by Tim Terman
Remember 1969? The
United States had been in Vietnam for seven years. Thousands
of Americans and Vietnamese were dead, and Richard Nixon and
Henry Kissinger were looking for a way out.
WVU students were gathering at The Last Resort, a coffeehouse on Spruce Street, to discuss politics. This is where three WVU nursing students who called themselves the Hilltop Singers performed their first gig on February 28, 1969.
They sang "This Land is My Land" and songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary and the Kingston Trio. They developed a following, and by 1971 they'd left school for a Defense Department tour to Asia, then with the USO to Vietnam and an experience that would change their lives.
Now, a quarter century since the fall of Saigon, the Hilltop Singers—Linda, Jeanie, and Trish—are singing again. They didn't return to WVU for degrees when their USO work ended in 1972. Pat Starkey (called Trish) lives in California and is a nurse. Linda Carpenter is a childbirth educator and nurse in Tennessee, and Jeanie Carpenter, her sister, works at a post office in the Florida Keys.
After marriage, kids, and a world that has embraced punk rock, heavy metal, and the likes of Marilyn Manson, the group got back together for a Millennium Reunion in Washington, D.C., on July 2 as part of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association annual reunion.
But will Americans warm to folk after Smash Mouth? Maybe. An April gig, near Jeanie's home in the Keys, was a sellout. It was the first time the trio had performed together since the 70s, and, maybe, the start of something big.
"These Keys folk love the music of the 60s and 70s," said Linda, "and they were singing along. Applause was still going on long after we were ready to move on to the next song. It was such a great feeling to be doing this again. It just felt right!"
All three of the singers came to WVU from Chester, W.Va., and they are "ready to go anywhere" as the Bob Dylan song goes, to relive a part of their lives that made them into touring celebrities almost overnight. "I'd go to Kosovo tomorrow," said Trish.
Jeanie remembers performing behind enemy lines in Vietnam. "The company commander had just been killed and morale was low," she said. "They took us to the top of the fire base on top of the hill in a Jeep—a place that was almost always under attack. The troops there needed a show bad."
After their D.C. show the three hope to perform in other military venues, and maybe, back in Morgantown some day. "I'm ready at a drop of a hat to go back to music," Jeanie said. "My husband will go, too. We live in a camper after Hurricane George [which hit the Keys in September 1998]. We're ready to pull out. We don't want to be locked into anything: life's too fragile."
To keep up with the reborn Hilltop Singers, visit http://hometown.aol.com/hiltopsngr.
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