Five Browns - American Story with Bob Dotson
Posted: Thursday, October 04, 2007 7:30 AM by Jaclyn Levin
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American Story with Bob Dotson
(From Bob Dotson, NBC News National Correspondent)
Music is the soundtrack of our lives. Listen to a few long forgotten notes. Chances are you can remember why you love them. Where you were when you first heard them. I remember the group featured in this morning’s American Story with Bob Dotson, when they were just kids. Thinking, “No one explores the limits of the piano like the Five Browns.” Ten hands. Fifty fingers. Five pianos. Sometimes these brothers and sisters play so fast, listening to them is like trying to read a magazine with a four year old turning the pages. In quieter moments they can make five pianos sound like a lover's voice, calling new audiences to see them. WATCH VIDEO
I often do stories about big families linked by love and music. WATCH VIDEO The only thing "big" about Boggy Depot, Oklahoma, was the Sullivan family. Eight kids. They are big today in another way. Tim is a successful country singer. His sister, Heather, writes songs that play on TV. Her sister, Stacy, has a recording career. And big sister, K.T., is a world-class cabaret singer. The four others sing, too – a doctor, rancher, car dealer and entrepreneur. Their mom, Betty, wrote songs for them all their lives and when she turned 70 went to college to learn how to orchestrate the lyrics. On Betty's 75th birthday, her kids wanted to do something special. Sing mom's songs -- in concert -- at Carnegie Hall.
"Do, a deer, a female deer..."
More than 10-thousand school kids still perform the Sound of Music every year, but four don't have to learn the words. Their grandfather lived them. Werner Von Trapp, called “Kurt,” in the movie is one of the real life sons of that storybook family. His grand kids – Sophie, Amanda, Melly and Justin -- decided to cheer him up with a few songs, after he suffered a stroke. Their singing enchanted the entire family.
Their great grandmother, Maria … you remember the feisty governess who married the salty sea captain and transformed his motherless children into on the most famous singing groups in the world? Yes, the one, Julie Andrews played in the Sound of Music … Maria insisted, "They have better voices than we had."
So good, they are the first group of the Von Trapp Family singers to go on tour in 50 years.
"Girls in white dresses and blue satin sashes..."
Sofie wears Maria's old costume and tells a different story of what happened to the family than the movie version.
"They refused two times to sing Hitler happy birthday. And so, the butler told them they had to get out of Austria because the Nazis were sending troops to send them to a concentration camp."
The Von Trapp’s fled, not over the Alps, but by train, arriving in America with $4-dollars. Maria was pregnant with their 10th child. The family was forced to rely on singing to make a living, even though they did not know a word of English.
This new generation includes "Old Kentucky Home" in every concert as a tribute to the original Von Trapp singers. It was the first song they learned in their new language.
The family's musical traditions on these shores began a long time before 'The Sound of Music.' Back in 1839, some of their ancestors came to this country to introduce a Christmas classic. They were the first in America to sing 'Silent Night.
These are not showbiz kids. Their father, Stefan, is a stonemason in Montana. They've been home schooled and do not see a life on the road forever. But music will always be a constant in their life. A way to honor grandparents -- who managed to find the good things in life, when good was not always around.
Keep those ideas coming. Drop a note in my mailbox on the Today Show webpage, American Story with Bob Dotson.
Want to learn more about the Five Browns? Here’s a link to their website:
www.the5browns.com
