Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

Gwynfi Jones, of NBC, Is Direct From Wales, Where Everyone Sings As Soon As He Can Talk. Gwynfi Learned To Sing in a Coal Mine, and Was Still Classed Among the Altos When He Toiled In the Mines With His Father TREHERBERT. in South Wales, produces three things in magnificent abundance — coal, music, and Joneses. That is why Gwynfi Jones. NBC tenor, who was a collier before he became a radio star, is amused when people express surprised admiration that a voice like his could grow in a coal mine. "Everybody sings in Treherbert, and the Joneses sing most of all," he explains gravely. "There are few artificial amusements in small Welsh communities, so they make their own music. They've been doing so for so long in Treherbert that it's little wonder they make good music — think of all the generations of Joneses alone who have sung and played instruments in Treherbert — how can we help being musical?" The tenor of the NBC Matinee group is one of nine sons in the Jones family. The tenth young Jones was a girl who promptly was named Gwladys, to harmonize with Gwynfi, Emlyn, Ivryn and Glvdwv — you just pronounce them the way they're spelled — it's easy! — if not with Jim, Oliver, Samuel, Oliver and Trevor. All of them, Mr. and Mrs. Jones included, sing or play some musical instrument, so it was natural for Gwynfi to begin his own musical career at the age of eight, by playing the fife and drum in a Treherbert band composed almost altogether of JofTeses. "Nobody taught me to play the fife," A Hare Bit he recalls. "But there was all manner of instruments in the house, and when I began thumping the drum, I was allowed to develop my own sense of rhythm and get what notes I could from the fife. "The band used to play 'Highland Laddie' a lot; I can still remember how proud it made me feel to march along with them, rat-a-tat-tatting on the drum, and piping away on the fife." Later he studied piano and the Flugelhorn — he plays both of them well enough to have earned his living for several seasons with them — but he was always more interested in singing than in anything else. He was still classed among the altos in the church choir when he first trotted into the mines beside his father — a little boy, just out of school, and even prouder than when he was marching in the band, to know that by Treherbert tradition he was a man now by virtue of his pick and lantern. Like the others miners he warbled to himself when he worked along in the long, dark caverns which his Welsh ancestors— miners too — used to people with pixies and brownies who could be of WELSH frightened off if you sang a song or recited rhymes at them. And like the other miners, young Gwynfi sang at rest as well as at work, with hard-fought games of cricket as the chief variation to chorals and church entertainments. When he was in his early twenties, his voice changed from the baritone richness which followed its alto period, to the clear, beautiful tenor of today, which still retains the warmth of its one-time low range, making Italians call Gwynfi's voice a "lyrico spinto." With the change in his voice, Gwynfi realized for the first time that if he stood out as uniquely gifted in such a community as Treherbert, where almost the entire population is gifted, he might find a bigger audience somewhere. He tried out for the County Council scholarship, which would give him a year's study at the London Conservatory of Music, only to lose because he was over the age limit of the competition. Back to the mines went the young singer, and back to the Bute-Merthyr cricket team, of which he was captain. Then, unexpectedly, came an opportunity to study at the London Conserva by Nary Cooper tory after all, and Gwynfi was gone from Treherbert. taking its prettiest girl with him as his bride. His ability as a pianist and Flugelist brought him engagements in London, and he toured with several English bands, then joined the Cymric Choristers, first as accompanist, then as tenor soloist. In 1924, a friend from Treherbert came to California and sent back a jubilant letter filled with tales of America which so enthralled the young Welsh singer and his wife that they decided to follow him. They arrived in California with Gwynfi's voice and two capable hands as their only assets, and for three long months the hands kept the voice, while Gwynfi worked as a day laborer in a construction plant, and his wife and he tried to calculate "Wyth punt am rent — eight pounds for rent!" Then someone who had heard him singing while he worked — the collier habit was still with him — told someone else about the golden-voiced young Welshman who wanted to sing, but was obliged to work as a laborer — and a Sacramento club asked him to present a recital. Gwynfi gasped "Yes" before he discovered that a "recital" meant singing in several languages the ballads and arias which were expected of him. He had six weeks before the event, however, and in those six weeks, with the aid of a clever linguist, he mastered a repertoire of sixteen songs in German, Spanish, Italian and French. It was hard work, and Gwynfi smiles as he recalls how he memorized foreign words continually, even while on the street. But the recital was a success — such a complete one that the club exceeded its original fee, and on it the Jones family came to San Francisco. Radio opened an avenue almost immediately, and Gwynfi joined the staff of KGO when the station was inaugurated. His versatility makes him especially suited to microphone work, for he can sing semi-standard songs in one program and offer an exacting role in a studio opera on the next one. He frequently covers this range in the same program, when he appears on the NBC Matinee, where listeners hear him both as a soloist and as a member of the Criterion Quartet. Besides his radio work, Jones is heard at Calvary Presbyterian Church, where he is Director of Music, and in occasional recitals. Page Fourteen RADIO DOINGS