THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501120178
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
ROY DARNALL was playing at the Waldorf-Astoria when the edict came: No drums, orders of the Queen of England.
Queen Elizabeth was occupying a few rooms at the fancy-schmancy New York City hotel, and she wanted to be entertained. Darnall was asked to perform.
``I got a four-piece band together. She didn't want drums,'' the pianist said recently. ``At the time, `My Fair Lady' was very popular, so we played some of that music.
``I remember the date well - Oct. 21, 1957. It was my wife's birthday.''
Following his performance, Her Majesty headed toward Darnall. ``She didn't say anything,'' he recalled, ``but she did walk by and smile.''
Darnall has been making people smile for about 60 years, and he's still at it. The 78-year-old Kentucky native, who lives on Pine Lake Drive, is part of the cast of ``Bethel Home Companion.''
The Anglers Cove Dinner Theater production, presented last fall, is making a return engagement at the Perquimans County eatery Jan. 28-29 and Feb. 4-5.
When not rehearsing with his ``Companion'' companions, Darnall keeps busy giving piano lessons.
``I started the piano when I was a kid,'' he said, noting that an early musical inspiration was the sheriff of Marshall County, Ky. Known at home as ``Dad,'' the sheriff was known in the area as a good country fiddler.
But his son was not into country. His upbringing was rural; his taste, urban.
Darnall's first taste of popular music as a performer was with the Gene Peeper Orchestra of Lincoln, Neb., playing one-nighters in the Midwest. East Coast one-nighters followed, in 1939-40, with Jimmy Livingstone's Orchestra.
After a stint as a staff musician with WDOD in Chattanooga, Darnall moved on to where-it-really-matters: New York City.
Darnall's first job there was a sand-underfoot, moon-overhead gig at Jones Beach, performing with the Joe and Paul Muro Orchestra.
Beach jobs, of course, are summertime things. When temperatures dropped, he joined the Red Thompson Orchestra, working in Brooklyn and then at the Narragansett Hotel in Providence, R.I.
``I was there when the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor,'' said Darnall, whose wrath put him in uniform.
He spent most of his time on the piano bench - performing at Fort Dix, N.J., going to bandleaders school at Fort Myer, Va., then joining the Fort Monmouth Signal Corps Band, playing in New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
``Some civilian committee voted us the best band in the 2nd Service Command,'' he said.
What an assignment!
The New Jersey-based band made V-Disc recordings - music designed for Armed Forces radio stations - with such guests as Danny Kaye.
Darnall led a dance band featuring some of the Monmouth musicians, broadcasting from New York City's most prestigious independent radio station of the day, WNEW.
Prestigious, indeed. They performed with some of the biggest names of that era: The Merry Macs, Milton Berle, Joe E. Brown, Deanna Durbin.
``The day FDR died we had a program lined up,'' Darnall said, ``but we got a message to play something appropriate so we played his favorite song, `Home on the Range.' ''
Home was New York City when Darnall left the service in 1946. He went to Columbia Teachers College, Columbia University, where he got a master's in music and music education.
``While I was there I played in the cocktail lounge of the Astor Hotel with the Hugo Malan Hotel Orchestra,'' Darnall said.
That was an impressive gig, but even more impressive were his next two assignments - performing with the country's best-known society orchestras, one led by Meyer Davis, one by Lester Lanin.
In the 1950s and '60s he decided to do his own thing and formed the Roy Darnall Orchestra, playing in and around New York.
``Then, I saw the handwriting on the wall,'' he said. ``Electrical equipment was coming in.''
Plug-in music was not his thing, nostalgia was. So Darnall decided to perform as a single - a me-and-my-piano thing at the Club Michael and the Outer Marker, both in the upper class suburb of Nassau County.
``I was at Michael's for 19 years, the Outer Marker for six,'' Darnall said. ``I played music from the Gay '90s, the '20s, '30s, '40s - big band music and show tunes, no hard rock.
``I like any kind of music if it's done well and I can understand it - even rock. I might like rap if I could understand it.''
In the days when ``rap'' meant nothing more than a knock on the door, Darnall continued performing in and around New York City, every now and then showing up at the Roxy Theater, second only to the Radio City Music Hall in showbiz importance in New York.
``I was fill-in pianist at the Roxy,'' he said. ``I played for the Keene Sisters. One of them was Mrs. Jackie Gleason.''
The future Mrs. Darnall entered the picture about that time.
``She was working at Gimbels Department Store. She came into the Outer Marker,'' he said. ``One attraction was her Southern accent. The other attraction - she was attractive.''
Beulah Parker, an Elizabeth City High School grad, is the daughter of John and Evelyn Parker of Weeksville.
In 1992 the couple returned to her home area, where Darnall still performs and teaches. He is in good health, his piano is in good shape, and he is having a good time.
Darnall was a scene-stealer during the original ``Bethel Home Companion'' run.
The thievery is expected to continue. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by FRANK ROBERTS
Pianist Roy Darnall, 78, is in ``Bethel Home Companion'' at Anglers
Cove Dinner Theater.
WHERE & WHEN
What: The Angler's Cove Dinner Theatre presents ``Bethel Home
Companion.''
When: Jan. 28 and 29 and Feb. 4 and 5. The meal is served at 6:30
p.m. and the play begins at 8 p.m., except on the 29th - Super Bowl
Sunday and Ladies Night - when the dinner will be served at 5:30 and
the play will be presented at 7.
How much: Tickets are $15.
For reservations: call 426-9295 or 426-7294.
by CNB