Their Message Is Vital, Fervent Bradley Tells Gospel Musicians

NASHVILLE —  “How’s it going out there?” singer Willie Nelson asked Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who is engaged in a hard race for governor of California.

“Fine,” the mayor said.

“Well, I’ve heard good things,” Nelson said.

The mayor and the famed country-western singer met Sunday night during a two-day Bradley visit to the Gospel Music Assn.’s convention, a trip that gave the Democratic gubernatorial candidate the chance to bid for political support from a fast-growing segment of the music industry.

Positive Identification

Bradley shook hands with Nelson during the GMA’s songwriters awards. That brief encounter provided identification with a man beloved by country music fans, many of whom are working-class, conservative Democrats whose votes Bradley will need in November.

Monday, as the convention’s opening speaker, an unusually fervent Bradley, with evangelical emotion in his voice, told the Christian musicians, songwriters and publishers that their Gospel message was vital in the fight against drugs, homelessness, hunger and teen-age pregnancy.

“Whether near or far, we are linked together as brothers and sisters dealing with the problems that face billions,” he said. “That is the Gospel message we all need to hear today.”

Finally, in his speech, Bradley pledged to join the music business in a fight in Congress against pending bills that composers say would reduce the amount of royalties they receive when their music is played on television.

He criticized provisions in the bills that he said would deprive the two big music organizations, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) of their power to license music used on local television stations.

“That means that composers, including members of your association, would not be paid or at best would have a difficult time getting paid for the broadcast use of their creative efforts,” he said. “That’s just plain wrong.”

Don Butler, executive director of the Gospel Music Assn., said the pledge by the mayor, who has powerful friends in Congress, could bring him political support and campaign contributions from performers and music companies.

He said these “are people who have influence.”

Perhaps most important to the long-range future of Bradley’s uphill campaign against Republican Gov. George Deukmejian was the religiously oriented tone of the message he delivered to an audience of predominantly white, Christian music business people, many of whom are fundamentalists.

It was a complete change from Bradley’s previous campaign speeches, which have tended to be marked either by bitter criticism of Deukmejian or with dull, sometimes rambling, bureaucratic discussions of programs.

In Nashville, the mayor talked in broad terms, offering a vision of the future in a way that has been absent from his previous campaign rhetoric. The audience listened intently and at one point applauded enthusiastically.

‘Need to Be Heard’

Praising the group for spreading its Gospel message, he said, “When there is hunger in the world, we’ve got a problem, and you need to be heard.

“When there is a single drug raid in the country where $500 million worth of cocaine is seized, where tons of that awful poison are found and when that represents only one-tenth of that illegal drug coming into the country, we have got a problem and you need to be heard.”

“When there is a problem of homeless, with 2 million people in this land, wandering the street at night without shelter, without a place to lay their heads down, we as a people have a problem and you need to be heard.”

“When one-third of the babies in our county hospitals across the land are the product of unwed mothers, my friends we’ve got a problem and you need to be heard.”

“Gospel music itself cannot solve the world’s problems, but it can provide some of the motivation and inspiration to get the problem solved.”

After the speech, Bradley joined with the audience in singing a hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

Similar Talks

Bradley has been talking in a similar vein in the last few days. Saturday, he told a black church breakfast in Torrance, “We are plagued with teen-age pregnancies that have risen to the point where it is devastating to our community.” Later that day, he told a group of younger Democrats in Rialto, many of them supporters of Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), “One of the reasons I am running for governor is because I am concerned with the quality of life, with the symbols we leave for our children.”

Bradley’s visit to the convention here was arranged by an old friend, Jimmie Baker, an ABC television executive in Hollywood who has acted as the mayor’s unofficial television producer for several years, supervising the production of major mayoral televised speeches. Baker told the mayor about the music industry’s fight in Congress and provided him with material on the subject.