An interview with Fred Bock

How did the California move actually come  about — with you being a college-age person and wanting to move over 2,000 miles?

My aunt had traveled out here and had attended Hollywood Presbyterian church. The church choir had just made a new album with RCA, and she bought one for me. On the back of the record jacket was Dr. Charles Hirt as director of the church choir, who was also the head of the church music department at USC. Hmm, I thought. Here’s a school that not only has a church music department, but also has as its chairman, the choir director of a leading evangelical church. It was definitely the back of that record jacket that guided me to Southern California. From that moment on, I knew I would go on to further education at the University of Southern California. I then sent my application and did not hear back from them. All through the summer, people would ask, “What are you doing this fall?” and I’d say that I was going to the University of Southern California; “I haven’t been accepted yet, but...” Then the Friday before Labor Day my dad sat me down and asked, “Uh, what REALLY are you going to be doing this fall, Fred?” I thought then that I’d better find out what had happened to my application. I called Dr. Hirt’s secretary to hear her say, “Well, Mr. Bock, that’s very strange. I’ll have Dr. Hirt call you. He’s out of town for the weekend.” It wasn’t two hours before Hirt calls to tell me that I had been accepted more than six months earlier and that some office person had filed both their copy of my acceptance letter, AND MY COPY. But sure enough, in a couple days, I had the letter; sent Special Delivery, and it was dated March 12, 1960! Four days later I was on a plane and heading for California.

Surprised at anything you found?

Having never been to California, I was really out for an experience. I knew no one! People were helpful and generous, and I really look back and have to feel that God had His hand on the 20-year-old kid. He really guided me through those first few weeks. I had heard about the Church of the Open Door and decided to go there my first Sunday. After the service, an older lady asked me if I’d been to Youth for Christ there the night before. “Last night they had over 3,000 kids here,” she said. The following Saturday night I decided to meander on down to the whole thing. And what do you know, just like the lady had said—3,000 kids—a very exciting thing! Fred Sanborn was the music director and that very night he asked for potential keyboard persons to come up and see him afterward—something he had never done before or did after that night. Afterward I moseyed up front and introduced myself to Fred’s wife, Jan. She says today that I really did look a little strange! I announced to her that I played organ, and then found that an organist was “exactly what we need.” She asked me to come the next Saturday and that turned into a great friendship with the Sanborns, and a long time experience with YFC.
Ironically enough, one of the YFC secretaries was Lois, who later became my wife. Even that was unique because the office staff rarely ever mixed with the Saturday night group.
Many months later, I was doing some recording work for Earle Williams of Sacred Records in Whittier. I had played on a session with Ralph Carmichael for Vangie Carmichael. I was raving about Vangie to Jan Sanborn on one Saturday night. She went back to the office and put Lois up to calling me and pretending she was Vangie! She called to tell me what a “great piano player I was” and that any time she was going to do recordings, she wanted me to play, and so on. Lois normally would never do such a thing. And I usually don’t fall for such a prank. However, that day it really worked and I fell for it completely. Anyway, Jan later brought Lois to a Saturday night rally and introduced us and the story goes all the way to the altar.
We now have two sons, Stephen and Jonathan. They are both into sports at school and I’ve really just let them go into whatever areas interest them most.
Our house is within walking distance from my office. We bought it with the money I made from Mrs. Miller. She was that “gravelly-voiced” older woman singer who really took the country by storm in the early 60’s, singing older pop songs. She sort of fell onto me at a studio where she was looking for a pianist to do a short session of songs to send to orphanages to help put the children to sleep.
I remember years later, she was on the Mike Douglas show; Peter Lind Layes was also a guest. He commented on THAT humble beginning, saying that the music she was singing would “make the kids glad they were orphans.” She was recording for Capitol Records and also “suggested” that her next album be called “Capitol Punishment.” She was certainly a prime target for jokes and tease; and “laughing all the way to the bank.”

She was really a “break” for you into the business?

In the secular circles, yes. And a great, thrilling experience.

Then you actually began as a keyboard player?

My degree was in piano and organ, with primary emphasis on organ.

How did you then break into studio playing?

When I was in New York, I played for a religious TV show called Uncle Win’s Story Time. It began as a radio show and later became the popular children’s TV program. It was a single-camera, low budget program. I began with the old Hammond organ with Leslie speaker as THEIR organist.
Later I had an organ teacher who played soap operas in New York. When he broke his ankle I played “Love of Life” for about a month and a half while I was in high school—really a pretty big deal!
That’s not recording studio work, but it’s how I “broke into that type work,” so to speak.

Did you have a “church” upbringing?

I grew up in a conservative Baptist church—Bellerose Baptist Church in New York City. It was a “neat” church and you’ll find that many prominent church workers came up through that church. At that time their service was broadcast live on WINS radio. For the late 40’s and early 50’s THAT in itself was a great achievement. WINS is now one of the “hottest” stations in New York. It no longer has anything to do with sacred services, but the achievement then was remarkable. The church was a very exciting place to be. Even the Sunday night service was packed to capacity. I learned many things there that really helped me achieve whatever success I have attained. I got to play piano there, organ there, and generally learned “church music” there. Ronnie Avalon is a singer who came to the Lord through the church. On a given Sunday he or someone special like him would be asked, totally unexpectedly to “come up and sing something for us.” He’d walk past me on his way to the mic and out of the side of his mouth say, “How Great Thou Art-Db.” That’s the kind of stuff that forced me to learn how to transpose, memorize tunes, and improvise. I became a part of THAT scene because I learned to do THOSE things!

Then In California...?

After arriving here, I was soon working for Earle Williams, like I said, earlier; who owned Sacred Records. At that time he was the LEADER in the religious recording industry. In fact, he STARTED sacred recording back in 1941 by making recorded transcriptions of chimes. He made them with Paul Mickelson over at Angeles Temple on their organ. Those were the FIRST sacred recordings! Someone later told him about this “kid” down at Calvary Assembly in Inglewood by the unknown name of Ralph Carmichael. Earle eventually GAVE Ralph his start. Really ALL the “firsts” in the religious record-ing business were Earle’s—the first sacred LP, the first 45, the first colored disc, the first 4-color jacket! He even has his name on Hollywood Boulevard for a Sunday night religious TV program he did with Carmichael for a while.

What happened to Sacred Records? Why are they not still around?

Word eventually bought them out.

What happened to you when Sacred sold?

During the course of the sale, I had encouraged Word to start a publishing division of their own. Until then, they were only a record company. I told them of Sacred’s twelve copyrights. True, twelve is a small number, but among them were “The Savior Is Waiting,” “Heaven Is a Wonderful Place,” “I Never Shall Forget the Day,” and “My Friend and I.” Some pretty good tunes!! That was a start. Word then hired me to handle the transfers of the copyrights and the details regarding the start of the publishing division.

Did you move to Waco?

No, I never did. Ultimately that be-came the “straw that broke...” I worked out of my apartment in Hollywood. Word’s publishing had begun! “But what are we going to publish?” I started by taking the old Word records, and transcribing them note for note—the White Sisters, Dick Anthony and Bill Pierce duets, and the Melody Four quartet. Painstakingly, I created song-books from each of those artists’ recordings. When I look back, it was really me learning the publishing business on Word’s time and at their expense. I HAD published a few of my own things and had just enough experience to stay one jump ahead of them in Waco.

How long did this continue?

We eventually rented office space on Sunset Boulevard and this whole story then dovetails with the Mrs. Miller experience. Word was small enough that I reported directly to their president Jarrell McCracken. And all those days that I was on the road with Mrs. Miller, he never considered “docking my pay” or cutting my wage. I’ve always respected him for that.

While at Word, you had a lot to do with the development of the royalty system, didn’t you?

In those days of religious publishing, the rights to use a song were sold for one-time amounts. “You want to use our song,” says Mr. Rodeheaver, “that’s fine—pay us $25.” They would then ask me if they could use one of Word’s songs. I would say, “You know, I don’t think too much of getting $25 when you guys might sell 60,000 copies of the book. It just doesn’t seem quite right. It’s simple I’ll admit—you pay me $25—I pay you $25. The bookkeeping is almost nothing. But how do I tell my composer, Ralph Carmichael, that you sold 60,000 copies of “The Savior Is Waiting” and he only gets his share of $25?” I couldn’t do it! I then began to negotiate for percentages of sales, instead of flat onetime fees. 10% became a standard. I also set up my own personal things with Word on the 10% basis. The other composers loved it, so I did it for myself, too, as part of my job.
Word didn’t have to send me very many of those large royalty checks before I was summoned to Waco for a “meeting.” THAT meeting was when Jarrel McCracken first realized that when he paid me $6,000 it meant he had sold $60,000 worth of music. “Oh, that’s different!”
Shortly after, the question of my moving to Waco hit hard again. McCracken began sending Lois and I the Dallas and Waco newspapers. The pressure was on. We finally decided in 1970 that I would leave Word. It was definitely one of my hardest decisions.

What did you intend to do then?

We really didn’t know. I certainly thought I could seek out a living doing something. I HAD my church job at the time, and the royalty money was coming in, and then there were some recording dates. I felt that if nothing else, we could live on that.
I had also started Gentry Publications a few months before. It published school, educational, secular, organ method-type books. With Word’s approval, I even sold some of my Gentry products while traveling about the country for Word. So I had that small project going too.
The following summer after leaving Word, I met Jesse Peterson (now president of Tempo, Inc.) of Lillenas at a convention. He hired me to do con-sultation work for them. I was to travel some, boost sales, and generally pro-mote Lillenas. They were extremely generous and ALSO allowed me to sell the Gentry materials while on the road. I want to go on record here as saying that of all the companies I’ve ever worked for Lillenas is certainly one of the finest ever. What super people!

How then did Fred Bock Music Company start?

When I left Word, I made a commitment to myself that I would not publish any sacred material for one year. I didn’t know what ideas I might subconsciously “lift’ from my days on the Word payroll. During that first year I worked hard on Gentry’s secular cat-alog and for Lillenas. The Gentry thing began to grow and then due to a fluke, one tune really took off and it became more than my wife and I could handle out of our garage. We turned the Gentry distribution over to the Theodore Presser Company, who, for 25%, hand-led everything associated with selling, shipping, and billing. Then AFTER the year hiatus, I began to add some sacred things to the Gentry catalog.
We must digress for a moment and talk about Bob Mackenzie. I met Bob when he was to Benson what I was to Word. When people needed answers about copyrights and royalties, they talked to Bob at Benson, or Fred at Word. We soon became great friends. We helped each other in conceiving ideas, in promotional plans, and in good creative “brain-storming” about the industry. I would have to say that Bob Mackenzie is the greatest creative catalyst that I’ve had in my life.
When I left Word, Mackenzie approached me about doing some piano and organ books for Bill Gaither. Bob was trying to create some product for Benson of Gaither tunes. Over the months that followed Bill and Gloria Gaither and Lois and I became good friends. Bill later approached me about flying to Alexandria (a small community in Indiana where Gaither’s home and headquarters are located) to see their operation. Mackenzie had always been raving about this “neat organization.”
While in Alexandria, Bill says to Bob and me, “You know, we ought to all put a company together someday.” Bob says, “How you gonna do that—me at Benson, Bock in California tied up with Presser, and you here with Gaither Music Company and all?” Bill said, “Well, let’s just think about it.”
Later, after Mackenzie left Benson to start Paragon (Paragon Associates, Nashville), we all got together again. With my company, Paragon, and Gaither’s organization this looked like the time to put OUR company together. After tossing around silly names, we came up with “Alexandria House,” which everybody also thought was a silly name at the time, but... So then the new distributing company was born at almost the same time as Fred Bock Music Company, the name I gave to my sacred music publications.

Then came “Hymns for the Family of God?”

Long before, I had gone to Tyndale with the idea for a hymnbook. Tyndale had done so well with the Living Bible and I thought, “The Living Hymn-book.” We could use responsive read-ings from the Living Bible and tie both things together. Ken Taylor says, “Oh, that sounds like a good idea; let’s do it!” We worked out a lovely deal and I began what turned into five months of concentrated effort. At that time, Tyndale hired their FIRST editor—a “big league” Harper & Rowe editor. He immediately questioned the idea of a book publisher getting into the music business with only ONE product. He called me with their decision to drop the project. However, they wanted to pay me everything that had been agreed upon and on top of that, GAVE ME the entire project to do with as I pleased. “You can even take it to another publisher, if you want to. It’s yours!” They just wanted out and wanted me to feel right about it.
I packed up the stuff and headed for Alexandria. I said to Bill (Gaither) and Bob (MacKenzie), “Hey, you guys want to publish a hymnbook?” The Tyndale folks have graciously given me all this stuff—I had it under my arm—and we can do it. Bill wanted to know more. I told him about my ideas to include some last-verse reharmoniza-tions, include readings along with the hymns rather than in the back, italicize every other line for easy reading, div-ide it up into four sections rather than just “Sunday morning” and “Sunday night,” and some other things to make it different. I hit him with a lot of untyp-ical ideas, and with an estimated cost!
A story...Last weekend I flew to Oklahoma City to be present at Bethany Nazarene Church’s dedication service for their 1,600 new “Hymns for the Family of God.” That church is really the “flagship” church of the denomination. Huge! The minister’s daughter is Glaphré Gilliland who has a very special prayer ministry. She told my wife on the phone the other night of a story she had never told anyone—something that had happened over four years ago. It seems that Gloria Gaither had called her with an unusual prayer request. Her husband Bill had just come home from a meeting where Fred Bock, a person Gloria had not even met yet, had presented a concept for a new hymnbook. She and Bill were extremely excited about it, and asked if she would pray for the project. We just heard that story this past weekend. Isn’t that thrilling!! Needless to say, we went ahead with the project!

What has been its success?

How do you measure the success of a hymnbook? Well, really there are two ways. One is by letters you receive. When was the last time you wrote a letter to a hymnbook publisher? We get letters all the time.
My favorite letter—Someone bought thirteen books and sent them to a mission hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. The director of the hospital got them at her desk. Her attitude was, “People are dying here—you think folks are going to want to sing?” She finally decided to have them placed in the bedside table drawer. She wrote the letter telling us how powerful that book has been on the people of that hospital. She knows of three people in just the first month who have come to find the Lord through that book
That’s phenomenal to me. To know that while I’m sleeping, that book may be helping someone on the other side of the world. How exciting!

And then what is the second way to measure Its success?

It’s not as lofty, but it’s by sales.

There’s also a “companion” to the regular book, isn’t there?

Yes. It was supposed to have been available with the release of the main book, and we’ve suffered a lot because the main book does not have composer indexes, metrical indexes, and so on. We chose to leave out the indexes that really only have meaning to the director and accompanist, and give them more hymns.

Fred, were you ever offered a job with any other publisher?

Once Pat Zondervan approached me about the kind of thing I had done for Lillenas. What a guy, Pat Zondervan! He came to my home and in the first few moments knew that I was not interested in a move to Grand Rapids. We then spent the big part of the day discussing our pasts and our futures. He even took an hour and a half of the day to play games with my son who was sick and home from school. What a guy!
Pat told me that day, of the story of how he got started. The famous Erdman brothers are his uncles. Pat and his brother Bernie worked for their uncle, Bill Erdman. The boys were aggressive. They worked in the shipping department, and in the sales department of the Erdman’s publishing outfit. The company had a book they had decided to put out of print, Women of the Old Testament. Pat and Bernie, while riding their bikes home to Uncle Bill’s house where they were staying, decided to approach Uncle Bill about publishing THAT book themselves. Uncle Bill said “GREAT!” and in fact let them print it on his presses and pay him back as they could. THAT was the beginning of Zondervan Publishing. The book is still in print today. You always keep your first book in print, even if it only sells 5 copies a year.

Have you ever scored a movie?

That’s probably one dream I have that has not truly been fulfilled. I have done a few little documentary films, even a series of thirteen for the Lutherans once. But the “big league” is competitive business and I’m not really sure I’d want in it anymore.

As an ANTHEM publisher, what do you feel makes an anthem marketable?

Powerful—effective—and easy. It’s simple to write an anthem that meets one of those points. However, to come up with one that is powerful AND effective AND easy; that’s another challenge. Gordon Young has a “pile” of “hits.” They’ve been called “contrived” and “predictable,” BUT they are generally big and powerful, effective, and fairly easy to sing.

What is a common problem with anthem writing?

That’s easy! Many are so weak textually. Composers get so wrapped up in the music—then they throw on a text that metrically fits. It just doesn’t work in THAT direction.
Many anthems have archaic words, but are set to contemporary music. I like to see contemporary texts set to contemporary music. THOSE are effective and ADD to the worship service.

What do you want to accomplish In the rest of your life?

This may sound trite, or as if I’ve not given it much thought; but I’m so happy doing what I’m doing now! I wouldn’t mind going on doing what I am—but I would hope I would do it better, and that I would refine my talent and creativity over the years as I practice my art and craft. As opportunities present themselves, I hope I’m able to grasp them as a challenge instead of saying, “Oh, I can’t do that; I’m just a little anthem writer, or a chord-organ book arranger, or something like that.” I’d like to be able to write and publish material for the church choirs to sing that really MOVES people. I don’t want to do it in the “gospel song” idiom. Others DO that idiom and do it well—it’s just not me. My challenge is huge; trying to move folks with anthems.

How is your time spent between publishing and writing?

My wife is the best barometer on that. She somehow can tell when I need “to get back out to the guest house,” where I write. She’s always right in that area, so any argument is really only procrastination. My problem is that I love to “play office.” I love to talk on the phone, sort the mail, or thumb through reports and such. But what have I REALLY gained? Sure time has passed. But what have I contributed in that time? I’m working to discipline myself to spend more time in the Bible, in meditation, and “in the guest house” at the piano. THAT is my gift from God and I MUST expect that it will continue to be given me.     fine