A Song for the World
There’s no contesting the fact that Steve, Paul, and Ralph Colwell and Herb Allen lived adventurous lives. As musicians, they toured in the farthest corners of the world, performing from the White House to the Super Bowl, from Watts to Carnegie Hall. Yet millions who have seen them know little or nothing of the astounding story of their lives.
The Colwells, city boys from San Marino, California, strummed and sung their way onto bluegrass and country stages at ages fourteen, twelve, and ten. They were picked up as performers by radio and TV stations in the Midwest and startled the “old boys” by winning the Renfro Valley Hillbilly Band Contest in Kentucky. Soon they were regulars on radio and TV programs in Southern California, and are said to have been the youngest trio under contract with a major label, Columbia Records.
Herb Allen was a child prodigy. He conducted the Seattle Baby Orchestra at age four, became an accomplished keyboard player and percussionist, and had his own dance band in high school. He was a student of classical piano and was accepted by the prestigious Oberlin School of Music.
After high school graduation, Allen launched into an adventure that would catapult him into the theaters of post-World War II Europe. He was young, the Colwell Brothers even younger, and the eyes of the world were on their generation. In the decade that followed, through an extraordinary mix of decision, courage, and commitment, the world became their stage.
The Colwells and Allen preceded the baby boomer generation by ten to twenty years. They were not old enough to fight in World War II and were too old to be drafted for the Vietnam War. (The fourth Colwell brother, Ted, eight years younger than Ralph, served in Vietnam.) Allen was called up during the Korean War, but received a deferment. Steve, Paul, Ralph, and Herb were part of the so-called “ quiet generation,” not expected to stir things up very much. As it turned out, they were anything but “quiet.”
In the ‘40s and ‘50s, they left careers, sweethearts, and family behind and set sail for the far corners of the world. Their adventures and experiences uniquely prepared them to ride the whirlwind of the 1960s.
Youth dominated the headlines of the sixties with marches, sit-ins, protests, and great new music. No one over thirty could be trusted. Traditions and mores that had bound society for centuries were shaking loose. American youth were gripped by a new idealism, much of it inspired by John Kennedy’s challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” This new idealism drew thousands of young people to take up the challenge of Modernizing America, the theme of mid-decade student leadership conferences at Michigan’s Mackinac Island where Up with People was born.
The Colwells and Allen arrived at the first Michigan conference in 1964 after working in Europe, Asia, and Africa for more than a decade. They had played and sung in areas of tension and crisis in dozens of countries. No one at the conference was aware of how much sweat, grit, fatigue, and sacrifice had gone into those globe-spanning years. This is the story of their roots, of the passion behind the birth of Up with People, and living proof of the power of music.
