Pam Brandis–Family Lines
Certain kinds of talent are inherited, including talent in audio and visual art. Artists are very often influenced by their parents, and many well known artists had/have parents who led the way. Some artists are raised in affluent families who can afford the very best in fine arts training, and others are raised in a more down to earth situation eventually finding or seeking their own creative way.
Pam Brandis can be classified in the middle of these categories, being raised by parents who grew up in very small Nebraska towns. Her father’s father was a farmer from a long line of farmers originating in Germany. Her mother’s father, also of German decent made brooms for a living in the hometown factory for many years before signing on with the nearby railroad. Looking at the family lines on both sides we see a few interesting patterns.
Music
Unless there is some form of archival documentation, word-of-mouth history often gets lost at the generation of the great grandparents or the great-great grandparents. That is where this story begins. In the current family oral history, the earliest known occurrences of musicianship of a performance nature have been cited at the generation of Brandis’ great grandparents. Brandis’ mother’s father’s father played the fiddle in at least one band. Her mother’s mother’s mother played the organ in the church. Brandis’ mother was a member of a high school choral group which performed songs recorded by the McGuire Sisters who were radio popular at that time. Brandis’ parents met when they became members of the same Lutheran church choir after high school. They were married within a year of dating.
Some of Brandis’ earliest memories are of her parents singing to her or singing around the house before she was in school. Her father would put Brandis and her older sister to bed each night reading them a bible story and then singing them a bedtime prayer. Brandis loved sitting near her mother in church where she could best hear her mother’s voice and be taught how to sing harmony parts to some of the hymns. Her mother sang with the church’s adult choir and also led the children’s vacation bible school singing at this time.
Brandis’ mother often tuned into radio station KFAB AM while tending to her home and garden work. Young Brandis was always within earshot of the broadcast of various pop, Broadway and movie tunes to which her mother often hummed or sang along. Brandis remembers countless conversations with family members, neighbors or friends during which someone would utter an otherwise random word or phrase, inadvertently prompting her mother to break out into song with associated lyrics.
Other early musical memories involve Brandis’ father’s cornet and his childhood collection of 45s–mostly big band music–all of which Brandis found fascinating. A few of these records featured some very early (pre-rock and roll) electric guitar. During the 1960’s, TV variety shows were common, so the family often viewed live performances and also enjoyed annual season tickets to Aksarben to see live music, comedy and acrobatics on stage at the racetrack during the summers.
Brandis was often most mesmerized by the sounds and moves of Motown but also leaned toward country for awhile in her early years. She soon began her own collection of 45s which included the family bands/groups of the early 70’s. Pop music was broadened to include folk, country, rock and soul–all of which were played on the same AM stations prior to the onset of FM radio. One of Brandis’ favorite singles was Rare Earth’s I Just Want to Celebrate. She would listen to the song and try to figure out what was going on at the drums.
As the story goes, Brandis’ mother wanted to learn how to play the guitar, so her father bought her something basic at a nearby department store. Who couldn’t leave the guitar alone but young Brandis who quickly took to learning basic chords. Nine-year-old Brandis was also writing songs (at the suggestion of a neighborhood friend) and singing them to her sisters. A few lessons here and there could not convince Brandis to practice learning how to read music when she found it much easier and more rewarding to write and sing for family and friends.
Though both of her sisters picked up woodwind instruments and quickly learned to read note for note, Brandis preferred learning by listening to successions of rhythms and chords and strumming along with the radio, her records or various lyric sheets that were readily available at that time. Brandis had also discovered the trick of using two tape recorders to record herself in two and three part harmony. However, before jumping too far ahead in the Brandis musical biography we want to keep the reading balanced and mention some areas of visual art talent in the family.
Visual Art
Including crafts in this discussion, we can again see influences on both sides of the family. Brandis’ mother’s grandmother–the same woman who played the organ was also an expert seamstress, making dresses from home for “My Lady” dress shop during the 1920’s. Brandis’ grandmother, mother and sister also proved to be excellent at sewing and other work with fabrics. Brandis’ father’s parents were both handy with craft work. Together they cut and painted a life-sized plywood trio of choir boys which for many years stood complete with a spotlight in front of their house and later Brandis’ father’s house each Christmas season. This grandmother enjoyed making seasonal decorations and creating stuffed toys for her grandchildren. This grandfather could whittle and paint lifelike human forms. Brandis’ father trained as an industrial arts teacher specializing in woodworking with a remarkable visual talent in line drawing faces–like nothing she has seen elsewhere–very accurate lines without the use of a grid or an eraser. Brandis cannot recall ever seeing her father with an eraser.
Brandis was fortunate to grow up during a time when art and music were both part of the required curriculum during elementary and junior high school. During junior high, Brandis began to ponder becoming a photographer and has always considered good black and white photography and good black and white film true art forms. She and her sisters all realized their inherited talent in visual art during high school, but Brandis was still most strongly drawn to chords and writing songs. While realizing this visual talent, she was also invited to join a working variety band. Some of the artwork she produced at that time fused her visual talent with her musical interests and activities.
Because of her lifelong fear of the stage (the topic of an upcoming Sine of the Times article), Brandis has always felt more comfortable in the home studio setting, believing herself to be an audio (recording) artist–with the lyrics, notes, chords, instrumentation and effects as the paint on the recording equipment canvas. She often considers an eventual return to practicing her visual art skills in some form or another, but this venture will likely not take place for several years. Until then, Brandis plans to continue encouraging artists of all non-performance arts right here at Z Art Tones Dot Com.