Tommy Johnson's Memorial Concert at USC...

[Dylan King]

Hello kind folks,

Right before I moved to NC, I attended Tommy Johnson's memorial concert at USC, where 99 tubas played on stage together in honor of this great man. It was a strange experience for me sitting in the audience, as I knew Tommy well and considered him a friend and father figure, but had not heard that there would be a mass group playing at the end of the "show". I felt like I should have been that 100th tubist on stage, and I'm sure I'm not alone when it comes to people who attended the concert.

I noticed that the entire program was professionally recorded and video taped, and wonder now; what ever happened to that video footage and recorded audio?

If anyone knows, please chime in here or send me a PM with an update.

Thank you,

Dylan King

[poomshanka]

Tommy's widow Pat was given copies of the audio and video recordings, and a slightly shortened audio recording was broadcast on KUSC at one point. Although everyone involved (I believe) donated their time, there might've been some type of royalty/re-use issue had portions of the show been broadcast over radio or cable TV (union rules, apparently, even for an event of this type). Perhaps there's some type of loophole KUSC was able to navigate through to broadcast what they did?

I'm no doubt paraphrasing what I was told very badly, but that's the gist of it. With Pat having sadly passed herself, I'd imagine those recordings are now in the hands of the Johnson children. Malcolm McNab *might* be doing something with them, but you'd have to touch base with him directly on that.

Hope this helps...

...Dave