raised in the same neighborhood.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Yeah, so it was a family-- it was really a family affair, even, I mean, during the road days.

Yeah.

DALE MOORE: What was it like touring in the '60s and '70s-- ERNIE BEDELL: Rough.

DALE MOORE: --being on the road?

Can you tell some-- It was rough.

--some stories?

And they're pretty tough, some of these stories in there.

It was rough.

Well, we had to get out of Springfield because there wasn't-- the entertainment scene was very much nil.

Had to get out.

And then, when we got out, we spent a lot down in Texas and Colorado, quite a bit in Colorado, Arizona, Texas, that Southern-- that Southwestern era.

It was tough.

There wasn't nothing-- one of the biggest con games in the world was the music industry.

Everybody wanted to get something.

You know?

DALE MOORE: You played in places that have chicken wire across the front of the stage.

[laughs] Yes.

Yes.

And the bad thing about it, we experienced that down in Branson.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was-- Isn't that something?

Yeah.

But I said, oh, this is like the Blues Brothers.

You know?

Well, I didn't think it was gonna happen like-- well, I said yeah.

[laughs] That wasn't a joke.

So the book-- as, again, I've told you, I've read through it twice.

And what I've noticed in here is that not only is it the story that you're telling, it's not just a story about music and the African-American experience.

But it's just a story about brotherhood, and it's a story about, I mean, some of the remembrances of people who are in here.

Yeah.

How did you collect all these stories that-- Well-- --other people told?

You know, sometimes people don't like talking about stuff, you know, their life experiences or their friends.

And the people that you should have had talked to all pass on.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

So sometimes you-- sometimes to understand life, you have to talk to people while they're living so you can get the truth and you can get the heart.

Because when a person tells you something that they have experienced, they tell you the truth.

Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: You know?

Yeah.

DALE MOORE: And like we said, talking earlier, man, it's hard to remember a lie.

But it's easy to remember the truth.

Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: And when you hear it firsthand, oh, man, you got to write it down.

DALE MOORE: You know, I was struck by-- and we've done some TV shows on some other artists that have come out of Springfield from the African-American community.

And what a tradition there is here in Springfield.

I mean, the Philharmonics.

And I mean you've kind of showcased all of those in the book, greats that have come out of the area.

You can't forget for what you can't-- from what you've come.

And you have to give credit to people that help you stay on the straight area.

DALE MOORE: Right.

Now, the people-- the gentlemen that are in Philharmonics, they are good friends of the family, good friends of my dad.

My dad had played shows with them and so-- and Mr. Culp.

The Culp family are a real close family to our family.

And we talked-- they talked to us as kids, gave us inspiration.

I wish they had showed us some more of the ropes.

You know?

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

ERNIE BEDELL: Because we were kids, you know?

So you had to respect what they were saying.

I'm glad that they gave us the inspiration and the knowledge to keep-- But the one thing they said, don't stop.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

You know, and that's a great point.

That's kind of how you wind the book up.

You talk about the next generation of Bedells.

ERNIE BEDELL: Right.

Let's just kind of wrap up talking about-- ERNIE BEDELL: The next generation of Bedells.

Yeah, one of them there.

Yeah.

What's that look like?

We got my namesake, Dave Bedell.

My nephew is a drummer, a professional drummer.

DALE MOORE: Of course he is.

Yeah.

DALE MOORE: [laughs] He's touring.

He's touring the States right now.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Cameron Bedell, my great nephew, he's writing in Nashville.

And then I got a niece, Isabella.

She's-- choreography.

Nationally-known choreographer.

You got my nephew, Deon Bedell.

He's also a film director, and he's directing his own videos.

You got Gary Bedell.

He's also called "Gary Springfield."

Gary Bedell is the one that helped produce the flag of Springfield.

He's an artist.

And then I have my niece that is a-- she does production out in-- DALE MOORE: Wow.

--California.

My nephew is a wellness and health director.

So the generation, you know, is still going.

So no telling what their kids are gonna do.

But, you know, if a child sees you doing something positive and they see it all the time, it might rub off on them.

Yeah.

You still playing any music?

ERNIE BEDELL: Yeah.

I'm still a-picking and a-grinning.

DALE MOORE: [laughs] ERNIE BEDELL: I'm still picking.

I'm doing the bass work in the Arthur Duncan Trio.

DALE MOORE: All right.

We just got done playing the Hot Springs Jazz Festival last Saturday.

And I'm doing the bass work in the ABS band, which is me and my son and Richard Allen, my partner on drums, and his son, Richie.

We got the ABS Band.

So I'm still playing.

Thank god I'm still playing.

DALE MOORE: "Generation B Music and Melodies."

It's Ernie Bedell.

And, man, I couldn't be more thrilled I've talked to you.

ERNIE BEDELL: Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

DALE MOORE: You know?

Those that can get it, go to Amazon, ABC Books, and get it at Pagination in Springfield.

DALE MOORE: Just keep on picking.

Picking and a-grinning.

DALE MOORE: All right.

[laughs] You stay tuned.

I'll be right back.

[bluegrass music] ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

[bluegrass music] I'd like to thank Ernie Bedell for taking time to be with us today.

And we'll see you again real soon on another "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

[bluegrass music]