BFT: Why would you go to Prairie View?

EMM: That was where they had the state band contest.

BFT: Explain the state band contest and why Prairie View.

EMM: They would have "Triple A," and "Double A," and "Royal A" bands. Bands from all over Texas would go there, and we would have the drill and the concert band music. They'd come up with different songs for the bands to play, different categories. We would always work and want to get the first prize, and we did. It was well-known. I imagine that's in the history of Anderson High School.

BFT: So, the competitions at Prairie View?

EMM: I don't know if we always won in drilling, but our music, you could just always tell the difference from the other bands. I don't know. Mr. Bill Joyce was formerly with a band in World War II, and he was just an excellent man. We all thought he was very mean, but after we were in the band a while, just everybody loved him because he made us get it right. His strictness was what really made us work hard.

BFT: The competition at Prairie View was like an interscholastic league for black schools?

EMM: Yeah. At that time, no integration. It was just all black schools, and they would come from Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, everywhere. They'd say, "Oh, here comes Anderson High, here comes that Austin band!" We'd just tear things down.

BFT: Do you remember meeting anyone that years later you realized was playing with some well-known jazz band or something?

EMM: Well, not really. Because, I guess, we met them casually from other places. I don't really recall that anyone... Some of the girls that were playing in this band... When I got to Prairie View, it was a swing band. Well, one of them played with Sweethearts of Rhythm. She was Marietta Davis from San Antonio. She died about three years ago. And Cora Bryant, she's still playing. She's playing on the West Coast. She used to play trumpet. She came back from Russia not too long ago. She's a really good trumpet player. I saw her not too long ago on TV two or three times on different shows. Helen Cole was a drummer; she was from Dennison, Texas, also. She played a while with a girl's trio. I switched from saxophone to piano. I could play piano then, but they just didn't need a piano player, they needed a saxophone player, so that's... I played saxophone. Now, I don't know if I could... My saxophone, I put it down to buy my ring when I got married... So...

BFT: What kind of material did the high school band play?

EMM: We would play marches. Just before he retired, maybe it was the last year I was in high school, we did start playing a little jazz. I remember "Tuxedo Junction." We played that at a game. That was when that song was very popular. "Blues In The Night." We did that at the games, and it was as popular as the football, because we started playing a little jazz. But most of the time he didn't want us even touching the jazz. We had to play what was, you know, the Sousa marches and all that.

BFT: Where did you get your outside musical influences?

EMM: When I was in high school? I was in high school in the '40s. I was playing -- I was born in '27 and started school when I was 6-years-old -- just regular music that children in school know. I used to sing in the little choirs in school, choruses.

BFT: Did you listen to radio at all?

EMM: Oh yeah. I used to go to sleep with the radio on. They'd yell, "What are you doing with the radio on?" I would listen to a lot of jazz, whatever was on the radio at night. Jimmy Lundsford, Duke Ellington, Andy Kurt, Lucky Miller, Count Basie, and all those who came on at night. And I remember Jimmy Lundsford came to town -- and I must have been twelve or thirteen, and I wasn't supposed to go to a place like that -- but me and my girlfriend slipped down to a place called the Cotton Club. It was on East 11th Street, and we slipped in. That was the biggest thrill of my life! And then one girl said, "Girl, your mama's gonna get you!" They hid my coat in the closet, and they put me in the closet by my friends. There was a lady sitting there who knew me and knew my mother, and she told my mother I was in the closet. My mama came in there with a switch, and she went and switched me all the way down 11th Street, all the way home! But still, it was worth that little whipping, because I sure enjoyed it, listening to a big band, Jimmy Lundsford.

BFT: Can you remember anybody else who would have been touring at the time and played at the Cotton Club?

EMM: In those days, it was T-Bone Walker; later on B.B. King used to play. But that was later in the '50s, because I used to live up there. And there was a place on 11th Street called the Black Cat Lounge; it's all gone now. But B.B. King used to be there nearly every weekend. After I got married -- I was married then -- I lived just kind of behind the Black Cat Lounge there, and they would be there every weekend. But my husband wouldn't let me go, but we could hear it out of the back door, so...

BFT: More about the all-female swing band?

EMM: There was sixteen pieces. We had a great bass player, Audrie May Edwards. She lives in Waco now; I think she runs a funeral home. We had three tenor sax, two altos, a baritone, four trumpets, two to three trombones, piano, vocalists. When I first went by there, those other girls were juniors and seniors. They were kind of sneering at me, I was a little young. And they, they had an engagement in Houston, and the vocalist was sick. She had a sore throat or something, and she couldn't sing. So Mr. Will Henry Bennett, who was our director, he wanted to try out some other girls and see if they could sing. I had never sung before in my life, not singing like that. So I got up to sing and they liked it. And I think I sang that engagement.

On weekends, we would go sometimes as far as Oklahoma and play at the Army camps, Fort Seal and so on. I remember one; I never will forget it. When I got back from Fort Seal one year with this band, they had a fire in Carver Hall. That's where I stayed, and it was in my room. All my clothes got burned up. And I shouldn't say this... Is this on tape? There was a matron over us and she said, "That little ol' fast gal, she's been up there smoking!" Well, I wasn't even there, and I never touched a cigarette in my life! I didn't smoke at all. They believed her and wouldn't believe me. Well, I said heck, I was with the band. Maybe some of my roommates had smoked or something, but I got accused of that. And there wasn't anything they would let me say. Just this mean matron. I wasn't there, but all my clothes burned up. But some of the girls in the other dormitories and things, they all brought me some real pretty clothes until my mother could get me some more. Sometimes you should believe the student, the child, even though this woman was very honorable, I guess. But she wouldn't let me tell my part of it! And I was in the band; I wasn't even there. She wouldn't even change her mind.

BFT: Did they discriminate against people in the band?

EMM: I don't know. She just might not have. But I was just about the youngest one in it then, and I didn't really know how to buck up to her and tell her. Some of those other girls wouldn't have taken that, but I just sat over in the corner and cried. The truth will finally come out. I didn't have anything except what I took on the trip.

BFT: Tell us something about the band director...

EMM: Will Henry Bennett, he was from Houston, and he taught music. He taught strings. He was over the band. They had an ROTC unit there and a regular Prairie View band.

BFT: Was it customary to have all-women swing bands at that time?

EMM: No, at the time there was Sweethearts of Rhythm. They were originally from Mississippi, I think. But they were even before we came along. We had a younger clientele, I guess, then because we were a lot younger than they were. We were asked to play just as a novelty, at the Army camps. I guess the men just liked to see the girls up there, you know. The soldiers liked to see the girls playing, so we had quite a few engagements.

BFT: Was there a name?

EMM: Just "Prairie View Coeds." They also had "Prairie View Collegians" for men -- boys -- but at the time we were more popular.

BFT: What was going on?

EMM: That was in like 1943. I was in in 1943, but the band had been going on since 1941. They continued for about five years that. Some of the girls would finish or would drop out and get married. I think if our band director hadn't passed away, he might have kept it going a lot longer.

BFT: He died?

EMM: He retired first, I think he must have been in poor health or something.

BFT: Is he related to Wayne Bennett?

EMM: Is he from Houston? Maybe. I don't think he had any children though. His wife was from Austin, and I know they didn't have any children.

BFT: Then you dropped out of college to get married?

EMM: Right.