Okay, so your show is catching on, and did you-- the logical growth, outgrowth of a good radio show is live events with the performers--(simultaneous)--$$Um-hum, I would do, host programs, started to host programming, started, people start calling me up, asking me to host. Would you please come to my church? Antioch [Missionary Baptist Church] was the first church I went to. Reverend Daniels [Wilbur Daniel] was so sweet. He was such a wonderful person. He was always so kind. He loved his wife [Marguerite Richards]. Oh, my God, he loved his wife. She loved me, she just thought I was the most loveliest person. She said, and I want to thank you for your music 'cause you know how to play music. I'll never forget that. Those were some great days.$$Okay, so you did your first public program there?$$Um-hum.$$And who was on the program? Do you remember who was on the program at Antioch Church?$$No, other than his choir, I don't remember who else sang? I don't.$$Okay, but you were just like the host for the program?$$Um-hum, I introduced.$$Okay.$$And that just started, where I started just going from one place to the other. I mean a whole lot of it.$$So people were coming, I mean you were a draw then since they heard you on the radio, you were a draw for their programs?$$They were coming to see me and shake my hand and give me a hug, for real. It made my day and theirs. I think I was flight somebody. I want to say I was Flight 1570, take a flight with me. I think that, I had a little cliche or something going on there. I think I did. I'd have to ask Ron Baker that because I remember him coming over to the station. But I think I did have something like Flight 1570. I want to say that was the call letters, 1570.$$Okay, AM radio?$$Uh-huh, AM radio, 1570. That wasn't WVON.$$No, no.$$No, I think it was 1570.$$This is Charles Sherrell's station.$$Sherrell, yeah, I think I was a flight.$$I'm sorry. I can't think of the call letters right now, but anybody--(simultaneous)--$$But I think I was on a flight.$$--who wants to research it can find it.$$Okay, I think I was on a flight, and I was saying, "Come go with me on my flight. I'm gon' take you somewhere", and I would take you. And then when I would host, I would say, "Come meet me, 'cause we've landed. So come on over and meet me." And that's how people were hugging me and-$But back to the fest [Chicago Gospel Music Festival] itself, what are some of the--now, you were the--(simultaneous)--$$Oh, and, but speaking of Reverend [Clay] Evans, let me take you back to the fest--$$Okay, okay.$$--and say that even when he wouldn't make meetings, he'd call me up and tell me about somebody. He said, I think so and so need to be, put this down, consider this person, consider them. He would do that.$$Oh, to be on the committee?$$He was on the committee. So he was always helpful to me, had some great resources there. I was good, but I was better because of the help that I had.$$Okay.$$You gotta give credit where credit is due, had some great people working with me.$$Well, are there any special moments from the Gospel Festival, you wanna share with us, 'cause you did this for--$$Twenty years.$$Twenty years, yeah.$$Twenty years, so many. It's so many. I could go back, I could go back to Mom and Pop Winans, sitting on the side of the stage, Mom and Pop Winans sitting there saying, "Now, that's what I like right there", and I think at that time, it was Doc McKenzie and the Highlights singing "I've Won". And they're sitting on the side of the stage. I can go back to Solomon Burke when we went to Millennium Park, and he was one of, he was one of the featured performers. And they laid the red carpet out for him, and he sat in throne chair, or whatever you call that big chair he sat in. And he sang and he sat back there and sang, and people loved him, but it wasn't until Rance Allen came on behind him that people went crazy.$$So they performed with him?$$No, they performed after him.$$After him, yeah.$$Uh-huh, with Destiny's Choir. I think his choir was one of those choirs that performed with him or with Solomon Burke. It's just so many highlights. I can go back to when we honored Andrae Crouch and how beautiful that time was. And then let me tell you about this wonderful experience, of sitting at a gospel supreme, Pastor Maceo Woods, Evening of Gospel Elegance and, at Christ Universal, and I look over at one of my board members. Actually, it was Pastor DeAndre Patterson, and I had a "Ah-hah Moment", like Oprah [Winfrey] would say, an "Ah-hah" moment. And I said, I wanna take elegance to Grant Park or to Millennium Park, downtown Chicago [Illinois]. And I just felt something from how he was doing what he was doing where I wanted to bring an evening of gospel elegance to the festival. And I met with Fred Nelson, one of our board members. He said, we can make this happen.$$Now, what characterizes an evening of gospel elegance?$$A gospel evening of elegance is when you dress up in your tux, in your long gowns, and you come out and you present yourself accordingly. And you add into that a stringed instrument like a violinist or an opera singer or a tenor singer as we added in one of those performances from Three Men--Cook, Dixon and Young.$$Yeah, the Three Mo' Tenors.$$Added Dixon in there. Oh, my God, you talking about a evening of elegance. He steps out in his tuxedo and sings in that baritone voice, and it rings throughout the park. Oh, my God, and we dressed up too. Nothing like it, nothing like it, and God blessed us to do this for the City of Chicago for over a dozen years or close to a dozen years, that particular segment on a Saturday evening in downtown Chicago. Just get up, get dressed and come on down to the park and feel special. And every group was great now. I can go from the Barrett Sisters. Let me tell you another important part of this was Pastor Archbishop Lucius Hall, one of our board members. Arch Bishop Lucius Hall walked into one of the board members, one board meeting and said, I'd like to work in this area. And he helped us recognizing living legends, people that never really had a chance to come down and be honored that were still performing. And you had to be now over a certain age now. You couldn't be fifty, couldn't be fifty-five. I'm not even sure if you were sixty, might have been over that. But he was over that segment and presented them--oh, I could just go on and on, the Caravans, all of them, the Caravans, Dr. Albertina Walker, Delores Washington Green, Shirley Caesar, Dorothy Norwood, oh, just--I could just go on and on.$$Shirley Caesar.$$Oh, my God, it was just, oh. Israel Houghton of, and New Breed, the Clark Sisters. Oh, the Winans, Take 6, I could just go on and on in telling you how we were blessed to bless many people with great music during our tenure for the City of Chicago. Yeah, wonderful.
