AADL Talks To: Dianne Baker, Songwriter and Co-Author of "This Is The Town That Was," an Original Musical Written for Ann Arbor's Sesquicentennial in 1974

Mon, 08/05/2024 - 8:21am

When: July 15, 2024

In this episode, AADL Talks To Dianne Baker. Dianne is a prolific songwriter who began writing children’s songs in the 1960s after coming to the University of Michigan to attend nursing school. She has collaborated with teachers, educators, and health professionals and has been recognized nationally for her commitment to the therapeutic effects of music. Baker has performed at Hill Auditorium, the Power Center, the Art Fair, the Ark, and in countless public school classrooms, both solo and in tandem with other notable musicians such as Percy “Mr. Bones” Danforth. She is known for her songs about Michigan history and, in particular, for “This Is The Town That Was,” an original musical written with collaborator Carol Duffy Sheldon for Ann Arbor’s sesquicentennial celebration in 1974. Check out some of Dianne's sheet music and lyrics in the Dianne Baker Collection. 

Transcript

• [00:00:09] AMY CANTU: Hi, this is Amy.
• [00:00:11] HEIDI MORSE: This is Heidi. In this episode, AADL Talks To Diane Baker. Diane co-wrote "This Is The Town That Was" for Ann Arbor's Sesquicentennial in 1974. She's written and played music for schools, senior centers and has appeared at the Ark, the Power Center, Ann Arbor Art Fair, and Hill Auditorium. She talks about her career and her memories of working with songwriters and musicians, including Abbot Elementary music teacher, Joan May, and Percy Danforth, also known as "Mr. Bones." Diane, would you like to tell us where you were born and raised?
• [00:00:47] DIANNE BAKER: Yes. Flint, Michigan. I was there 'til '55 -- high school -- and we came to the University of Michigan School of Nursing.
• [00:00:56] AMY CANTU: So you were living in Ann Arbor, and did you teach yourself music?
• [00:01:01] DIANNE BAKER: So I sort of hinted to my husband...well, he got me a guitar.
• [00:01:06] AMY CANTU: He got you guitar.
• [00:01:09] DIANNE BAKER: Uh, huh. And I found a lady on TV that was teaching how to play guitar. That's how it started with the guitar. Then I started listening to some of those 45 kid records they were playing, and I thought, How trite. Even the words sounded weird. I thought, Maybe we can do better than that, I don't know. That's when we started and I think the very first one [song] was called "Wish I Had a Pet."
• [00:01:42] AMY CANTU: That was the first song that you wrote?
• [00:01:44] DIANNE BAKER: That's my first one. I've had thousands, probably, of verses, because what they do is rhyming, which kids love. A lot of people have used them in the car. And so there were some schools, I did a lot of schools here -- elementary schools -- with that song, but also across Michigan. We'd get kids to get the idea that they could write their own idea and then make it a whole verse for themselves. One of the things I tried to do is using music with reading. And Dr. Sheila Fitzgerald from Michigan State University is well known -- I'm sad to say, she died this February -- but she was even I think the president or whatever of the National Organization of Teachers for teaching how to read. What her research had done, for a long time, was that music is really amazing, to feel the rhythms and to have to write down with the song. It was amazing to kids that were having trouble reading. I think some teachers started doing that, too. I think, you know, they'd find out what their famous song was, which sometimes it was Wish I Had a Pet. They knew the song and to say the words with it. Then she called it a discovery method and she used it all the time. We hadn't met, and when we did meet, she had found all these songs that I've been doing for years. She was very excited about it. She invited me to a couple of big conferences and so that was amazing, too. That was fun. One special thing I was going to tell you was -- an example of what one can do -- is we did it at one school. Teachers had everybody write one. Then they decided who was going to be their person to come up on stage with me. You're talking 600 kids out there! You have the whole elementary school. We were going on, and we got almost to the end, and this little boy came up and I started to read it -- and I can't remember what he had, but "Wish I Had a Pet" whatever he was saying -- and then he just froze. And I thought, Oh, that's okay, no big deal. You know what? They want to hear what it is and then they're going to sing it. So you're not the only one that has to sing it. You know, something like that. I said, "I'll get my guitar, too. I'll be with you, and you can sing." He got it out and at first, he was a little stuttering as far as reading all this. Then he got the feel of it and he went right through it. Then the whole group did his verse -- and I mean that kid's verse. Oh my gosh, his smile was bigger than his face. I find out later that he had just come -- this is November, and he'd been in his school since, I think he just got there about that time about September; remember now it was November -- but he came into the room. He was new. He didn't know anybody. And he would not talk. He would not do anything in school. He wouldn't even say his name. He wouldn't do anything. The main reason is that his mom and dad were getting a divorce. And he was just, ya know... After this, he went back into his room and he started doing everything with them, and the mom wrote a little note and said, "You have no idea. You have no idea what you did." You think about it, that's a lot of pressure, and yet just the strumming of the music when it happened... So there's a lot of things like that in the hospital, too.
• [00:06:36] AMY CANTU: Were you mostly interested in working with elementary school kids at that time? Was that your primary...
• [00:06:42] DIANNE BAKER: Well, I think that probably was, only because that's what the songs were at that time. It was going pretty good. I started at Abbot School, and the kids were all there. One of the very first, besides "Wish I Had a Pet" is "Mr. Frog." "Sitting on a lily pad, you just think you're smart!" Because I was a nurse, I went to a lot of the special ed classes, and some of the kids had a lot of problems. But you know, they really get into that, "You just think you're smart!" Taking the words of... And at that time we had we had a CD, which now I'm gonna have to do other things with. I might as well tell you who the person is in Abbot because she was amazing. Her name is Joan May, and she was just amazing with those kids, with the music. We had all kinds of other songs. What I was doing with the teachers, lots of times, was seeing what subjects they were doing, and what objectives they were trying to do, and then we'd try to fit in. And sometimes when there wasn't one, we made up one. Anyway, she said, "You have something going here. These songs are amazing. They're also songs that the kids like." She said, "You need to go over to the University of Michigan and talk to Dean Trout because he's head of the child music over there." I thought, Okay, so I took my guitar and my frog, and whatever. You know, you're talking to somebody that had one year of piano and the lady on the TV with a guitar. And these guys are all theory and everything in the back when you have to know all this stuff before you go writing any songs. But anyway, so I did that song, and he said, "Can I excuse you for a minute?" I thought, What? What's going on? I thought, If there was a hole in the middle of this room, I'd be in there. And he didn't explain at all. He just, "Can I leave?" I thought, Well, how long do I wait before I pick up my own guitar and go out someplace...? Anyway, cuz it was a little bit and he came in, and he had about six people with him. He went up and down the lane there and picked all his people that he's worked for in that department. So they all came in and heard it and everything. That was really the big thrill. I mean, Joan got me in there because once you get that kind of a... Because you know, you always wonder, you know: It's a fun song. Kids like it. But he just said, for him it was amazing, as Joan thought, too. Anyway, that was a [NOISE]. And I got Joan in a lot of trouble after that. We had musicals together. We did "This Is The Town That Was" for Ann Arbor, and on and on.
• [00:10:26] HEIDI MORSE: I was going to ask what kind of collaborations came out of that moment, and you started to fill that in. So, what was your role at this point? Speaking as someone who just wants to learn about it. Was it unofficial collaboration, were you just volunteering your time?
• [00:10:44] DIANNE BAKER: Well, I think it was just to continue the songs and see what comes of it. I mean, the ones that he knew and thought were very well, so I kept going on different songs. And then we even got into the recording -- Solid Sound? You know where they are?
• [00:11:04] AMY CANTU: Yeah, yeah. That's right.
• [00:11:06] DIANNE BAKER: Those guys were so great at helping me with them.
• [00:11:08] AMY CANTU: How many songs did you write and record? Do you know?
• [00:11:12] DIANNE BAKER: Hundreds.
• [00:11:13] AMY CANTU: Hundreds. You got interested in Michigan history. How did that start and why?
• [00:11:21] DIANNE BAKER: Well, it was started with the teachers because they have... Third grade is "the city." We did the things for Ann Arbor. Then I think the fourth [grade] was supposed to be the times that they worked on the history of Michigan. I really was interested in it anyway. I have grandparents that have an 1866 house up in Pentwater, and my dad was in World War I and I heard him talking a lot about things. That was really neat. A lot of other elementary schools quickly would know what I was working on, so they'd try it out, too.
• [00:12:07] AMY CANTU: Can you talk specifically now about the sesquicentennial -- "The Town That Was" -- and the work that you did in collaboration...
• [00:12:17] DIANNE BAKER: Yeah, that was kind of a miracle.
• [00:12:18] AMY CANTU: Yeah, tell us all about that.
• [00:12:21] DIANNE BAKER: Well, we just got it started -- the Sesquicentennial -- to see if we could do something. And Joan was really good. Not too many of the school music educators take the time to do a musical. So "This Is The Town That Was" -- and Carol Duffy, I think she's Sheldon now -- she's amazing. She is so great at doing the script. So she did all that and then I wrote the songs. It was amazing. One of the main people that we had was Wystan Stevens. Oh, man.
• [00:13:06] AMY CANTU: What did he do? Tell us about it.
• [00:13:07] DIANNE BAKER: He's gone too. Well, he had Ann Arbor history in his head all the time, probably. But he had done so much research. So anytime we got to anything about the history, we talked to him before we put it in the script. He knew all the dates and everything about some of the new businesses that started and how the streets were named. It was amazing. What a good feeling for us when you're writing out all those things that you know it's gonna be right. Then we worked on some of the other things. I think they did the "March through Michigan" too. But then they did like -- part of those verses were done from the school teacher to the classroom. That was a way to put it right into the schools. Then we had one [song] about the Native Indians. At that time, there were some Indians that were working at the administration -- I think we were trying to do more culture -- so it was really good because I just knew, I'm not an Indian, so I didn't know if I was going to start with the beat of the music and everything. They listened to it and picked up at least the music or the rhythms. One of the other songs -- you all have to hear these because they're really funny -- How... Do you know how these streets were named?
• [00:14:54] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
• [00:14:55] DIANNE BAKER: You know that, probably.
• [00:14:56] AMY CANTU: I know the song, but I don't know all the answers. [LAUGHING]
• [00:15:00] Dianne Baker: Well, anyway, they [founders Elisha Rumsey and John Allen] decided between them how they were going to figure out the names for all these [streets]. I think Alan started first, I think he did and he said -- no, it's the other way around -- Rumsey, he said, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then when Alan starts up, he was taking so long, "Come on, Alan, let's get this all together. We don't have time to mess around!" And that's a song, actually. Alan says, "Well, you'll have to give me time. I have lots of things to think about this. These names are going to be seen for a long time." They went back and forth. Every time they came back to Rumsey, it was, "Come on, Alan. It's easy. First, second, third, fourth, fifth" and then he would go through why he decided on Liberty. But anyway, so the kids were interested, too, and I think that the parents got into it, too. Because nobody really knew where those names came from.
• [00:16:15] HEIDI MORSE: Well, what a powerful moment for kids to see. Well, these are the street names right in front of me, and to link that to history. That's really great. How did it feel to see that musical you worked on performed at Hill Auditorium?
• [00:16:30] Dianne Baker: That was amazing. We first did it at Abbot, and they did a great job, oh my gosh. They decided that the ending of the whole thing was going to be something at Hill Auditorium. I had, I think, three or maybe four elementary schools work with Joan and they brought in people, too. But Abbot was kind of the status, ya know? In fact, by the time they did it, the kids that were in some of the Abbot ones were now in junior high school. They brought them back in and even put their name in...and they came in. They worked so hard and it's such a huge, big rehearsal when you have 300 elementary kids on the stage, guys! They had Alan, and Rumsey was the judge... And the other one was Bill Richardson, who was an attorney. They came on as if they were... "What's going on here?" They said that they were coming back to Ann Arbor because they knew it was 150 years. The kids are asking, and they start talking, and in the kids, of course, you have a costumed Alan and a costumed Rumsey, and those kids are good, too. They went back and forth with that, and then we went all the way through the whole thing. The song they liked probably the best is, "Ann Arbor, We Will Sing You a Song". "Come on, everybody, sing along. No matter where you might wander you, you're never where you... Ann Arbor is my home." Yes. I've even had... Last year, somebody -- Al Smith -- wrote me; he's in music in California -- and he just said, oh he remembers all that time and how much he learned from Joan and the two of us together. That was something. He was just saying...he said, "I love that song." He said, "My mom and dad are gone. I really don't have anybody in Ann Arbor anymore." He said, "I love to sing that song." Isn't that...?
• [00:18:57] AMY CANTU: Yeah, that's great. Because kids -- they not only remember the history, but you can't forget the music.
• [00:19:03] DIANNE BAKER: That's right.
• [00:19:03] AMY CANTU: You also played at the Art Fair, or they played at the Art... They did a performance...?
• [00:19:09] Dianne Baker: Yeah, the big title... Well, I have to tell you about just the ending of that one, cause we did that song ["Ann Arbor, We Will Sing You A Song"], and then we had everybody. It was filled, the first row, anyway. I was about thousands of well, parents, of course. Then the U-M Glee [club] did some things afterwards, so they were all there. But they all so they had them sing it with everybody. The recording we have is really fun to hear. Then we went to... What were you saying...?
• [00:19:46] AMY CANTU: The Art Fair?
• [00:19:47] Dianne Baker: Art Fair. That was that summer. They had it all set up and everybody came down with all the costumes and everything. We had to take it down. It was not the whole hour, but it was good. It was fun, too, wasn't it? A lot of people really came up and were excited about seeing the kids doing that. I think anytime you do a musical like that, it's just -- like you were saying -- putting music with all that history, it brings it alive. Everybody just had such a good time with it.
• [00:20:23] AMY CANTU: I'd like to ask you a little bit about working with Percy Danforth. Can you talk a little bit about "Mr. Bones"? Yeah. Tell us about working with them.
• [00:20:32] DIANNE BAKER: He's so good. Well, that's "Mr. Bones." He plays the Bones.
• [00:20:39] AMY CANTU: Oh, my gosh.
• [00:20:45] DIANNE BAKER: He was really fun about it because he was teaching us all. He said it came from, just bones. The first time, he said, all these guys were just sitting around and having something to eat and having to... And he said, they had ribs and he said, but after somebody did a dance or did a song. Then they had to put their stuff down and clap. He said that wasn't working. So then they started to take the ribs, and then leave them out in the sun and get them all smooth. They started to use these things and go. [PLAYS BONES].
• [00:21:34] DIANNE BAKER: That's not too bad. It's all right though. I'm sorry. He's going to tell me something. "You need to work on that, Diane." He would always say, "Don't just rattle those things, play those bones." He was in his '90s, I think, when he died, but he was following me, and, like you said, at the Ark... I think the Ann Arbor News put it, "Baker and Bones." I thought, People aren't going to know what the heck that's all about. But it was good, maybe. He was there with me, and we did some of the songs from the lumbering musical. So I have a whole musical about...and the title was T-I-M-B-E-R! That's a wonderful history for the kids and he always would do this. We would bring some of the kids who would want to try it. I think we had as much time there as I would do as if we were at the school, but he would teach them how to do it. Boy, if they got it. One image in my head is going to one school, and they said, "Miss Baker, we got something to show you." I said, "Oh, really?" "Look where the windowsill. Lookit, lookit!" They all had brought in rib bones and had put them by the [LAUGHTER] window and they got them cleaned up and everything so they could use them.
• [00:23:12] AMY CANTU: Oh, that's great.
• [00:23:14] DIANNE BAKER: But he is really just amazing. He'd go along with my music and health part of it. I went to see him a few times at the end when he was up at the hospital one time. I came in and I heard he was just really having a hard time and some of the meds came out. I think there was some med students and some other men -- they do their little rounds. I shouldn't say little because it's usually not little -- over at the University of Michigan. There was a pretty group around his bed. So all of a sudden, under his pillow or something, he brought his things out and he started going and when he does it -- you've seen that video?
• [00:24:10] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
• [00:24:10] DIANNE BAKER: Then he does it with one rhythm here and another rhythm going here. [PLAYS BONES].
• [00:24:16] AMY CANTU: That's great.
• [00:24:17] DIANNE BAKER: He's done it with bands and orchestras and everything. Anyway, he started it, and it was a little bit hard to get him going, but once he did... And one of the doctors said, "Diane, if you could see his X-rays, you would never believe what you're seeing right now."
• [00:24:38] AMY CANTU: Oh, wow.
• [00:24:39] DIANNE BAKER: Because he had a really bad back. It was awful. He said, There's no way that he could do that. But he did. They say music is powerful, especially when he is playing the bones because he loved it so much.
• [00:25:00] DAVID BAKER: You wrote a song about him.
• [00:25:02] DIANNE BAKER: Oh yeah, there we go.
• [00:25:03] AMY CANTU: This is a song that you wrote about him?
• [00:25:05] DIANNE BAKER: Yeah. It was really fun. Starts a little -- just a song -- a little part about his his name and everything. Then they say, "Play those bones, Mr. Bones, Mr. Bones. Play those bones. Clap our hands. Play those bones, Mr. Bones, Mr. Bones." Then you go. He just had so much fun, and it's kind of an easy song. There's not much to it. But the kids all loved it, too. Then he would teach and when I went to other stores...I'd already crossed Michigan... and he would get about four or five kids would come in with him, and he was so patient. He's a teacher himself. In fact, he said he did the first open classroom. Remember, where you could have all different people doing at the same time? And he said he was the first who did it. I don't know if he meant here in Ann Arbor or if he meant the state or... But anyway, he was really patient with them and you have to tell him exactly how they do it. We'd have something going on with the kids or with my senior centers, and he'd come and back it up and they were so much fun.
• [00:26:36] AMY CANTU: Now, did you and he practice much, or did you just play a rhythm on your guitar and he would just play the bones right along?
• [00:26:45] DIANNE BAKER: Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. It didn't matter. He did it with huge bands. He did it with orchestras. One of the times he would be at Hill Auditorium was when they do their Halloween thing and so he was doing the bones with that and everybody got a kick out of it. The people, I think, in the drum part of the band were really excited because they got to try something different...
• [00:27:15] HEIDI MORSE: What are some of your other really memorable collaborations? Who did you work with in Ann Arbor?
• [00:27:20] DIANNE BAKER: In Ann Arbor? I'm just so blessed because there are so many people when we'd write up something, like the Timber! and the whole museum... Or the time we did it for "Ye Bloody Rebels" with the Pioneer [high school]. That was a major 2 and a half [hour] musical. They would do all the arrangements for everything and then there were people that just were there to help with just everything else you need to do. Then there was a lot of the music teachers, I think, would really work with me a lot more than others, It depends on what they were... They'd see what Joan does sometimes in the musical. There's several people from the hospital that were there to help.
• [00:28:18] AMY CANTU: You did some nursing home and hospital work as well?
• [00:28:21] DIANNE BAKER: Yeah. I actually was a manager, I guess is what they called me. Director, I guess. It was called Domino's House at first because he gave them... And then it was I think maybe they called it Northeast. They said they set it up, and they decided that they wanted a nurse to be director of their senior center because they wanted to do some things that they can help people with their health. It's just an amazing place because we had such good people behind us. You know, he was giving out some good money to set it up. You might want to know that there was a little music in that senior center. We had a chorus and one time we did one on the stage at...
• [00:29:20] AMY CANTU: Power Center?
• [00:29:21] DIANNE BAKER: Power Center, thank you. They had a group of my group, the Chorus and then we had the Ann Arbor Youth Chorus.
• [00:29:34] DIANNE BAKER: The time that I was, for Midwest -- it was during the Midwestern conference -- the seniors did some of my songs and they were connected up with the band that was called the Get It Altogether Band. We had two or three songs, we did it together with the chorus and the seniors. Then sometimes they did different ones. The one that they liked the best from the Senior Center was called "We Got Style." "We don't have the figure that we used to have but we got a style." Anyway, that was amazing. You have an audience of 200, 300 music teachers. They were so great as an audience. Do you know Al Slote? I think he had over 10 books. The kids all loved him. We took "My Robot Buddy" and made it into a musical. The funny thing is, I'd asked him about all the books, and then I said, "Now, some of the kids, mainly some of the girls, are wondering why all your stories are about guys." He said, "Well, I tried to write some of those." He said, "But it just didn't work." He was really grand to work with, too.
• [00:31:10] HEIDI MORSE: Could you tell us about your involvement with the International Year of the Child?
• [00:31:15] DIANNE BAKER: I can't remember what the date was, but it was International.
• [00:31:20] HEIDI MORSE: Was it in the '70s?
• [00:31:22] DIANNE BAKER: I think it was.
• [00:31:23] HEIDI MORSE: The '70 maybe?
• [00:31:24] DORI WILLIAMS: They did a presentation at halftime during the football game.
• [00:31:31] DIANNE BAKER: Let's see, what's the name of it? "Children of the World, Join In" That was it. Internationally, they were looking at all these songs that they could use, and of course, we did the signing with it. And we did it at the good old stadium.
• [00:31:51] AMY CANTU: The Michigan Stadium?
• [00:31:51] Dianne Baker: With the Michigan Band. The only problem, we found out that nobody could hear the kids if they used the whole band. So they had to take some of the band away so they could do it. But the kids were so excited. I think they used white gloves or something, didn't they? So that you could see that... Oh, my gosh, they just had such a good time. Then I did a big meeting that they had in Detroit, and they had one at Rackham here for educational people to learn more about this "Children of the World." I got some nice notes back from them too, but it was really nice feeling because there were lots of people in the whole world that were putting in things, so...
• [00:32:44] DORI WILLIAMS: Just a little side note: It's like she became this resource for music and health so she would get these -- even celebrities -- calling her, like Randy Travis and the drummer to the Grateful Dead. Her name was known and associated with music and health. They were interested in that and they would contact her. That was really interesting.
• [00:33:07] AMY CANTU: That's fascinating.
• [00:33:10] HEIDI MORSE: Seems like a through line was really being able to meet people where they're at, whether they're learning something in school or they're having a health challenge. It's really inspiring. Do you want to tell us what you're most proud of in your life?
• [00:33:23] DIANNE BAKER: Oh, boy, to get all the school of nursing -- what I learned there -- and then taking in, like you said, everybody I met. I just went like this with all the ones that had done so much research on music. It just... Then you get to that point and then all of a sudden you see that it grows. And one of the major things I'm working on to see the end of it, is called "Red, White and Blue Flying Proud Flying High" and that's some patriotic march. We did it, I think the first time, in the '70s, and it's been redone from some of my friends here in Ann Arbor. My dad was a World War I veteran, and he really inspired that feeling of patriotic... We had two kinds of music at home. They had a little tiny notebook that they gave to every soldier, and some of them are really good and a variety. Then some were like, "Over there, over there."
• [00:34:33] HEIDI MORSE: Sure.
• [00:34:35] DIANNE BAKER: He would be singing those when he could. One of the main times we heard him singing was when we drove from Flint to Pentwater, and it's about 200 miles, and it took us eight hours. We had little people in there, we had three kids and a dog, and sometimes my grandma and the dog. We also did singing while he was driving. We did a lot of those from there. But anyway, hoping the World War I monument was supposed to be in General Pershing Square, it's called in there. It's called the "Soldiers' Journey." Anyway, with all the patriotic songs, he was really my key inspiration for the song. They decided that, about three years they've been going to talk to the United States Army Band. So I've been talking to them and they looked it over and they were going to do it one summer and I don't know what happened. The people that were doing it retired. Now it's going to set up that when they get the monument to put in the square, they are going to play "Red, White, and Blue." Yeah, Pioneer did a good job too. The other time that we did it -- the first time that a military band did it -- was in Grand Haven. They did it right out on... You'd see that lake out here. It was an amazing day, the sun was coming down. That whole military band playing this song that I wrote on a guitar. Come on, what is going on here? The friends that were with me, they couldn't believe it either, But I just almost had bumps going on my -- I couldn't figure it out, ya know?
• [00:36:47] AMY CANTU: It doesn't get better than that.
• [00:36:49] DIANNE BAKER: Couldn't get better than that. So, I might not be rich, but I'm feeling a lot...
• [00:36:56] AMY CANTU: That was great, Diane. Thank you for sharing all of your stories with us.
• [00:36:59] DIANNE BAKER: Well, you're welcome.
• [00:37:00] AMY CANTU: AADL Talks To is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.