In His love & blessings

Pat Bell
Madill, Ok.
580-263-0117

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

I was twenty-two years old and living in Central Ohio, working with a little group of singers of my own concoction which we had dubbed Soul Purpose. Our display of gigs included a handful of coffee houses, a couple of churches, youth rallies and one amazing performance with Andre Crouch and the Disciples at a college in our area, which I had gotten by convincing the Dean of Students that Andre was always late to dates and they would need a warm-up group just to cover that possibility.

Well, anyway, just to make a long story even longer, one of the girls in our group named Luanne, heard that the Singing Rambos were going to be in Columbus, Ohio at a large church. Now, the Rambos were a really famous gospel group of the 1970s and Dottie Rambo was, of course, arguably the greatest gospel songwriter of our time. Luanne was convinced that if Dottie could just hear the song I had written–The Blood of the Son Makes Us One–that she would want to record it. It was very similar logic to a mother sending a speech from her seventh grade student to the President of the United States, hoping he would incorporate some of the better ideas. But I was twenty-two–what did I know? So we trekked off to the concert, which was the easy part. That is, until it was over and Luanne wanted us to walk up to these well-known singers and plug our song. I should rephrase that. Luanne was already on her way up to them, dragging me along behind. We talked to the daughter first, who was named Reba. She was our age and we thought she might be more approachable. She began to give us the straight party line: “Send us a tape and we’ll listen to it…” and so forth and so on. About that time, her dad–Buck was his name–came up and I nervously explained to him what we wanted to do and that look came across his face that we all have seen before–that look that was a combination of, “Oh, what the heck?” and “After all, it could be good for laughs on the bus later…”

So we went over to the piano and sang the song for him, got done with the first verse and he disappeared. Honestly, I was expecting some form of rejection. But when he completely disappeared, I thought that was a little much. But a moment later he came back with his wife in tow. Yes. Ms. Dottie Rambo. He told us to sing it again. So we did and we were in the middle of the second chorus when I had to stop singing because I had tears in my eyes because I was looking at this great songwriter, Dottie Rambo, who was weeping over my composition–moved. She said, “I’ve been praying for a song just like that.” Then she quipped, “Go ahead. Play me some more.”

Well, that night I learned a very valuable lesson. Because I didn’t really have any more.

So I learned that if you’re going to show off your wares at the fruit market, it might be a good idea to have more than one tomato. Anyway, she went on to record my song on her album and opened many doors for me. I bring this up because most of you probably already know that recently she was killed in a tragic bus accident. She was seventy-four years old, driving in the back of a bus on her way from Missouri to Texas to perform. What a damned fitting, wonderful end for such a dynamic traveling troubadour.

So, Dottie, thank you for teaching me two very valuable lessons–the first one being that great people don’t need to act great and important because their work has already established who they are and they can take the chance on just being real. And secondly, if you want to sell something, it’s always good to have more than one.

Journey well, dear sister, and if you don’t mind, we’ll keep your tunes playing for many years to come.