CREDITS: Yellabird Media presents Higher Grounds, a scripted audio drama, written and produced by Kimberly Conway. Higher Grounds contains mature themes and topics that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
KAT: When we left our girls, they were eight and nine years old, just babies, unaware of how fast time was pulling them forward. The years passed the way they always do, steadily without asking permission, filled with school days, sleepovers, shared secrets, and whispered dreams between girls who didn't yet understand how quickly a childhood ends. By the late nineteen sixties, their world was widening. Love, ambition, independence, all beginning to flicker into focus. And they reached for those things for the first time, testing the edges of who they might become, stepping unknowingly toward a moment that would change everything.
This is Higher Grounds episode two, the Divine Darlings, 1967 to 1969.
ROZ: Roz, it was 1967 when we started singing at the Parthenon. I remember because Elle and I were 15, and we were chomping at the bit to get our driver's license so we could drive down to the park instead of riding our bikes.
SYLVIA: Sylvia, we used to ride our bikes down to Centennial Park and watch Charles and his friends play baseball. We'd watch for a little while, but inevitably, we'd get bored and venture off on our own. We like to walk over
KAT: to the Parthenon. The Parthenon is a full scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was built in 1897 and remains a centerpiece of Centennial Park.
SYLVIA: We'd find the shady side of the building and just hang out for hours.
JONI: Joni. Sylvia had the biggest crush on Roz's older brother, Charles. She was always talking about him.
ROZ: We started singing mostly to give Sylvia something else to do besides talk about Charles.
SYLVIA: I think it was Roz who noticed how good the acoustics were out there. All that concrete, the high ceilings. Roz and Elle had those amazing singing voices. So they just start singing. Then Joni and I would join in just playing around.
Eventually, Roz started teaching us to sing four part harmony. She had an ear for it, and she was a very patient teacher. She'd work with each of us on our parts until we had them just right.
JONI: We sang old church hymns mostly. Our favorite one was Pressing on the Upward Way, but we always called it higher ground. Sometimes we'd be out there singing and end up drawing a little crowd. I remember this one evening after Charles and his friends finished their ballgame. They came over and listened to us.
ROZ: Charles bragged on us to Mama and Daddy the next day at the dinner table, told them we sounded like professional singers. So the next time the girls were over, Daddy asked us to sing for him. Then he called Mama in and had us do it all over again. They had no idea we could sing like that. That Sunday, the four of us were singing a feature in front of the whole church just before daddy got up to preach.
That was the first time I'd ever sang in church, and I felt like a fire had been lit inside me. That was it for me. I knew I'd found my calling.
JONI: Roz came up with a name for our group, the Divine Darlings. She started organizing practices three times a week. She really took charge.
SYLVIA: I was just having a good time with my friends. I wasn't interested in becoming some big time singer. I had gotten a glimpse of fame through watching Elle's life and I wanted no part of it. But Roz was really serious. She was a truly gifted singer.
That's not for me. But hey, I was along for the ride, so I I showed up to all the practices, and I was there every Sunday morning singing my part, just supporting Roz, being a a good friend. And I might have had another motivation.
CHARLES: Reverend Charles Richardson, husband of Sylvia Richardson. Did Sylvia tell you she caught me watching her sing? Alright. I'll admit that. Sylvia was beautiful.
There was no denying it. And there was something about her that just drew you in. It was impossible not to notice her up there. She had been hanging around with Ross since she was a little bitty thing, so I'd never paid her much attention. But watching her up there singing in church?
Yeah. She got my attention then. But listen, Sylvia is two years younger than me. I know two years isn't much, but when you're talking about a 14 year old and a 16 year old, that's not insignificant. But, yeah, I did notice Sylvia.
I'll admit that. And she noticed me noticing.
SYLVIA: Everyone might have thought I was up there singing for the Lord, but, baby, I was singing for Charles. Oh, I had a crush on that boy from the first time I laid eyes on him. He was just so cute with those big brown eyes and that crooked little smile. And so smooth, just cool, you know? There were a lot of years when we were coming up that he barely knew I was around.
Once I saw the way he was looking up at me there singing, honey, I knew that boy was mine.
CHARLES: Nah, she didn't have me like that. She thought she did, but I had another girlfriend at the time and we were pretty hot and heavy. It was at least two or three months before Sylvia and I got together.
SYLVIA: I can tell you the moment it happened. Mama was off work, so I was spending the weekend with her at the trailer. She sent me to the store to pick up a few things for dinner. I was walking home, I got a paper bag full of groceries in each arm. All of a sudden, a big rainstorm popped up out of nowhere.
Here I am, carrying these paper bags. They're getting wet, falling apart, cans are starting to fall out of the bottom. And then this maroon Buick pulls up beside me and honks the horn. And Charles gets out, he takes the bags, and I hurry up and get in the car.
CHARLES: I was just trying to do the right thing. You drive by someone caught out in a torrential downpour, struggling as she was, you stop and help them out. Doesn't matter who it is.
SYLVIA: By the time he loaded up the bags and got back into the car, we both looked like a couple of drowned rats. I mean, all we could do was laugh. It was raining so hard, he couldn't even see to pull back onto the road. We had to sit there and wait it out.
CHARLES: I cranked up the radio to pass the time.
SYLVIA: We were bopping around to the music, singing every line, just being silly, you know.
CHARLES: I was singing off key, acting like a fool, just trying to make her laugh.
SYLVIA: I couldn't tell if he was playing or if he was really that tone deaf. I mean, I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it. He looked so serious. I mean he was really getting into it.
CHARLES: I always did like to make Sylvia laugh. She tossed her head back, scrunched up her nose and just let out this laugh that seemed like it came all the way from her belly. You had to laugh with her.
SYLVIA: We had the best time together. I didn't even care that I was soaking wet and freezing. I would have stayed in that car with him all day. Another
CHARLES: song came on, a slow one and the mood shifted. No, I don't remember what the song was. The only thing on my mind at that point were her lips, the smile, that cute little freckle at the corner of her mouth.
SYLVIA: We got to kissing. We were steaming up all them windows in that old car. We really started something that day. From then on, we couldn't get enough of each other.
CHARLES: I broke up with my girlfriend that same evening because that was it for me. I only had eyes for Sylvia. Sylvia was like this little ray of sunshine. It made you feel good to be around her. She could always put a smile on your face no matter what you were going through.
She was crazy as a bed bug. She could turn anything into an adventure, have you laugh until your sides hurt. When we were all alone and we'd get to talking, she was so deep. She had a lot of wisdom for someone so young and she had a strength about her. That wasn't a size she showed to everybody, so it felt special to know her in that way.
I loved hearing the way she thought about the world. The two of us would sit down and talk. The next thing we knew, hours had passed us by.
SYLVIA: Charles was all I thought about. And it was hard because we were trying to keep it a secret from everyone. Back then, I was sleeping over at Roz's house all the time. We knew if Claire found out something was going on between us, she'd be watching us like a hawk. We were afraid she would stop letting me come over as much.
CHARLES: We were always sneaking around. We had to get pretty creative to have some time alone together. But you know what they say, where there's a will, there's a way.
SYLVIA: Eventually, Roz caught us and we had to tell the girls what was going on. Once they found out, things got easier. They were really good about covering for us.
KAT: By the 1969, the Divine Darlings had made quite a name for themselves on the Tennessee church circuit. They were booked most every weekend, performing at various churches, tent revivals, and programs all across the state. Elle had just wrapped filming on Beach Mania two, and she was quickly becoming a teen sensation. Her face was on the cover of 17 magazine, and her shampoo commercial had girls flocking to the drugstores in hopes of achieving the bouncy voluminous hair that had become her trademark. She returned home for the summer just in time to head out on tour with the divine darlings who had caught the attention of renowned gospel recording artist Helen Taylor while performing at a convention a few months earlier.
Helen Taylor invited the girls to be her opening act for the summer leg of her tour. This was their first big adventure.
ROZ: We thought we were real women of the world traveling around like that. I think we started on the tour in Chicago. From there, we made a couple of stops in Michigan, then we headed off to France. It was a different place about every night, bigger crowds than we had ever performed in front of.
SYLVIA: When we started singing together, we were just having fun. I don't think any of us thought it would go as far as it did. I certainly didn't. But on the road, all of a sudden, we were expected to be professionals.
JONI: Ms. Taylor demanded a lot from us. She sat us all down the first day and told us we were there to do a job and if we didn't conduct ourselves professionally, she would put us on the first bus back to Nashville.
ROZ: It was a crash course in how to communicate with an audience and how to conduct yourself on stage.
SYLVIA: That sort of environment, it separates the ones who really want it from those who don't. For me, the Divine Darlings was about spending time with my friends. Singing together was fun, but I had no desire to dedicate my whole self to it the way that's required to make it as a professional. Now, Rox, on the other hand, she didn't want it like that. She was committed, and I think Ms.
Taylor saw that right away. Alison Andrews, biographer. Helen Taylor was notorious for taking young artists under her wing. She was legacy minded and pouring into the next generation was important to her. If she spotted potential in someone, she would work with them to bring it out.
She had a sort of sink or swim approach.
KAT: Helen Taylor started to single Roz out, working with her one on one. By the third stop of the tour, she called Roz out on stage without any warning and asked her to sing a solo.
ROZ: My mouth went dry. I was shaking like a leaf, couldn't even remember the words. Amazing Grace, the first two words are in the title. I couldn't think of them, but somehow I pulled it together and got through it.
KAT: She brought the house down, got a standing ovation. Ross says that to this point in her life, she had always been self conscious, a little awkward. But standing on stage that night, she felt all of that starting to fall away.
ROZ: There was a level of validation in that moment that I think I had been searching for all my life. For maybe the first time, I felt like I had something of my own that I could be proud of. Now don't get me wrong, I loved the girls. But it had been hard for me at times growing up with them. They were all so beautiful.
Then here I was, this short chunky little thing real shy and awkward. The other girls would all borrow each other's clothes, do each other's hair and makeup. I could never fit into the clothes they were wearing and mama didn't allow me to wear a lot of makeup. So in a lot of ways, I felt like I was on the outside of what they were doing. I didn't feel beautiful or desirable at all.
And of course, they always had their little boyfriends.
KAT: Roz had never had a boyfriend, but on tour that summer, that changed too.
ROZ: His name was Gordon Jenkins. He was a little short, but nice looking. He was older, 19. I was 17.
KAT: Gordon Jenkins was Helen Taylor's nephew. He played piano for her on the road. He also played for the Divine Darlings during their stint on the tour.
ROZ: He said, why don't you come in here with me and we'll work on your solo? By then, miss Taylor was pulling me up on stage for a solo every night. So anyway, the two of us went into this big cathedral style church where we were gonna be performing that night. There was no one else around. The lights were turned off, and I remember the way the sunlight slanted through those narrow windows.
Beams of light cutting in all directions through the sanctuary. You could see specks of dust floating in the air all around. We sat down at the grand piano. Light from one of the windows was shining on us like a spotlight. He started playing my song.
I don't know how many times we went over it. He kept telling me to sit up straight and project, you know, giving me all sorts of pointers. I was a nervous wreck being that close to him because I had developed a big crush on him. I remember he wore a high karate aftershave back then and I thought he smelled so good. I think he could tell I was nervous because he started joking around with me, trying to get me to relax.
He said he liked my dimples and I wanted to tell him I liked his smile, but I was too embarrassed. So we went over the song a few more times, and I could hear myself getting stronger each time. By the last run through, I had calmed down and gotten comfortable. I was just singing my heart out. All of a sudden he stopped playing.
I said, what's wrong? He said, nothing. Keep going. So I closed my eyes and went on singing. No piano, just my voice echoing through the sanctuary.
I knew I sounded good. When I finished, I opened my eyes and he was looking at me like he was in awe. No one had ever looked at me that way before. He got this big grin on his face and said, You're something special, you know that? I just about melted onto the floor.
We sat there talking a while. It was hard for me to look at him because he was so focused on me that it made me shy. He reached out and tipped my chin up so I'd look at him. He said, You're too beautiful to be so shy. And then he asked if he could kiss me.
That was my first kiss.
KAT: The following week, Gordon asked Roz to be his girlfriend. She said yes.
SYLVIA: Roz really came alive on that tour. It wasn't just because of Gordon. He was part of it, but I think she was just in her element. You know, she was discovering who she was.
KAT: But the rest of them We
JONI: were so glad when that tour was over.
SYLVIA: It wasn't all bad. It just wasn't the adventure we'd imagined. We thought we'd have a little more freedom out on the road, but miss Taylor was much more strict than Claire. She didn't let us get away with much of anything. And being away from Charles for two months had been difficult.
I couldn't wait to get home and see him.
KAT: The girls finished their portion of the tour in August. They returned to Nashville, and Roz said a tearful goodbye to her first boyfriend.
ROZ: Gordon promised he'd write, and the tour was gonna be taking a break around Thanksgiving. So we planned to get together then because he lived in Nashville when he wasn't on the road.
KAT: Meanwhile, the girls started school. Sylvia and Joni were juniors. Roz and Elle were seniors. And this was actually the first time the four of them had gone to school together. Elle, who normally attended studio school in California, decided she wanted to spend her senior year in public school with her friends.
The following clip is from a series of tapes El had recorded in 1992 in preparation to write her memoir. She passed away before her memoir was complete, but I've included as much of her story in her own words as possible.
ELLE: For years, I had listened to Sylvia Roz, and Joni talk about school, and it seemed fascinating to me, the whole experience. I had been playing a high school student in the beach movies, but in reality, I had no idea what it was like to go to an actual high school. I felt like I was missing out on an important rite of passage, and I wanted in on it. I wanted to go to the ball games and prom and hang out with my friends. This was my last chance to do all of that before graduation.
I didn't have any jobs booked for the rest of the year, so it felt like perfect timing. It took me two days to work up the nerve to call mom and tell her. I wrote out an entire speech because I knew I'd get nervous and forget everything I wanted to say once I had her on the line. I thought of every possible objection she might have, and I wrote a rebuttal for all of them. When I finally got up the nerve to call, I made Sylvia Rozanjoni sit with me for moral support.
Mom, me get through my whole speech. Then she said, it's a nice idea, Elle, but the studio is ready to get started on the next beach movie. She started talking about it like it was a done deal. I said, I'm not doing the movie. I don't even know what came over me.
I was just so sick of her making decisions about my life without consulting me. I wasn't a little girl she could order around anymore. I was 17, and I was done with it. I said, I'm serious. I'm not doing the movie.
I won't. Mom held the line for so long, I thought she'd hung up on me. Finally, she said, alright. Go to school if that's what you wanna do. And then she hung up.
JONI: Elle lowered the phone slowly. We were all on pins and needles. She screamed, I'm going to high school. We all started screaming right along with her.
SYLVIA: Elle had this brand new convertible Mercedes, candy apple red. We all rolled into school that first day with the top down. Everybody was staring.
ROZ: The whole school was stirred up over LB in there. She was one of the biggest stars of that time. Even the teachers were tripping over themselves to get a look at her.
JONI: I remember the first day this one guy had a poster of her hanging in his locker. It was the one of her in the yellow bikini holding on to a surfboard, the one from her beach movie. Anyway, this guy was standing at his locker when the four of us came walking by. He looked at Elle, looked back at the poster, looked back at Elle like he thought maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. She just winked at him and kept on walking.
SYLVIA: It was kind of fun, being in the center of all that buzz and excitement. But things settled down after a couple of weeks. Pretty soon, most people started to think of her as just another student.
ROZ: She got voted homecoming queen that fall and some of the girls didn't like that. They said she only got it because she was famous, but I don't think that was the case. Elle was just a genuine, down to earth person. That's why she won.
KAT: That November, just over a week before Thanksgiving, Helen Taylor's tour took a break and returned home for the holiday. And Roz and Gordon reunited for the first time in three months.
ROZ: Gordon got back to Nashville a day earlier than he planned, so he decided to surprise me. When the girls and I came walking out of school, he was parked right in front of Elle's Mercedes. He was leaning against his car waiting for me. I took off running, threw my arms around him, and gave him a big kiss.
SYLVIA: Roz asked me to cover for her with Claire so she could go for a ride with Gordon.
ROZ: Make me understand. It had been about three months since we'd seen each other, so we had a lot to catch up on. We stopped and got us a coke and talked a while. I told him I better get home before mama got upset with me, but he said, hold on, I've got someplace I want you to see first. He said it was on the way and wouldn't take long.
We drove out to this little house on Hillsboro Road. I thought, what in the world is he bringing me to this house for? Turns out, it was a recording studio.
KAT: RJ records. Some of the biggest hits of the sixties and seventies were recorded there. Gordon was an aspiring record producer. And when he wasn't on tour, he spent most of his time at RJ records, learning the ropes from the legendary record producer, Barry Maguire.
ROZ: He said, I think you could really do something with your voice. I think you could go mainstream. He told me he could give me some studio time and he wanted to produce a demo with just me on it. I said, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. I had gained a lot of confidence out on the road, but I wasn't ready to do anything like that, especially on my own.
And mainstream, the thought of that terrified me.
KAT: So they came to a compromise. The divine darlings would record a demo together, mainstream, not gospel. Gordon already had a song in mind. He even had the musicians lined up.
ROZ: He said, all you gotta do is get the girls here and sing. I'll take care of the rest.
SYLVIA: I was upstairs in Raza's bedroom doing homework when she got home. She sat down on the bed beside me with this big grin on her face. I could tell she was up to something. I said, what?
ROZ: I told her Gordon wanted us to make a mainstream record in a real studio. She closed her book and looked at me like she thought I'd lost my mind.
SYLVIA: I wasn't thrilled about it. Going on tour had changed things for me. I knew music wasn't something I wanted to pursue. Singing in church on Sundays was one thing. I didn't mind doing that, but making a real record, that felt like a big step in a direction I wasn't trying to go.
ROZ: I said, I can't do this on my own. I need you.
SYLVIA: She would not let it rest. She brought it up to Elle and Joni. Elle wasn't excited about the idea either. Roz moped around school the next day, barely said a word to any of us.
KAT: Elle and Sylvia may not have been on board initially, but Ross found an ally in Joni.
JONI: I thought it sounded like a great opportunity. Ross and I sort of teamed up to convince Elle and Sylvia to do it. It took a couple of days, but we finally talked them into it.
SYLVIA: We went into the studio on Friday right after school.
ROZ: It wasn't anyone there but us and Gordon and the band he got to play for us.
SYLVIA: It was cramped inside that studio.
JONI: We sat down on a red leather sofa and started learning the song. I think Gordon wrote it, if I remember correctly. It was pretty simple. It had a little bit of Motown feel, uptempo, lots of harmonizing, which is what we did best.
SYLVIA: We went into the ISO booth. Gordon put Roz on a mic by herself. Elle, Joni, and I were all on one mic together. He mostly wanted Roz singing. I mean, that was clear.
JONI: It was already kind of dark in there, and Gordon was sitting at the mixer wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigar. Just way too cool for all of us.
SYLVIA: It was hard to take him seriously with those shades on. I said, can you even see what you doing? Ross elbowed me in the side.
JONI: I don't know how many takes we did. Eight or 10 maybe. Roz kept saying, I think I can do it a little better. Let me go again.
ROZ: We all gathered in the control room and listened to the playback. I was blown away. I mean, we sounded great. Gordon was so happy he picked me up and kissed me. He said, we got ourselves a hit.
And that got me excited because I knew he really thought we had something. We were all floating on
JONI: a cloud when we left the recording studio. The girls and I stayed over at Roz's house that night. We were too excited to sleep. I was sketching ideas for costumes. We were trying to come up with a new name for the group.
Gordon said the divine darlings didn't sound commercial enough. He wanted us to come up with something more marketable.
SYLVIA: We were just on top of the world back then. I remember one night Charles and I snuck out together. We laid a blanket out by the river and we were looking up at the stars. And I told him, I don't think it's possible to be any happier than I am right now. I still think about that sometimes.
Try to remember what that felt like. Don't get me wrong, I've been happy since then, but that was it a different kind of happiness. Innocent. A little naive. I think I remember it so vividly because that night was the last time I ever remember feeling that way.
The
KAT: divine darlings, this is who they were before time made its mark, before grief, before loss and betrayal. Four girls still believing that love was pure and the future kind. And for a moment, for this moment, it almost was.
CREDITS: Higher Grounds is a Yellowbird media production written and produced by Kimberly Conway. Sylvia is voiced by Laura Jane Jones. Joanie by Cynthia Ergenbright. Roz by Janice Lynn Sykes. Elle by Katie Yoder.
Charles by Gervais Weeks. Cat by Kimberly Conway. Alison by Jennifer Jumis. Opening and closing narration by Roshani Lemino. Sound design and mixing by Yellowbird Media.
Mixing and mastering by Rick Such. The theme song, Everything Changes by Laura Jane Jones, is available now on Apple Music and Spotify. Shows like Higher Grounds are made possible by the support of listeners like you. If you've enjoyed the show, we'd be so grateful if you could take a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected with Higher Grounds and be the first to know about upcoming Yellowbird productions by following us on social media and signing up for our newsletter at www.yellowbird.com.
Higher Grounds is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental. This podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.