Leroy Southers,
      A stream of consciousness by Ralph Grierson

I met Leroy in the fall of 1962. I was a freshman and Leroy was a junior I was studying piano with John Crown as was Michael Tilson Thomas. John Crown was an incredible man who believed that there should be interaction between the composers and performers. He approached Michael and asked him to learn & perform a piano sonata written by Leroy. Michael, whom I had met on my first day at USC, said to John, "I really don't have the time but I think it would be perfect for Ralph." Thus began a 41 year friendship. I received the music 2 weeks before the concert but it still wasn't finished. Every day until a few days before the performance I received a few more bars of music from Leroy. I had never been so challenged in my life. It stretched my mind and prepared me for a career of working with composers both in the film and concert world. When Leroy and Chris Nance needed a roommate for their apartment, Leroy suggested me.

We made many trips to Friday music, a place to buy used LP's. Leroy would collect several performances of the same piece. Discussed every difference in interpretation by conductors, quality of playing by the orchestra, the technical differences in the sounds of the halls, the microphone placement, etc. etc. etc. We discovered the Beatles together and anxiously awaited the latest albums. Sense of honor. Married Eleanor for the sake of Jill. We played chess together, and Go, and the card game Pounce, Poker and later English Billiards and table tennis. We smoked, drank beer, and laughed a lot. Moderation. Leroy did whatever it took to support himself and his family. He never lost his passion for music. He wasn't a fashionable composer but he believed completely in writing his own music.

I didn't see as much of Leroy during the last 20 years, but that meant that I received letters and drawings and short stories. I've just been reading over some of them that I saved. On letting go of a relationship he wrote: "For one thing, I think my own perception of time and who and where I am must work different from the way it works for folks who are more 'now' oriented. I study history, I make connections with past and present as part of my professional discipline; I collect books of historical photographs, and even in my own family we've spent time in North Dakota looking for trees on which my father carved his initials 50 years ago. It takes the MAX for me to
make a past into something unimportant or indifferent. And, truly, if twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or yesterday don't matter, then today is meaningless... however you look at it. Tomorrow is nothing, because it doesn't exist, and hasn't existed, except as an imagined potential, and except as the result of a continuum of envisioning, planning and making (creating). Unless, of course, one is a sort of flake who bounces around with no regard to structural premises and the long sweep: such people never become anything except by accident, which is no way to live for a guy like me who is mostly nothing except for the things I make."

In a letter from the mid 70's he writes about our discussions of the books of Carlos Casteneda.
"But you know by now, that I am unsympathetic to verbal knots, hard-core belief in anything which is externally mystical, and certainly to groups, group processes, utopias, and the like. I think we have to be, in one sense, light as feathers, able to leap over mental chasms for the Hell of it - while not being committed to their existence. What a tragedy it would be if reincarnation actually existed! What greater cause for despair than the thought that I, or anyone else, were nothing more than another sheet on the endless toilet paper roll. Immortality? That's an especially frightening concept, though at several levels we all seem to crave it. Imagine, always having to be and never really being able to set 'Finé' at the end of it... It would be a comfort to know that sometime many years from now we might all meet again in some black hole-cum cosmic vagina somewhere. It just isn't congruent with my sense of taste though, and it's just a bit too sort of left over from the '60s cross cultural, group-thing, flower power for me to probably ever feel comfortable with it. But presuming there's some latitude in the great beyond, perhaps we'll all be able to visit Odin and Thor, and perhaps I can visit you in your black hole or in someone else's vagina, or wherever, and you can make an occasional foray into my heaven. Let me tell you, I have a very specific set of requirements for my heaven in some areas! First of all, there's one Hell of an orchestra there, and transistor radios are verboten. If booze and sex and really good music, not commercial shit or sandbox stuff, isn't there then it wouldn't be worth having. Off in the wings somewhere will be a special purgatory for 'Ohm' sayers, complete with a few Jerry Falwell types to apply the whips in case anyone forgets his mantra: that will provide Jerry with a certain amount of pleasure, of course. For his penance he will be obliged to continue huckstering his Bibles with no prospects of ever receiving any donations, nor will he ever be able to f___ unless he's chained to his bloody cross. Meanwhile the rest of us 'hot dogs' will be able to have a good time. And, of course, if someone wants to be reincarnated he can do that, but first he'll have to swear off vegetables, promise to dislodge any other souls who might be clamoring for a particular body, and swear never to wear a turban or beads."
Loving friend! what a mind! what a memory! what conviction and dedication to music art and literature! How could you fail to take care of that physical body? I am so grateful that we were able to spend those two days together just three weeks ago- to meet Jackie and see you so looking forward to being together in your retirement. Our deepest condolences.

May there be no body in the afterlife to inhibit that wonderful spirit.

Finé with Love,

Ralph & Caroline, Heather & Nicolle