Durable Iowa Boy

The message at the Manhattan radio studio simply asked its musical director to call a Brooklyn telephone number--no name given. When he called, a woman's voice asked, "Is this Meredith Willson?" Assured that it was, the woman said reverently, "May the good Lord bless and keep you," and then hung up.

Ever since Iowa-born Meredith Willson, 49, wrote May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You as a closing number ("something benedictory") for Tallulah Bankhead's The Big Show last fall, he has been flooded with up to 2,000 fan letters a week. Once when he tried "to give it a little beat," the letters demanded that he "quit jazzing up that hymn." Says somewhat surprised Composer Willson, who based the song on his mother's parting blessing to her Mason City Sunday-school pupils: "It's not a hymn, it's not hillbilly, it's not pop, but it does for all of them."

The success of his latest song was icing on the cake for Meredith Willson last week. The big event was the celebration of his 20th anniversary with NBC as probably the most durable composer-conductor in radio. Tallulah saluted him over the air with a sub-contralto speech, and gave him a plaque. His publishers exhorted disc jockeys throughout the U.S. to make it "May-the-Good-Lord-Bless-and-Keep-You" Week.

In the 40 years since his mother switched him from piano to flute ("so I would stand out"), Willson has just about run the musical gamut. At 17, he was playing flute and piccolo in Sousa's band; at 21 he was tootling the same instruments in the New York Philharmonic-Symphony under Toscanini. He started conducting when a bandleader friend offered to perform his Parade Fantastique, but told him he would have to lead it himself.

He first made a name for himself on Maxwell House Coffee's program. His signature song, You and I (1941), established a new record by staying on top of the Hit Parade for 19 consecutive weeks.

An industrious man, Willson has found time between rehearsals, broadcasts and film scores (The Great Dictator, The Little Foxes) to write a book (There I Stood With My Piccolo) and to turn out some serious music. He has three symphonies ("strictly orthodox") to his credit, one subtitled "An Old-Fashioned Piece for People Who Like Melody." Says he: "I guess I'm still an Iowa boy because I don't feel I've got a symphony unless there's melody. Indeed, now I usually ask myself 'Is it commercial?' "

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