Gayle Caldwell (20 February 1941 - 14 April 2009) was an American singer musician and songwriter.
The first of six daughters, Judith Gayle Geddes was born in Eugene, Oregon to Paul and Esther Geddes who first met when he was the church choir director and she was the organist. Gayle”s precocious talents surfaced early. As a young teenager, she worked playing for churches, restaurants, etc. and could read, transpose or play by ear nearly any song someone came up with. She performed her first original piano compositions at about the age of six.
She bloomed into a a superb, versatile singer, with both a crystalline, shimmering soprano sound and a sultry, textured alto range. In 1958 her talents were awarded with a scholarship for a major in music at USC, where she sang in the madrigal choir as a coloratura soprano. That year, she also met and married percussionist Russ Caldwell.
Though only a 17-year-old freshman, Gayle”s talent was noticed and she was hired to perform with the prestigious Roger Wagner Chorale. Thrilled with the opportunity, she quit school and went on tour where she performed meticulously arranged, challenging music in upscale venues. As evidence of her perfect pitch, in concert at Carnegie Hall, she was asked to vocally cue the other singers of their starting note for the next piece while the audience was applauding. This note had to originate from her ear, not from a pitch pipe. With the birth her first daughter Michelle, Gayle wanted to stay close to home in Los Angeles and retired from the Chorale.
In 1962 Gayle was hired to be a featured soloist in an “off-Broadway” musical comedy revue at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. After the show, one of the managers of the New Christy Minstrels came back stage and asked her to audition for the group. Gayle had not heard of them at that time. The “Christies,” brainchild of folksinger Randy Sparks, were an innovative ensemble of 10 distinctly talented performers — eight men and two women who were then taking the music business by storm. Gayle fit well in with the Christy team and her talents brought much to the group’s sound and they performed weekly as regulars on NBC”s Andy Williams Show.
The group's career continued its amazing trajectory and, within a few months, Gayle had attracted her own loyal following among the group's burgeoning audience of fans. In 1963, they recorded four albums; among them was Ramblin” which earned a gold record and has become a pop folk classic. By the close of the year, they were full-fledged stars. One of Gayle's last major appearances with the group was at the White House. At the point managers decided to take the group off television and put them on the more lucrative concert trail, there was a good-natured family joke that she was making more money as a musician than her father was as a lawyer.
In order to spend more time with her daughter, Gayle stopped touring and formed a duo with her close friend Jackie, the other female in the Christys. Between 1964 and 1967, Jackie and Gayle released several singles for Capitol, co-starred in two teen-oriented movie musicals — Wild On the Beach and Wild, Wild Winter ? and appeared on numerous TV variety shows. Her second husband, film and television stuntman Dick Ziker, inspired her to take a role on two episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies where she learned firsthand what it was like to do her own stunts.
Here’s “Cycles” from above LP.
When not performing, Gayle composed and arranged music, and in 1968 her composition “Cycles” became a significant comeback hit for Frank Sinatra and the title cut for his next album. She landed a contract with A&M Records and recorded an album of her own compositions, “Celebration of Life.” Her compositions have been recorded by a wide spectrum of artists — Astrud Gilberto, Robert Goulet, Howard Keel, O.C. Smith, Oscar Peterson, The Mystic Moods Orchestra, Rod McKuen and, more recently, Ricki Lee Jones and Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy.)
In 1991, Gayle moved to Fort Bragg to fulfill a vision she had of growing roses by the sea. She had many private piano and voice students and often spoke of how much happiness she got from helping people express themselves musically. She served as organist and choral director for the Presbyterian and Catholic churches, was musical director for several of the “Gloriana Opera Company” musical productions, as well as for the Mendocino Art Center, where she produced occasional Sunday afternoon concerts that displayed her eclectic musical tastes — everything from classical to ethnic folk.
In 2008 her last major project was a CD entitled “All is One.” The album is classic Caldwell — haunting melodies, poetic lyrics of human insight and honesty — all sung in Gayle”s rich, expressive voice and featuring Norton Bufflo, Paul McCandles and Alex de Grassi, among others. Through the winter months of early 2009, Gayle experienced a succession of draining setbacks, she died on April 14th in Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, California, USA at the age of 68.
(Edited from The Mendocino Beacon obit)