For more than three decades, Hal Cooper’s Arkansas Tech University marching bands set the standard for halftime sound and sight on college football game days in the Natural State.
Now, through a project led by Dr. Lowell Lybarger of Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center, remastered digital recordings from the Cooper era of “Arkansas’ Band of Distinction” have been created and shared online.
“This collection has been on a wild journey,” said Cooper. “We started recording the marching band shows the last year Bob Casey did the marching band. Out of all these recordings, we tried to keep one per year. Kappa Kappa Psi fraternity decided to come into my office and make a permanent DVD record of those shows. Everything those guys did to put those together wound up in my office. Then, when I retired, it wound up in my daughter’s closet. It sat there and sat there, and then Lowell started this project of making archives of music department performances. I started looking at everything I had, and I was certain the alumni and some of the staff might be interested in playing them back at some point.”
The collection is available at https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_band_cooper/index.html.
“While working on these recordings, I was struck by the robust, powerful sound of Hal Cooper’s bands each year,” said Lybarger, who serves as multimedia librarian at ATU. “His consummate musicality as well as the contributions of colleagues like Philip Parker, who created outstanding drumlines, shines through. The 1980 band especially captivated me…I listened to that show on repeat for a week.”
Cooper was hired as director of bands at Arkansas Tech in 1979 and remained in that role until his retirement in 2011.
“It was a very unusual time for small school bands in Arkansas back in those days,” said Cooper. “There was a fierce competition among the bands at Henderson State, UCA and Tech for students because we were in the same geographical area. The opinions of who had the best marching band became a major component of deciding where to go to school. So, the major thrust of the fall semester was to get a really creative, quality, classy halftime show ready.”
Cooper was named ATU professor emeritus of music in 2013 and he received the highest honor the university may bestow upon an individual — induction into the ATU Hall of Distinction — in 2017.
The online archive of ATU marching band performances from the Cooper era provides evidence of why those 32 years are so fondly remembered, both by those who listened to the music and those who performed it.
“Lowell does a fabulous job of editing music,” said Cooper. “He has a great ear. I’ve listened to virtually all of them. We spent a lot of time in front of the computer screen, and the recordings are a lot better than they were. Lowell has an excellent ear for mixing. The end product, sound wise, is drastically improved. That was always a primary component of our shows, anyway. We tried to keep the musical level and the music selections at a high level…good music played very well and accompanied by drill design and color. The first thing I noticed in the recordings was the full range of sound. I’m very proud of what (Lybarger) did with the mixing and re-mixing of those recordings.
“It brings back such memories,” continued Cooper. “The blood, sweat and tears…extremely hard work…that those students went through. When they came into this organization, primarily started by Gene Witherspoon, there was a team dynamic built there that would not die. Their own expectations when the students came into the program kept it afloat. It goes from director to director to director, and what Dan (Belongia) has going now is spectacular. A lot of it is that team dynamic that drives the kids to do their very best. Our audience expects it to be that way. It’s a tradition that has changed leaders through the years, but that drive and that team dynamic of Tech band is very special. I start feeling that when I hear and see recordings of it…lots of memories.”
