the music man

Let's see, you were going to create a successful disc jockey?

You'll need three parts quick intelligence and two parts pleasing voice - in other words a voice that neither lulls you to sleep or drives you up the wall. You'll want four parts pleasing personality, neither bland nor outrageous, one you can comfortably spend hours a day with.

Oh and, of course, two parts each fascination with audio and a love of music.

Anything else?

Eyesight?

No, or course not. That's optional at most. In fact, it's nearly impossible to imagine Monte "The Music Man" Sieberns as good as he is had he been gifted with sight.

Totally blind from shortly after birth, Sieberns holds down the noon to 5 p.m. slot at Oldies 106 in Wabash. He started as a fill-in in August 2006, then went full-time in April. Before that, he worked at a radio station in Huntington, where he was born, raised and still lives.

And before that ... well, to a degree he's been a disc jockey all his life.

Born prematurely 37 years ago at 2 pounds, 13 ounces, Sieberns (the name of his adoptive parents, Pat and Tom) had his retinas destroyed in the incubator.

"As a young child, I had a fascination with audio; not every blind person does, but I did," he said. "Records, record players, turntables and the like. They fascinated me."

From that he moved into the real love of his life - music: "Music is my lifetime sweetheart because it's pulled me through a lot of things in my life."

Among the things it lifted him from were the sometime tedious years at the Indiana School for the Blind in Indianapolis. He spent some longs Sunday and Friday afternoons on the bus - Sunday en route to the school, Fridays en route back to Huntington.

Through the years Sieberns had so may quasi-disc jockey gigs it's hard to pinpoint precisely his first job. At age 8 he was thrilled to get "some mike time" at a skating rink in Huntington. A little later he was earning a little money doing the music at hog roasts for his dad.

"I took the money I earned and put it into records, new hits. That's how it all started."

He even can boast of once working for "peanuts." One of his earliest jobs was editing the audio program for a Christmas pageant - for which he was given a nice jar of dry roasted peanuts.

In more ambitious times he took as part compensation for his work hundreds of reel-to-reel tapes, tapes a radio station was wanting to dispose of but which he erased and reused.

By age 15 or 16 he was disc jockeying at service organizations in the Huntington area, such as The Moose Lodge.

Like most who've achieved a degree of success, Sieberns is what luck and work made him. The good radio voice was clearly a gift.

His adoptive parents, who still live in Huntington, ARE his parents and the only time he wonders about his biological parents is in jest, "Am I Casey Kasem's love child or something?" (Sieberns himself has two children, ages 11 and 6.)

And he's satisfied he decided not to try extensive "schtick" with his voice to be "cute."

"I'd like to think my show would be rated R - for Real: "I can make fun of myself. I have no problem talking about blunders on the air. It's who I am."

And, as noted, at the core of his presentation is a genuine love of music, particularly music from the 1940s on. Good music, he knows, is good music, and he has no problem following a Theresa Brewer song with one from a much later era.

Aided by a Braille machine that allows him to punch out and "read" notes to himself as well as commercials and promos, Sieberns makes it all work at Oldies 106 - for himself and his listeners.

And if someday he is called to a larger market? OK.
LAS CRUCES He was born before New Mexico was a state, arrived in Las Cruces to a job in a university music department as rough as the dirt road that was Main Street and outlasted even the music facility named after him in retirement.

Professor Emeritus Carl Jacobs, "the music man of Las Cruces" and namesake of Carl Jacobs Hall on the New Mexico State University campus, died Friday morning. He was 97.

Jacobs is survived by a daughter, Maryce Jacobs, and a son, Kent Jacobs.

Kent Jacobs said his father, a singer, trombone player and pianist, came to what was then New Mexico A&M at a time when "there was essentially no music program." Within the decade, Jacobs had started choirs in the public schools and granted Gov. Clyde Tingley's wish for an official, 50-person state band. In addition to his 43 years as a faculty member at New Mexico State University, Jacobs helped found musical and concert associations and festivals including the All-State Music Festival.

While the Jacobs household was musical wife Mercedes was also a singer there was never any pressure on the Jacobs children to follow in their parents' footsteps.

"He said, "I want you to enjoy it, don't be it,'" Kent Jacobs recalled. "Then you don't go through

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the agonies; you enjoy the fruits of someone else's work.'"
And there were plenty of students to inspire outside the home.

The Rev. Jeanne Lutz says her private voice lessons with Jacobs in the 1970s gave her not only instruction, but also some much-needed confidence and kindness, balancing instruction with inspiration.

"He was a small man and I remember just listening to his speaking voice," she said, "and I thought, "what a wonderful singer he must have been.'"

Lutz said sometimes, while she sang, her teacher would close his eyes to listen.

"You just wanted to sing well, so that he could enjoy it. It was a rare thing," she said.

Jacobs maintained an open-door policy for students and music, from Mozart to Louis Armstrong, even teaching a course called "Barrelhouse to Bop." His friendships in the musical world brought world-renowned composers including Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud and Howard Hanson to Las Cruces.

"There was no money to bring in critically acclaimed people and he managed to do it through these friendships," Kent Jacobs recalled.

Though his father lived nearly a century, he said neither he nor his sister were prepared to lose the father of whom they were so proud.

"I was surprised at my own response, I really was," he said. "My sister said the same thing. We were both just thinking that he had been a grand man and we couldn't have asked for much more."
The Music Man
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This article is about the stage musical. For the film adaptation, see The Music Man (1962 film). For other uses, see Music Man.

The Music Man

Original Broadway Poster
Music Meredith Willson
Lyrics Meredith Willson
Book Meredith Willson
Productions 1957 Broadway
1980 Broadway revival

2000 Broadway revival

Awards Tony Award for Best Musical
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson. The show is based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway and spawned revivals and a popular film. It is still frequently produced by both professional and amateur theatre companies.

Contents
1 Background and productions
2 Synopsis
3 Song list
4 Characters
5 Awards and nominations
6 Trivia
7 Pop culture
8 Notes and references
9 External links

[edit] Background and productions
After years of development, a change of producers, and more than forty drafts, the original Broadway production, directed by Morton DaCosta and choreographed by Onna White, opened on December 19, 1957, at the Majestic Theatre. There it remained for nearly three years before transferring to The Broadway Theatre to complete its 1,375-performance run. The original cast included Robert Preston (who went on to reprise his role in the 1962 screen adaptation) as Harold Hill, Barbara Cook as Marian, and Eddie Hodges as Winthrop, with Pert Kelton, David Burns and Iggie Wolfington in supporting roles. Eddie Albert replaced Preston later in the run.

The original cast recording was released on January 20, 1958 and held the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for twelve weeks, remaining on the charts for a total of 245 weeks.[1]

After eight previews, the first Broadway revival, directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd, opened on June 5, 1980, at the New York City Center, where it ran for 21 performances. The cast included Dick Van Dyke as Hill, Meg Bussert as Marian, and Christian Slater as Winthrop.

After twenty-two previews, the second Broadway revival, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, opened on April 27, 2000 at the Neil Simon Theatre, where it ran for 699 performances. The cast included Craig Bierko (making his Broadway debut) as Hill and Rebecca Luker as Marian. Robert Sean Leonard and Eric McCormack portrayed Hill later in the run.

The success of the 2000 revival prompted a 2003 television movie starring Matthew Broderick as Hill and Kristin Chenoweth as Marian, with Victor Garber, Debra Monk, and Molly Shannon in supporting roles.

[edit] Synopsis
"Professor" Harold Hill is a con man whose scam is to convince parents he can teach their musically-disinclined children to play musical instruments. Taking pre-paid orders for instruments and uniforms with the promise he will form a band, he skips town and moves on to the next one before he's exposed. Arriving in fictional 1912 River City, Iowa, Hill finds his modus operandus compromised when he becomes attracted to a local librarian, Marian Paroo, who recognizes him for the fraud he is. Nevertheless, she falls in love with the smooth-talking charmer when he draws her self-conscious, lisping brother Winthrop from his shell. When Hill's scheme begins to unravel, he is faced with the choice of escaping yet again or staying with Marian and facing the consequences. He chooses to stay, and is rewarded with unanticipated redemption: uncritical parents marvel and cheer as Hill's newly organized Boy's Band performs.

[edit] Song list
Act I
Rock Island
Iowa Stubborn
Trouble
Piano Lesson
Goodnight, My Someone
Seventy-Six Trombones
Sincere
The Sadder-But-Wiser Girl
Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little
Goodnight Ladies
Marian The Librarian
My White Knight
The Wells Fargo Wagon
Act II
It's You
Shipoopi
Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little (Reprise)
Lida Rose
Will I Ever Tell You?
Gary, Indiana
It's You (Reprise)
Till There Was You
Seventy-Six Trombones/Goodnight, My Someone (Reprise)
Till There Was You (Reprise)
Finale

Dick Van Dyke on the 1980 Playbill

"Lida Rose" and "Will I Ever Tell You," sung first separately and then simultaneously, are among the rare examples of Broadway counterpoint--songs with separate lyrics and separate melodies that harmonize and are designed to be sung together. Willson's counterpoint, along with two counterpoint song pairs from Irving Berlin musicals, are lampooned in the 1959 musical Little Mary Sunshine. It combines three counterpoint songs: "Playing Croquet," "Swinging," and "How Do You Do?"

[edit] Characters
Prof. Harold Hill (a con man)
Marian Paroo (a librarian)
Winthrop Paroo (Marian's lisping younger brother)
Mrs. Paroo (Marian's Irish mother)
Mayor Shinn (a blustery politician)
Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (his wife)
The Barbershop Quartet (four bickering school board members, Jacey Squires, Ewart Dunlop, Olin Britt, Oliver Hix)
Pickalittle Ladies (Eulalie's four gossipy friends, Alma Hix, Mrs. Squires, Ethel Toffelmier, Maud Dunlop)
Marcellus Washburn (Harold's friend, now retired from the con-man game)
Others: Amaryllis (Marian's young piano student), Tommy Djilas (a young man "from the wrong side of town"), Zaneeta and Gracie Shinn (the mayor's eldest and youngest daughters), Charlie Cowell (a rival salesman and the play's antagonist), and Constable Locke

[edit] Awards and nominations

"I'll take the train wherever it leads."

Actually, he has a dream in mind - a radio station that has no worry about "format," a radio station that just plays good music because it's good music.