September 4, 2026 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Simon Estes grew up poor in the coal-mining town of Centerville, Iowa, in a tiny house without running water or electricity. His father, the son of former slaves, couldn't read, and segregation shaped Simon's childhood. But inside his family's church, there was music, faith in God, and a remarkable voice that would take him far beyond anything he could have possibly imagined.
Simon Estes himself shares the story of how encountering opera for the first time changed the course of his life and took him from small-town Iowa to Juilliard, then across the Atlantic behind the Iron Curtain, and finally onto some of America's greatest stages. Simon's phenomenal documentary is called Simon Estes: A Heart & A Voice. Be sure to check it out!
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Up next, the story of a.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Small-town Iowa kid who became, against all odds, one of
the Jackie Robinsons of opera. even though he freely admits
it was Leontine Price, not him, who was the first
to break the color barrier in the art. But that's
even more incredible, considering she told him before his first
performance at the Metropolitan Opera, quote, it will be more
(00:44):
difficult for you as a black man than it was
for me as a black woman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
My name is Simon Estes. And I was born in
a little town in Iowa called Centerville. It was a
coal mining town. And I grew up in poverty in
a little house that was 27 feet by 25 feet.
I said feet. Can you imagine how small that was?
(01:14):
27 feet by 25 feet. We had no running water,
no electricity. And at nighttime when it got dark, it
was just dark. My mother was a great mother. My
father couldn't read or write. His parents were both slaves,
and he was taken out of school in the third reader.
(01:36):
In the colored schools back in those days, they didn't
call them grades, like first, second, third, etc. They called
them first, second, reader. I don't think my father ever
brought home a check more than $ 18, and he was
working 12 hours a day. When he came to Centerville,
he worked in the coal mines, and there was a
(01:56):
lot of dust down in those coal mines in those years.
People didn't realize to wear a mask. Whoever worked in
the coal mine, those people died between 50 and 60
years of age with black lung because they inhaled all
this black dust. My father had it so badly when
he would come home, he couldn't talk. He was wheezing
(02:18):
like someone having an asthma attack. He had to stop
working because he had asthma. And as I say, we
were extremely poor from a financial point of view. But
we were billionaires in our faith in God and Jesus
and integrity. We always prayed for every meal, whether it
was breakfast, lunch, dinner. We prayed and thanked the Lord
(02:41):
that we had a little bit to eat. Fridays were
when it came along before my father got paid, of course.
Sometimes we didn't have hardly anything in the house to eat.
My mother would make gravy out of bacon grease, flour,
and water, and sometimes maybe milk. And we very seldom
had a lot of meat because we couldn't afford it.
(03:04):
Centerville was very racist in those days. Colored people couldn't
do a lot of things that the white people weren't
allowed to sit downstairs in movie theaters with white people.
Most of the restaurants We couldn't eat in them. We
couldn't swim in the swimming pool until finally they would
let us swim on Saturday from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock.
(03:25):
And then the colored people had to get out of
the pool, and they'd put more disinfectant in the water.
My mother never did learn how to swim, and she
died when she was almost 95. She always regretted that
she never learned to swim. I remember a kid. His
name was Kenneth, and he was very light-skinned. And he
(03:46):
got a job packing people's grocery bags, you know, and
he stole a candy bar. And this is a real
true story. He stole the candy bar, but they saw him.
And what did they do? They didn't tell his parents.
They called the police. Now, he was 16 years old.
(04:06):
They put him in jail. And when they had a
court date, obviously he was guilty. They put him in
the Fort Madison prison. That is the federal prison. So
he was put in at 16 years of age for
having stolen a candy bar. If a white boy had
done that, they probably would have told his parents, called them, hey,
(04:28):
your son stole a candy bar. But can you imagine
they put him in the federal prison until he was
21 years old? I mention that because that was one
of the saddest stories that we had in Centerville. That's
the way it was. But what really helped me, and
I would say my sisters too, was our faith. If
(04:49):
it had not been for the Bible, maybe I wouldn't
have been as successful, because perhaps I would have been bitter.
Some black people, colored people, obviously were frustrated. But our
parents taught my three older sisters and me never to
hate white people, just to pray for them. And my
mother taught my sisters to make humility. Well, when you're very,
(05:11):
very poor, usually you're humble in life. But we all
went to church. The white people went to the First Baptist,
and the colored people went to the Second Baptist Church.
And the ministers preached for a long time. They were
very emotional. Of course, the ministers, as you probably know,
in those Second Baptist churches, they'd be yelling, Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus,
(05:35):
and everything. But that was very important. in our development
as human beings. Because when we go into churches, obviously,
there was no discrimination because we were all colored people.
And the church services would last a long time, but
music was vitally important. There was a choir, and my mother,
(05:56):
she played the piano in the church and directed the
church choir. She had this great voice that I inherited
from her. God gave it to her, and she gave
it to me. Anyhow, I wanted to be a singer.
When I was in junior high school, they invited me
to sing over in the high school choir. In my
high school class, I was the only colored person. We
(06:18):
had a hundred and maybe twenty-five graduates, and that had
never been done before, but I was the first soprano,
so my voice was really high. And this teacher, his
name was Don Gunderson, he was the high school choral director,
and I asked him, I said, you think I could
ever earn a living singing? He said, yes, you could. Well,
(06:38):
I was thinking of popular singers I mean Perry Como,
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole you know when
I fall in love this type of music I sang
then that was something that I could do I didn't
think about classical music or opera in my senior year
(06:59):
I went to choir rehearsal and I hardly had any
voice and the choral director couldn't figure out what's wrong
because here I was 18 years old still singing first
soprano with the girls so he sent me to a
doctor Dr. Brummett was his name he put that little
wooden stick and pushed my tongue down looked at my
throat he never even saw my vocal cords I assure
(07:20):
you but he said you know I just think your
voice is changing and he was right my puberty came
rather late I thought well I'm not going to be
a singer.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
When we come back more of Simon's story here on
Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our
American Stories. Send us your story, small or large, to
our email, oas at ouramericanstories.com. That's oas at ouramericanstories.com. We'd
(07:53):
love to hear them and put them on the air.
Our audience loves them, too. And we return to Our
American Stories, and with Simon Estes. When we last left off,
(08:14):
Simon was telling us how he thought his singing career
was over before it even began. He sang soprano well
into his senior year of high school, and now his
voice was changing, and he was heading off to college.
It was time for a change of plans, and he
was going to be a singer. Or so he thought.
Let's get back to the story. Here again is Simon.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I decided I wanted to be a doctor, so I
went in pre-med. But then I wanted to sing in
the choir, and I didn't realize that the choral director
was a racist, to be quite blunt about it. He said, oh, no,
your voice isn't good enough. And I said, oh, well,
you're the head of the voice department. Could I take
(08:56):
voice lessons with you? He said, no, you have no talent.
I wouldn't waste my time with you. Being colored, he
didn't think I could do Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, classical composers.
He said, however, there's a young teacher coming here this fall. Now,
this was 1957. And he said, maybe he'll take you.
(09:17):
He did. His name was Charles Kellis. He was a
Greek man. Kyriakos was his Greek name. And he heard
me singing. And he said, you know, you have a
voice to sing opera. And I said, what is opera?
In Centerville, obviously, we didn't have an orchestra. We only
(09:37):
had choral music. All the churches had a choir. And
the only instrument, generally speaking, would be a piano. So
I had not had exposure to classical music until Mr.
Kellis played some recordings, those big 33 and 1 3rd
plastic records. He played some opera singers so I could
(09:58):
hear their voices and that style.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Of music.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And then he wanted me to hear just pure orchestral music.
So he played Rensky Korsakov's Scheherazade as a Russian composer.
And after I heard it, I said to him, Mr. Kellis,
I really like that stuff. I just call it stuff.
And he said, well, Simone, he always called me Simone.
(10:21):
You had this voice. I mean, really, I had never
heard that kind of music. And I loved it the
moment I heard it. What I've often said, it was
dormant inside of me or latent, whatever word you use.
And of course, it was enhanced when I went to Juilliard.
He sent me to Juilliard School of Music. But I
(10:43):
was very naive. I didn't know the really importance of
It's the greatest musical conservatory or college in the entire world.
Everybody wants to get into Juilliard. Right today, they only
have an enrollment of about 830 students. Anyhow, the shock
was probably more, I was more excited about seeing those
(11:05):
skyscrapers than I was going to Juilliard. I was so
happy that I got a window seat. So I could
look out and my neck, I don't know if I
was on the right side or the left side of
the plane, but it was probably stiff by the time
I got to New York because I just kept looking
out at the clouds and the buildings down there and
cars looking like little ants and all of that. That
(11:26):
was really an experience. Never was on an airplane. And
I remember when Mr. Kellis took me to the Metropolitan
Opera House to hear an opera. Rigoletto. Rigoletto is the
name of the character. in this opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
And I remember I couldn't believe what I heard in
(11:49):
the Metropolitan Opera, that orchestra and all of those voices.
Of course, I didn't realize that they weren't using microphones
until Mr. Kellis brought it to my attention. He said, Simone,
you notice all those people on the stage, they don't
use any microphones. And I thought that was amazing. Anyhow,
I was only there two years before I started singing professionally.
(12:12):
There were three others. I think we were called black
at that point. We've been Negro, black, African, Afro, African-American.
So I don't know what I am, but I do
know I'm a human being and one of God's children.
And once I started to realizing what Juilliard really was,
(12:33):
I thanked the Lord for it because I thought, wow,
this is amazing coming from Centerville, Iowa. But I had
a double feeling because I was frustrated that they wouldn't
let me sing in my own country. When I first
started singing opera, it was April 19th, 1965, was in
(12:54):
Germany at the West German Opera House. Here in the
United States, a black woman to sing opera, because some
roles are romantic, And of course, even with a black
man next to a white woman on the stage, it
was much more difficult for a black man. And so
that excluded us from certain repertoire, certain roles. So it
(13:15):
was very difficult. I remember it was in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I was singing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And
the opera house, they have an opera house there in Atlanta.
I won't mention the man's name, but he was the
head of the opera. So I went over to see him.
I said, you know, I would love very, very much
(13:35):
to sing in your opera house. And he told me
very honestly, and I respected him because he was honest
about it. He said, I would love to engage you,
but our donors have said if I engage you, a
black man, they would not give us money. I will
tell you it was hurting because I knew I was
(13:56):
qualified to sing the opera in this country. Anyhow, I
started my career at the Deutsche Oper, meaning German Opera House,
in West Berlin. And Berlin was separated at that time.
And then in 1966, the State Department asked me to
(14:17):
go to Russia and sing in the Tchaikovsky Competition. And
they told me that I'd have to sing some songs
in Russian. I said, well, I don't know any Russian,
of course. Because I didn't know any Russian, they said,
we will send you money to study Russian in Germany.
(14:39):
And they never did send it. And so something told
me to, I had all the other repertoire, Italian, German, French,
all those languages I was singing in, and English, of course,
I had that. But something told me to go anyhow.
And when I flew there, I think God arranged all
this time. This is where my faith comes in, in
(14:59):
the Bible and all that. A Russian actress who was
doing a movie in East Berlin, and she spoke German,
of course, and I spoke German. And she asked me,
why was I going to Russia, to Moscow? And I
told her, to the Tchaikovsky Competition. She was really, wow,
at the Tchaikovsky Competition. Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest
(15:22):
Russian composers. And so I asked her to teach me
a famous song that was famous in Russia, phonetically. And
so for three hours between East Berlin and Moscow, this
lady taught me a song called Nizlova Odrukmoy, which means
(15:44):
not a word, oh my friend. And I believe that
God arranged that. I believe that Charles Kellogg's was sent
to the University of Iowa, this teacher who discovered me.
And I believe he put that lady next to me.
And what I realized then, God had given me a
(16:05):
talent for languages. And when I got to Moscow, my accompanist,
her name was Irina Zorina. That was 1966. She said,
Russian not bad, but we will make better. And so
she helped me. And in fact, I got a review
from the Pravda newspaper. It said Simon Estes had the
(16:26):
best Russian of anybody in the competition who was not
a Russian. And then to skip ahead, I won the
bronze medal. And President Johnson invited me to come to
the White House and invited my mother. And my mother
had never been on an airplane either.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
And you've been listening to Simon Estes tell one heck
of a story. My goodness, he holds a firm belief
that God puts certain people in his life at certain
times and places and in a sequence. And my goodness,
that Greek teacher of his who told him he had
a voice for opera. And Simon's reply, what is opera?
(17:04):
And he said, I had never heard that music, but
I loved it. He didn't know Juilliard either. And the
next thing you know, he was there or its importance.
And of course, anyone who knows music knows what Juilliard
is and the role it's played in unearthing some of
the great musical talent of the last century.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And then came the discrimination.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
As Leontine Price had predicted, it would be harder for
a man to break in than a woman, and that
experience in Atlanta, absolutely heartbreaking. He knew he had the talent,
so did the head of the opera there, but he
gave him the bad news.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
The white donors wouldn't allow it. They'd back out.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
And off to Germany he went, then to Russia, and
when we come back, More of this remarkable story of
triumph over tragedy here on Our American Stories. And we
(18:08):
return to Our American Stories and the final portion of
our story with Simon Estes, one of the greatest opera
singers of our generations. When we last left off, Simon,
facing discrimination in the United States, left for Europe to
pursue his professional career and would get his major break
in Moscow, of all places, at a competition, no less,
(18:29):
after having learned Russian on the ride over.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Let's return to the story. Here again is Simon Estes.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Many years, I couldn't sing recitals, even in the southeastern
part of the United States. But finally, they let me
sing down there. And I remember in one city, my
accompanist and I, we got out of the plane. We
went into the city, to the hotel. And there was
a patrolman. He followed us from the airport to the hotel.
(18:58):
Checked in the hotel. Went down to eat before I sang,
you know. That patrolman was still there. And my pianist
was a white man. I remember the patrolman walked over
and said, I want you boys. They put him in
the boy category then. I'm following you. I was staying
in a hotel in the South. A woman's jewelry was stolen.
(19:19):
I was the only black person staying in the hotel.
And I got in the elevator. I will never forget this.
I was in my tails. And there was a white
woman who got in the elevator. She said, boy, what
did you do with it? I said, what are you
talking about? She said, we know you stole a woman's jewelry.
I can still remember. She said, on the fourth floor.
On the fourth floor, you stole. I said, man. And
(19:42):
I was in my tuxedo. I said, do I look
like a thief to you? And she said, well, we're
going to search your room, boy.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
All right.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Well, you can search my room, but you better not
disturb anything. And she used a double negative. That don't
make no difference. Well, when she used a double negative,
I realized she wasn't educated. Of course, obviously, I didn't
steal the jewelry. It was really scary. I could Honestly
tell you, when that plane took off sometimes, I was
(20:13):
always happy that I got off the ground, got out
of the South, but I still wanted to go there
and sing. Anyhow, I remember when I sang when Martin
Luther King was assassinated. I was in Canada. And I
remember I was getting dressed. I had the TV on,
and Walter Cronkite, he said, ladies and gentlemen, and he
(20:35):
had his glasses. I remember he took them off. And
put him, he said, Martin Luther King has just been assassinated.
I told the people that night I wouldn't sing some
happy songs that I had on the program. And they
had already a reception planned for me. Of course, not
knowing Martin Luther King was going to be assassinated. But
(20:57):
they said something to me. They said, you know, why
don't you move to Canada? We wouldn't treat you that way.
And I was surprised that they said that, but I
wasn't surprised because I thought if 10 million black people
(21:17):
came to Canada tomorrow, you might have a racial problem too.
Not that we are inherently problem makers. And I said, no,
I'm going to stay in my country and continue to
try to fight for justice and equality. And it was frustrating.
I was sad. I was underpaid all these years that
(21:41):
I sang opera. I was never paid what I should
have been paid. In some of the opera houses where
I sang, too, they put makeup on. My first performance,
when I sang Romphus in Verri's opera called Aida, Romphus
is a high priest, and it takes place in Egypt,
(22:06):
and when they made me up, They made me white
as snow. I went to the makeup room. I looked
in the mirror and I thought, if my mother could
see me now, I was snow white. But my parents
always said, never give up. Don't become discouraged and don't
let something deter you. Stay strong. And obviously I didn't
(22:29):
give up. Whenever I would go out and sing recitals,
I would always pray before. And I would pray that
through the talent that God gave me that somebody or
more than one person's heart would be touched through their music,
that they would love one another and would have peace
through music. I think I've sung in 44 of the
(22:52):
50 states. But when I sang at the Met, I
remember I was, the opera that I sang in there
was called Tannhäusen. I did Landgraf. That's a Wagnerian opera.
And I remember when I, at that time, After the performance,
when I was in my room, I was thinking, wow,
(23:13):
I actually sang at the Met. And I remember I
wished I could have sung there earlier because I was qualified,
but I didn't really start singing consistently at the Met
until 1983. And I sang six years in a row
and did a number of different operas. And I was
thrilled and just grateful that my parents taught me to
(23:38):
have courage and not be distracted because of racial discrimination.
And I feel so blessed because I have literally sung
all around the world, whether it's Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Africa,
South America, all of the European countries. And when I
(24:02):
was a kid growing up in Centerville, Iowa, I didn't
think I'd get farther away. East, maybe, than Chicago. But
I've been to Tokyo, and I've been to China, to Beijing.
And I've sung for the Nobel Prize Committee, and Nelson Mandela. Oh, yeah,
and I'm not Catholic, but I've sung for two popes,
Pope John I, Pope John II. It's really true. And
(24:25):
Billy Graham, you know the Billy Graham crusade? And Madison
Square Garden in New York City. And some of these
things that I've done, I still can't believe it. But
I realized it was a gift from God that he
gave me. And I do a lot of teaching. I'm
a full professor. I have 14 honorary degrees. Two years ago,
(24:51):
Juilliard gave me a doctorate degree also. And I just
thank God that he gave me this talent and opportunity
to travel all around this planet Earth that he created.
I still can't believe it. I remember I built a
new house many years ago when I was married in
New Jersey on three acres of land. I remember one
(25:16):
time when even after we were having dinner, I have
three daughters now. They were little girls then, of course.
I remember I left the table and I went out
and I built this house on three acres of land.
And I looked at that house and I thought, wow.
And I didn't know how big this house was when
I built it. I saw a house. that I liked,
(25:38):
and I asked a builder if he could build it
like this house that I saw from the outside but
not the inside. And I didn't even realize how big
it was. Well, it had 6,500 square feet of living space.
And my little house in Centerville was 27 feet by
25 feet. And I remember I stood there, and I looked,
and I thought, wow, that's my house. I built this house.
(26:02):
I could hardly believe it.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Simon
Estes for telling his story. And to Steve Schott, the
producer of the wonderful documentary Simon Estes, A Heart and
a Voice, for setting up this interview for us. And
to find out more about the documentary, go to aheartofvoice.com.
(26:24):
That's aheartofvoice.com. And what a heart to overcome this indiscriminate
discrimination that he faced not for a year or two,
But for decades, the story of that elevator ride where
he's in tails and this woman's lost jewelry and just
assumes he stole it and how he wanted to continue
to sing in the South despite that discrimination and that
(26:49):
line he had about always praying before his performance, I
prayed for peace through music. And by goodness, his parents
gave him that courage in God, the courage of his faith,
to just get through the hard stuff, to get to
the beautiful and to get to the godly. And that
27 by 25 square foot house that he grew up in,
(27:13):
he ended up with three acres in New Jersey and
6,500 square feet. In the end, he attributed it all
to his creator. The story of Simon Estes on Our
American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Up next, the story of a.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Small-town Iowa kid who became, against all odds, one of
the Jackie Robinsons of opera. even though he freely admits
it was Leontine Price, not him, who was the first
to break the color barrier in the art. But that's
even more incredible, considering she told him before his first
performance at the Metropolitan Opera, quote, it will be more
(00:44):
difficult for you as a black man than it was
for me as a black woman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
My name is Simon Estes. And I was born in
a little town in Iowa called Centerville. It was a
coal mining town. And I grew up in poverty in
a little house that was 27 feet by 25 feet.
I said feet. Can you imagine how small that was?
(01:14):
27 feet by 25 feet. We had no running water,
no electricity. And at nighttime when it got dark, it
was just dark. My mother was a great mother. My
father couldn't read or write. His parents were both slaves,
and he was taken out of school in the third reader.
(01:36):
In the colored schools back in those days, they didn't
call them grades, like first, second, third, etc. They called
them first, second, reader. I don't think my father ever
brought home a check more than $ 18, and he was
working 12 hours a day. When he came to Centerville,
he worked in the coal mines, and there was a
(01:56):
lot of dust down in those coal mines in those years.
People didn't realize to wear a mask. Whoever worked in
the coal mine, those people died between 50 and 60
years of age with black lung because they inhaled all
this black dust. My father had it so badly when
he would come home, he couldn't talk. He was wheezing
(02:18):
like someone having an asthma attack. He had to stop
working because he had asthma. And as I say, we
were extremely poor from a financial point of view. But
we were billionaires in our faith in God and Jesus
and integrity. We always prayed for every meal, whether it
was breakfast, lunch, dinner. We prayed and thanked the Lord
(02:41):
that we had a little bit to eat. Fridays were
when it came along before my father got paid, of course.
Sometimes we didn't have hardly anything in the house to eat.
My mother would make gravy out of bacon grease, flour,
and water, and sometimes maybe milk. And we very seldom
had a lot of meat because we couldn't afford it.
(03:04):
Centerville was very racist in those days. Colored people couldn't
do a lot of things that the white people weren't
allowed to sit downstairs in movie theaters with white people.
Most of the restaurants We couldn't eat in them. We
couldn't swim in the swimming pool until finally they would
let us swim on Saturday from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock.
(03:25):
And then the colored people had to get out of
the pool, and they'd put more disinfectant in the water.
My mother never did learn how to swim, and she
died when she was almost 95. She always regretted that
she never learned to swim. I remember a kid. His
name was Kenneth, and he was very light-skinned. And he
(03:46):
got a job packing people's grocery bags, you know, and
he stole a candy bar. And this is a real
true story. He stole the candy bar, but they saw him.
And what did they do? They didn't tell his parents.
They called the police. Now, he was 16 years old.
(04:06):
They put him in jail. And when they had a
court date, obviously he was guilty. They put him in
the Fort Madison prison. That is the federal prison. So
he was put in at 16 years of age for
having stolen a candy bar. If a white boy had
done that, they probably would have told his parents, called them, hey,
(04:28):
your son stole a candy bar. But can you imagine
they put him in the federal prison until he was
21 years old? I mention that because that was one
of the saddest stories that we had in Centerville. That's
the way it was. But what really helped me, and
I would say my sisters too, was our faith. If
(04:49):
it had not been for the Bible, maybe I wouldn't
have been as successful, because perhaps I would have been bitter.
Some black people, colored people, obviously were frustrated. But our
parents taught my three older sisters and me never to
hate white people, just to pray for them. And my
mother taught my sisters to make humility. Well, when you're very,
(05:11):
very poor, usually you're humble in life. But we all
went to church. The white people went to the First Baptist,
and the colored people went to the Second Baptist Church.
And the ministers preached for a long time. They were
very emotional. Of course, the ministers, as you probably know,
in those Second Baptist churches, they'd be yelling, Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus,
(05:35):
and everything. But that was very important. in our development
as human beings. Because when we go into churches, obviously,
there was no discrimination because we were all colored people.
And the church services would last a long time, but
music was vitally important. There was a choir, and my mother,
(05:56):
she played the piano in the church and directed the
church choir. She had this great voice that I inherited
from her. God gave it to her, and she gave
it to me. Anyhow, I wanted to be a singer.
When I was in junior high school, they invited me
to sing over in the high school choir. In my
high school class, I was the only colored person. We
(06:18):
had a hundred and maybe twenty-five graduates, and that had
never been done before, but I was the first soprano,
so my voice was really high. And this teacher, his
name was Don Gunderson, he was the high school choral director,
and I asked him, I said, you think I could
ever earn a living singing? He said, yes, you could. Well,
(06:38):
I was thinking of popular singers I mean Perry Como,
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole you know when
I fall in love this type of music I sang
then that was something that I could do I didn't
think about classical music or opera in my senior year
(06:59):
I went to choir rehearsal and I hardly had any
voice and the choral director couldn't figure out what's wrong
because here I was 18 years old still singing first
soprano with the girls so he sent me to a
doctor Dr. Brummett was his name he put that little
wooden stick and pushed my tongue down looked at my
throat he never even saw my vocal cords I assure
(07:20):
you but he said you know I just think your
voice is changing and he was right my puberty came
rather late I thought well I'm not going to be
a singer.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
When we come back more of Simon's story here on
Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our
American Stories. Send us your story, small or large, to
our email, oas at ouramericanstories.com. That's oas at ouramericanstories.com. We'd
(07:53):
love to hear them and put them on the air.
Our audience loves them, too. And we return to Our
American Stories, and with Simon Estes. When we last left off,
(08:14):
Simon was telling us how he thought his singing career
was over before it even began. He sang soprano well
into his senior year of high school, and now his
voice was changing, and he was heading off to college.
It was time for a change of plans, and he
was going to be a singer. Or so he thought.
Let's get back to the story. Here again is Simon.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I decided I wanted to be a doctor, so I
went in pre-med. But then I wanted to sing in
the choir, and I didn't realize that the choral director
was a racist, to be quite blunt about it. He said, oh, no,
your voice isn't good enough. And I said, oh, well,
you're the head of the voice department. Could I take
(08:56):
voice lessons with you? He said, no, you have no talent.
I wouldn't waste my time with you. Being colored, he
didn't think I could do Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, classical composers.
He said, however, there's a young teacher coming here this fall. Now,
this was 1957. And he said, maybe he'll take you.
(09:17):
He did. His name was Charles Kellis. He was a
Greek man. Kyriakos was his Greek name. And he heard
me singing. And he said, you know, you have a
voice to sing opera. And I said, what is opera?
In Centerville, obviously, we didn't have an orchestra. We only
(09:37):
had choral music. All the churches had a choir. And
the only instrument, generally speaking, would be a piano. So
I had not had exposure to classical music until Mr.
Kellis played some recordings, those big 33 and 1 3rd
plastic records. He played some opera singers so I could
(09:58):
hear their voices and that style.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Of music.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And then he wanted me to hear just pure orchestral music.
So he played Rensky Korsakov's Scheherazade as a Russian composer.
And after I heard it, I said to him, Mr. Kellis,
I really like that stuff. I just call it stuff.
And he said, well, Simone, he always called me Simone.
(10:21):
You had this voice. I mean, really, I had never
heard that kind of music. And I loved it the
moment I heard it. What I've often said, it was
dormant inside of me or latent, whatever word you use.
And of course, it was enhanced when I went to Juilliard.
He sent me to Juilliard School of Music. But I
(10:43):
was very naive. I didn't know the really importance of
It's the greatest musical conservatory or college in the entire world.
Everybody wants to get into Juilliard. Right today, they only
have an enrollment of about 830 students. Anyhow, the shock
was probably more, I was more excited about seeing those
(11:05):
skyscrapers than I was going to Juilliard. I was so
happy that I got a window seat. So I could
look out and my neck, I don't know if I
was on the right side or the left side of
the plane, but it was probably stiff by the time
I got to New York because I just kept looking
out at the clouds and the buildings down there and
cars looking like little ants and all of that. That
(11:26):
was really an experience. Never was on an airplane. And
I remember when Mr. Kellis took me to the Metropolitan
Opera House to hear an opera. Rigoletto. Rigoletto is the
name of the character. in this opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
And I remember I couldn't believe what I heard in
(11:49):
the Metropolitan Opera, that orchestra and all of those voices.
Of course, I didn't realize that they weren't using microphones
until Mr. Kellis brought it to my attention. He said, Simone,
you notice all those people on the stage, they don't
use any microphones. And I thought that was amazing. Anyhow,
I was only there two years before I started singing professionally.
(12:12):
There were three others. I think we were called black
at that point. We've been Negro, black, African, Afro, African-American.
So I don't know what I am, but I do
know I'm a human being and one of God's children.
And once I started to realizing what Juilliard really was,
(12:33):
I thanked the Lord for it because I thought, wow,
this is amazing coming from Centerville, Iowa. But I had
a double feeling because I was frustrated that they wouldn't
let me sing in my own country. When I first
started singing opera, it was April 19th, 1965, was in
(12:54):
Germany at the West German Opera House. Here in the
United States, a black woman to sing opera, because some
roles are romantic, And of course, even with a black
man next to a white woman on the stage, it
was much more difficult for a black man. And so
that excluded us from certain repertoire, certain roles. So it
(13:15):
was very difficult. I remember it was in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I was singing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And
the opera house, they have an opera house there in Atlanta.
I won't mention the man's name, but he was the
head of the opera. So I went over to see him.
I said, you know, I would love very, very much
(13:35):
to sing in your opera house. And he told me
very honestly, and I respected him because he was honest
about it. He said, I would love to engage you,
but our donors have said if I engage you, a
black man, they would not give us money. I will
tell you it was hurting because I knew I was
(13:56):
qualified to sing the opera in this country. Anyhow, I
started my career at the Deutsche Oper, meaning German Opera House,
in West Berlin. And Berlin was separated at that time.
And then in 1966, the State Department asked me to
(14:17):
go to Russia and sing in the Tchaikovsky Competition. And
they told me that I'd have to sing some songs
in Russian. I said, well, I don't know any Russian,
of course. Because I didn't know any Russian, they said,
we will send you money to study Russian in Germany.
(14:39):
And they never did send it. And so something told
me to, I had all the other repertoire, Italian, German, French,
all those languages I was singing in, and English, of course,
I had that. But something told me to go anyhow.
And when I flew there, I think God arranged all
this time. This is where my faith comes in, in
(14:59):
the Bible and all that. A Russian actress who was
doing a movie in East Berlin, and she spoke German,
of course, and I spoke German. And she asked me,
why was I going to Russia, to Moscow? And I
told her, to the Tchaikovsky Competition. She was really, wow,
at the Tchaikovsky Competition. Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest
(15:22):
Russian composers. And so I asked her to teach me
a famous song that was famous in Russia, phonetically. And
so for three hours between East Berlin and Moscow, this
lady taught me a song called Nizlova Odrukmoy, which means
(15:44):
not a word, oh my friend. And I believe that
God arranged that. I believe that Charles Kellogg's was sent
to the University of Iowa, this teacher who discovered me.
And I believe he put that lady next to me.
And what I realized then, God had given me a
(16:05):
talent for languages. And when I got to Moscow, my accompanist,
her name was Irina Zorina. That was 1966. She said,
Russian not bad, but we will make better. And so
she helped me. And in fact, I got a review
from the Pravda newspaper. It said Simon Estes had the
(16:26):
best Russian of anybody in the competition who was not
a Russian. And then to skip ahead, I won the
bronze medal. And President Johnson invited me to come to
the White House and invited my mother. And my mother
had never been on an airplane either.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
And you've been listening to Simon Estes tell one heck
of a story. My goodness, he holds a firm belief
that God puts certain people in his life at certain
times and places and in a sequence. And my goodness,
that Greek teacher of his who told him he had
a voice for opera. And Simon's reply, what is opera?
(17:04):
And he said, I had never heard that music, but
I loved it. He didn't know Juilliard either. And the
next thing you know, he was there or its importance.
And of course, anyone who knows music knows what Juilliard
is and the role it's played in unearthing some of
the great musical talent of the last century.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And then came the discrimination.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
As Leontine Price had predicted, it would be harder for
a man to break in than a woman, and that
experience in Atlanta, absolutely heartbreaking. He knew he had the talent,
so did the head of the opera there, but he
gave him the bad news.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
The white donors wouldn't allow it. They'd back out.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
And off to Germany he went, then to Russia, and
when we come back, More of this remarkable story of
triumph over tragedy here on Our American Stories. And we
(18:08):
return to Our American Stories and the final portion of
our story with Simon Estes, one of the greatest opera
singers of our generations. When we last left off, Simon,
facing discrimination in the United States, left for Europe to
pursue his professional career and would get his major break
in Moscow, of all places, at a competition, no less,
(18:29):
after having learned Russian on the ride over.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Let's return to the story. Here again is Simon Estes.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Many years, I couldn't sing recitals, even in the southeastern
part of the United States. But finally, they let me
sing down there. And I remember in one city, my
accompanist and I, we got out of the plane. We
went into the city, to the hotel. And there was
a patrolman. He followed us from the airport to the hotel.
(18:58):
Checked in the hotel. Went down to eat before I sang,
you know. That patrolman was still there. And my pianist
was a white man. I remember the patrolman walked over
and said, I want you boys. They put him in
the boy category then. I'm following you. I was staying
in a hotel in the South. A woman's jewelry was stolen.
(19:19):
I was the only black person staying in the hotel.
And I got in the elevator. I will never forget this.
I was in my tails. And there was a white
woman who got in the elevator. She said, boy, what
did you do with it? I said, what are you
talking about? She said, we know you stole a woman's jewelry.
I can still remember. She said, on the fourth floor.
On the fourth floor, you stole. I said, man. And
(19:42):
I was in my tuxedo. I said, do I look
like a thief to you? And she said, well, we're
going to search your room, boy.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
All right.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Well, you can search my room, but you better not
disturb anything. And she used a double negative. That don't
make no difference. Well, when she used a double negative,
I realized she wasn't educated. Of course, obviously, I didn't
steal the jewelry. It was really scary. I could Honestly
tell you, when that plane took off sometimes, I was
(20:13):
always happy that I got off the ground, got out
of the South, but I still wanted to go there
and sing. Anyhow, I remember when I sang when Martin
Luther King was assassinated. I was in Canada. And I
remember I was getting dressed. I had the TV on,
and Walter Cronkite, he said, ladies and gentlemen, and he
(20:35):
had his glasses. I remember he took them off. And
put him, he said, Martin Luther King has just been assassinated.
I told the people that night I wouldn't sing some
happy songs that I had on the program. And they
had already a reception planned for me. Of course, not
knowing Martin Luther King was going to be assassinated. But
(20:57):
they said something to me. They said, you know, why
don't you move to Canada? We wouldn't treat you that way.
And I was surprised that they said that, but I
wasn't surprised because I thought if 10 million black people
(21:17):
came to Canada tomorrow, you might have a racial problem too.
Not that we are inherently problem makers. And I said, no,
I'm going to stay in my country and continue to
try to fight for justice and equality. And it was frustrating.
I was sad. I was underpaid all these years that
(21:41):
I sang opera. I was never paid what I should
have been paid. In some of the opera houses where
I sang, too, they put makeup on. My first performance,
when I sang Romphus in Verri's opera called Aida, Romphus
is a high priest, and it takes place in Egypt,
(22:06):
and when they made me up, They made me white
as snow. I went to the makeup room. I looked
in the mirror and I thought, if my mother could
see me now, I was snow white. But my parents
always said, never give up. Don't become discouraged and don't
let something deter you. Stay strong. And obviously I didn't
(22:29):
give up. Whenever I would go out and sing recitals,
I would always pray before. And I would pray that
through the talent that God gave me that somebody or
more than one person's heart would be touched through their music,
that they would love one another and would have peace
through music. I think I've sung in 44 of the
(22:52):
50 states. But when I sang at the Met, I
remember I was, the opera that I sang in there
was called Tannhäusen. I did Landgraf. That's a Wagnerian opera.
And I remember when I, at that time, After the performance,
when I was in my room, I was thinking, wow,
(23:13):
I actually sang at the Met. And I remember I
wished I could have sung there earlier because I was qualified,
but I didn't really start singing consistently at the Met
until 1983. And I sang six years in a row
and did a number of different operas. And I was
thrilled and just grateful that my parents taught me to
(23:38):
have courage and not be distracted because of racial discrimination.
And I feel so blessed because I have literally sung
all around the world, whether it's Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Africa,
South America, all of the European countries. And when I
(24:02):
was a kid growing up in Centerville, Iowa, I didn't
think I'd get farther away. East, maybe, than Chicago. But
I've been to Tokyo, and I've been to China, to Beijing.
And I've sung for the Nobel Prize Committee, and Nelson Mandela. Oh, yeah,
and I'm not Catholic, but I've sung for two popes,
Pope John I, Pope John II. It's really true. And
(24:25):
Billy Graham, you know the Billy Graham crusade? And Madison
Square Garden in New York City. And some of these
things that I've done, I still can't believe it. But
I realized it was a gift from God that he
gave me. And I do a lot of teaching. I'm
a full professor. I have 14 honorary degrees. Two years ago,
(24:51):
Juilliard gave me a doctorate degree also. And I just
thank God that he gave me this talent and opportunity
to travel all around this planet Earth that he created.
I still can't believe it. I remember I built a
new house many years ago when I was married in
New Jersey on three acres of land. I remember one
(25:16):
time when even after we were having dinner, I have
three daughters now. They were little girls then, of course.
I remember I left the table and I went out
and I built this house on three acres of land.
And I looked at that house and I thought, wow.
And I didn't know how big this house was when
I built it. I saw a house. that I liked,
(25:38):
and I asked a builder if he could build it
like this house that I saw from the outside but
not the inside. And I didn't even realize how big
it was. Well, it had 6,500 square feet of living space.
And my little house in Centerville was 27 feet by
25 feet. And I remember I stood there, and I looked,
and I thought, wow, that's my house. I built this house.
(26:02):
I could hardly believe it.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Simon
Estes for telling his story. And to Steve Schott, the
producer of the wonderful documentary Simon Estes, A Heart and
a Voice, for setting up this interview for us. And
to find out more about the documentary, go to aheartofvoice.com.
(26:24):
That's aheartofvoice.com. And what a heart to overcome this indiscriminate
discrimination that he faced not for a year or two,
But for decades, the story of that elevator ride where
he's in tails and this woman's lost jewelry and just
assumes he stole it and how he wanted to continue
to sing in the South despite that discrimination and that
(26:49):
line he had about always praying before his performance, I
prayed for peace through music. And by goodness, his parents
gave him that courage in God, the courage of his faith,
to just get through the hard stuff, to get to
the beautiful and to get to the godly. And that
27 by 25 square foot house that he grew up in,
(27:13):
he ended up with three acres in New Jersey and
6,500 square feet. In the end, he attributed it all
to his creator. The story of Simon Estes on Our
American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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