Like A Bird

Like A Bird

by Mark Green

The voice is sixty-one years old today. Those bell-like high notes are gone. The voice is a little heavier than it used to be, and perhaps a little huskier. That amazing flexibility is now absent. What was is no more, at least not to the same extent. But while it was there, it was amazing.

I feel sure that she was the crowning achievement of my father’s career in music. He oversaw the development of a voice that was as good as any that I ever knew personally. So, what did he do? Basically, nothing. She had a clear, easy, beautiful voice from childhood, and Daddy simply insisted that she keep it like it was – clear and easy. If it is right, then don’t monkey around with it. “Go up easy; don’t force it.” I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard him tell her that, or words to that effect.

The name today is Melissa Beauchamp. She lives in Memphis, where she raised five sons and now helps with a growing horde of grandchildren. Back then, however, she was a Green, the youngest child and only daughter of Logan and Roberta Green. All three of us boys sang relatively well, but none of us even approached the quality of her voice.

I will never forget the Miss BHS contest her sophomore year. She was a skinny little 15-year-old kid. She didn’t win it, of course. Sophomores just don’t win that contest; and besides, she was awkward and did not have any stage presence. But the talent portion of the competition was a blow-out. This little girl walked out on the stage and sang – with live accompaniment – and second place was not even in the same ballpark. There was a brief instant of stunned silence after she finished as the crowd digested the fact that this girl was in a class by herself, and then the applause told the story. She won Miss BHS the next year after she had learned to walk with a little gracefulness.

In case you did not know it, there is a competition in high school music circles for the All-State musical groups – choir, band, orchestra. As they compete to get into the groups, the students are ranked in order of their performance. In back-to-back years, Melissa was first chair. Little old Booneville had THE top high school soprano in the entire state, and that included Fort Smith Northside and Little Rock Central and Fayetteville and all those heavyweights.

It has been a while since I have been involved in high school music, but I can tell you that she could have gone to Julliard or Eastman or Berklee or any of the top music schools in the country and would have had the voice teachers falling all over themselves to get her into their program. She was that good.

But Melissa went to what is now UAFS, but then was Westark, a community college. The reason was that her father taught there, and so she got her tuition free. Plus, there were things more important in life to her than musical achievement – like getting married, and having five sons, and helping to take care of all those grandchildren.

The voice has now deteriorated somewhat due to age, but I am telling you that back then she could sing like a bird.