Moody Museum hits high note with display
Folks may not think of Taylor as a musical mecca, but a new exhibit at the Moody Museum could have visitors singing a different tune.
A wide variety of musicians — from orchestra, country western, polka, gospel and Tejano — have sprung from Taylor, and a new exhibit at the museum puts these hometown performers in the spotlight.
Marcie Svatek, a docent at the museum, 114 W. Ninth St., assembled the collection.
She chose the subject, she said, “because everybody experiences music, it’s a collective memory.”
Many of the historical, musical memories Svatek gathered from Taylor residents included tunes aired on KTAE, a former Taylor radio station that began broadcasting in 1948.
“People from different age groups and backgrounds mentioned listening to KTAE,” Svatek said.
Today, Taylor has KRXT, a news-talk and country-western format station broadcasting from downtown.
Taylor also had its own symphonic group.
Not much information is known about the Taylor Symphony Orchestra, except it performed during native son Dan Moody’s gubernatorial inauguration in 1927.
The Moody Museum also has a picture of the musicians with their instruments.
In conjunction with the exhibit, the Moody hosted “Musical Melodies,” a night to enjoy live music out on the facility’s lawn. The event was initially slated for June 24, but the date was moved to Thursday after a rain cancellation.
The cost to attend the program was a monetary or nonperishable donation for the Shepherd’s Heart Food Pantry.
The Musical Melodies event replaced the annual “pounding” the museum hosted in the past. A pounding is a tradition where a new pastor is welcomed to town with food –– a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and so on.
“We came across an article in an old Collier’s Magazine that told us the East Texas Chamber of Commerce held a pounding and stocked the Governor’s Mansion for the newlyweds (Dan and Mildred Moody),” said Susan Komandosky, chairwoman of the museum’s advisory board.
Komandosky thought the pounding would be a neat tradition to carry on and a way to give back to the community.
“We used to hold it once a year and people would bring donations on a Saturday morning, and it did real well,” Komandosky said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum tried to hold a no-contact pounding, but the event suffered and afterwards it never quite returned to what it had been before. Komandosky decided it was time to try something different. This was the first year the museum held Musical Melodies.
For more information about the museum, its exhibits and events, visit moodymuseum.com.
Check the website for days and hours of operation.
Czech Melody Masters of Taylor and Austin perform at the Moody Museum for “A Night of Musical Melodies” to support Shepherd’s Heart Food Pantry. Photo by Marcie Svatek
Country western singer Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters band got their start in Taylor, performing as the house band on KTAE in 1955. Their song “Release Me” reached the top five on the music billboard in 1954. Photo by Emily Treadway
