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I said good-bye to a friend yesterday. I met Anthony Burger in 1975. We were both fourteen years old. I was spending the summer with my mom's cousin, Jerry Goins, who was a traveling evangelist at that time. I was playing piano and organ in his services. One day Jerry asked me to go to a music store to pick up something. I didn't really feel like going that day. I wanted to stay at the pool with my cousins. But Jerry said that the store owner's son played the piano, and Jerry wanted me to hear him. So I went. I met Anthony that day. I heard him play. It was intimidating to say the least. He was already quite an accomplished musician.

I didn't see Anthony again for several years. But the next time I did see him he was playing for the Kingsmen. It wasn't long before they were in my hometown of Sacramento California, at Liberty Towers Church of the Nazarene. I had continued playing the piano, at about the same level I did when I was fourteen. But Anthony was another story altogether. He amazed me that night. He had just recorded his first solo album, and I got a copy of it, and had him sign it.

As the years passed by I began having songs published and recorded. Anthony was not only a great performer, but a huge fan of gospel music as well. He heard some of my songs and asked me to submit some to the Kingsmen. So I did, and we became friends.

Russ Taft told a story at his funeral about one night when Anthony fell of the stage into the orchestra pit. I had to smile because I was in the audience that night and remember seeing it first hand. It was at a high school auditorium in Long Beach California. Anthony was playing a fired up song, and planned to fall off the end of the piano bench at the end of one of the hot runs that he played. What Anthony didn't know was that the top of the piano bench was not nailed to the legs. When Anthony went off the side of the bench, the bench went with him right down into the orchestra pit! And in just a few seconds the top of the bench was thrown back on stage, Anthony climbed back up to the stage, bowed, got a standing ovation, and finished the song.
I thought for sure that it had all been planned ahead of time. But when I talked to him after the concert, he showed me the holes in his pants and sleeves of his coat where he had landed on his knees and elbows. I could not believe that it was really an accident and that he went on with the show. He was really hurt. But the audience never knew it. He was probably the greatest showman that our industry has ever known.

A few years ago on a Monday night at NQC, Anthony saw me from a distance and walked over to me and asked me to come to his booth. At his table he picked up his new video and gave it to me, and informed me that he had just recorded my song, "Worship The Name Of The Lord With Me." It was a song that the Talleys had recorded back in the '80's . But Anthony remembered it and chose to record it. I was overwhelmed that an instrumentalist would choose one of my melodies to record. He asked me to listen to it and let him know what I thought about it.

I already knew it would be great, but when I played it I was blown away. Not just by the fact that he recorded my song, but by his spirit on the entire production. He blessed my heart. I called him and told him how much I loved the whole project, and especially his recording of "Worship The Name With Me". As I talked to him on the phone, I was amazed at the fact that he sincerely wanted my approval of his treatment of the song. But Anthony was just that way. He did not want to put anything out there that was not the very best. I assured him that his recording of the song was far over and above anything I could have dreamed.

"Worship The Name Of The Lord With Me" is the only song of mine that Anthony recorded. But I will cherish it always as one of the greatest highlights of my career in Gospel Music.

I'll miss you Anthony, for a while. But as soon as I see you over there, I'll be glad to accept your invitation to Worship The Name Of The Lord, with you.

Until next time, keep on writing!

Daryl Williams
http://www.darylwilliamstrio.net

Reader Comments

What a wonderful article about a wonderful talented man. Thanks for the remembrances.

God is good all the time & all the time God is good. 

Elaine Harcourt

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