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                  Experience as told by Wayne West at Memphis, Tennessee District Convention 2001

I was born in Camden, South Carolina, in 1947.
My father died when I was nine years old as a result from a war wound from World War ll.
My mother had to work full time just for us to make ends meet, so I spent a lot of time alone.
This pretty much forced me to learn to take care of myself and do things my own way.

From a very early age I loved music. I started playing guitar at the age of 10.
After school, each day, I would spend hours practicing on my $10 guitar.

By the age of 13, I was playing in rock bands around the Charleston, South Carolina area.
I was tired of being poor, so I quickly realized that I could make money using my musical talent.
By the age of 15, I was making around $150. per week, in the early 60’s, playing six nights a week for dances at teen clubs and on military bases.
My whole goal was to become an excellent guitarist and become famous.
I “leaned on myself”, to do it “My Way” to accomplish my goal.

I gained much experience playing lead guitar, backing many of the 60’s Soul and Rhythm & Blues groups, such as The Four Tops, The Drifters, Barbara Lewis, Clyde McPhatter, Mary Wells, The Dixiecups, The Crystals, The Shirells, Spider Turner, The Tams,  Major Lance, and many others.

In the mid 60’s, I joined a rock group called “The Villagers”, with a TV show called
“The Village Square”, which was syndicated around the United States.
The girl singer and Co-host, Jeanne Lavoie, my wife to be, was already in the group
This was the beginning of the road to fame.

My guitar was first place in my life.
Of course with making money and some fame came association that lead to drugs and immorality.
Many famous people that we knew personally, and got “stoned” with, such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, died as a result of drug overdose.  Jimi was a good friend and a nice man, who like so many of us, was searching for "truth" through drugs and our music.

After delving into all kinds of drugs, eastern religious philosophies, spiritistic practices, and much searching, my girl friend Jeanne, who also was the girl singer in my group, and I realized that the life we were leading was miserable and not what we wanted.
Therefore we got down on our knees and said a prayer to God, “God, who ever you are, Where ever you are, please help us find the truth!”

We decided to disband the rock group, we had at that time, named August, and try to change our life for the better.
I knew a music producer in Los Angeles, and I felt if I was going to make it in music, I had to go there to further my career.

Jeanne went home to visit her parents in Connecticut, while I loaded up my car with some of my guitars and amplifiers and a bag of marijuana, and headed for L.A.

I immediately started working with the staff songwriter at Paramount Pictures and doing recording session work.
Steve Allen became our manager and we recorded our first album.
All my hard work seemed to finally pay off.
It looked like I had finally made the big time in the music business.

While at my partner’s apartment, one day a young Japanese man came to his door and placed the book, “The Truth That Leads To Eternal Life” with both of us.

The title of the first chapter was, “Grand Blessings From God Near At Hand!”
The scripture text quoted from Revelation 21:3, 4 where it states, “God… will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning not outcry nor pain be any more.”

I looked at the picture on the opening page with a little girl with a lion and a wild bird on a man’s finger and knew it was the truth at that moment.
Our prayer had been answered.

In the meantime, I had Jeanne come over to Los Angeles, and we made plans to get married back on the east coast, where her parents and my mother could attend the wedding.

On the plane flight to South Carolina, I was reading the “Truth” book.
Remembering our background of long hair and 60’s vernacular, as I was reading I would say, “wow . . man . . far out . . . right on . . . heavy … dig this”.
(Later, Jeanne told me she was thinking, “I finally get this man to marry me after five years, and he’s got his nose in a book!”)
Out of curiosity though, Jeanne started reading over my shoulder.

After the wedding we got a small apartment in Hollywood and not long after moving in, we heard a knock at the door.

A young Yugoslavian woman and an older Hungarian lady were at the door.
It was the Yugoslavian woman's first English speaking presentation.
She said, in broken English, “Good Morning, We’ Jehovah’s Witnesses”.

I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside the apartment.
(Remember this was 1969, about the time Charles Manson's followers had killed all those people)
I assured her, No I won’t hurt you, YOU are the people with the little blue book. 

We had endless questions. And after about 2 hours, they asked if they could come back at another time and bring a young couple to study with us.
We didn’t even notice that the older lady was uncomfortable, because we had no furniture and they had to sit on the floor on pillows the whole time.

The older lady brought the young couple back a few days later, and it happened to be the same man that placed the truth book with my partner and me.
They set up the study for the following week, but invited us to the meeting this coming Sunday.
After they left, with my hand still on the doorknob, I looked at Jeanne and said, what do you think?
She said, “It sounds like the truth to me”.

So we came to the meeting that Sunday, to their surprise, dressed in 60’s fashion, beard, long hair, bell-bottom pants and Jeanne had on a micro-mini skirt.
We will never forget the talk, it was “The Flood of Noah’s Day” given by Brother Al Kavelin, a musician and former Big Band Leader.

Everything he said was so clear and understandable and logical as he orchestrated his discourse.
Then the Watchtower study went completely over our head.

We decided we would make a quick exit. But on our way to the door an older lady, Sarah Stansel, dressed in a colorful paisley dress stopped us and asked us where we were from.
I told her Charleston, SC, and she said, “Everybody come over here, these folks are from where I’m from”. She had pioneered there in the 1920’s with four other sisters, before a congregation was formed
Needless to say, a fast friendship began.
She faithfully served Jehovah until her death and reward at the age of 99.

About this time, a number of the members of the Villagers came over because they had heard that I had made the big time.
I told them they could stay with us, IF I could study the Bible with every one of them.
They said, “That’s cool.”
At one time we had eight people sleeping on our living room floor.
Many did study, and some of them came into the truth.
*[See also experiences in Feb 8, 1973 and April 22, 1973 Awake] at the end of this experience.

I would stay one or two chapters ahead of them, and if I needed help I would call Sarah, sometimes at three in the morning, for answers, not realizing how late it was.
She had a photographic memory and could quote any Watchtower article from any year or Bible scripture without even getting out of bed to turn on a light.

My music partner and his wife also started studying, but soon they started getting opposition from family and friends, and they quit.
Needless to say, this drove a wedge into our professional relationship, because Jeanne and I were now very serious about making the “Truth” our career.
He said he was going to quit studying. Then I said, “Well, I’m going door to door”.
I ended our partnership, with him and Steve Allen and also our hopes of making it big, the thing we both had always wanted.

My guitar and music career, which used to be first, now came after Jehovah, my wife and my ministry.

I continued to work in recording sessions with some of the top studio musicians in Los Angeles, such as Elvis Presley’s Drummer and Bass player and Monk Montgomery (the brother of Wes Montgomery)

Occasionally I would play live performances and played with Hugh Masekela, and have opened for Dionne Warwick, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Rare Earth, Vanilla Fudge, The Jackson 5 and Sly & the Family Stone.
I also had the privilege of working with some brothers that were in the music field, playing and recording with Wayne Henderson and Wilton Felder of “The Jazz Crusaders”, Phil Volk (formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders), and Frank Kavelin, who wrote some of the Kingdom Songs

Jeanne and I were baptized in May, 1970, at our first Circuit Assembly, just a few months after we started studying.

Shortly after we were baptized, I received a call from a producer, about auditioning for the Everly Brothers, who had a Network TV show and were making a comeback at the time.
Five hundred guitars players competed for the lead guitar position.
When I received the phone call, letting me know that I had the position, I had to make a tough decision.
They told me they were going on a world tour.
I asked when would they be home. . . he said, “We come home two weeks for Christmas”.
I said, “I’ve just become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And the day that you are leaving is the first day of our first District Convention. And, I just got married, I don’t know if my wife would want to be gone that long”.
He said, “Oh, we don’t take our wives with us!”
Needless to say I realized it WAS NOT a blessing from Jehovah, and hard as it was ….
I turned the position down, knowing in my heart I had made the right decision.

Not long after that, another producer called me, and told me that Eric Clapton had just left a group called Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and asked if I wanted to replace him as their guitar player.
Another test, but again I turned it down, choosing to serve Jehovah instead.

The thing that I always wanted, to make the big time in music, kept coming my way.
But now, my life had a different direction; I would no longer do things my way, but Jehovah’s way. (Prov. 3:5)

We left L.A. to pioneer (full-time ministry) and moved back to Charleston, SC.  We pioneered there for four years. We got our first assignment in Oxford, Mississippi in 1975, as Special Pioneers, to start a congregation in Water Valley, Mississippi.

Jeanne and I continue to regular pioneer and I serve as an elder in Henderson, Tennessee.
We’ve had the privilege of seeing 52 of our Bible students baptized in the 41 years of our service to Jehovah.

We still play music at Family Restaurants and Wedding Receptions and Music Festivals where the friends and their families can come and enjoy our music.

Our manager and producer from the 60’s, Jim Owens, produced a stage play about our group, “The Villagers”, which ran for two years in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, called “The Summer of 66”. A musical production portraying our life and music at that time.

My favorite scripture has always been Proverbs 3:5, where it says, “Trust in Jehovah with all your heart and do not lean upon your own understanding”.
This is a lesson I learned after hearing the truth.

My wife and I have never regretted our decision to turn down the materialistic fame of this world for what we have now. . . We have served Jehovah together happily for over 40 years and will continue to do so, “trusting in Jehovah with all our heart”.

Updated January 11, 2011
 

* Awake 1973  2/8  page 15 "People Who Are Becoming Jehovah's Witnesses"

 Quite a number of former drug users have also become Jehovah’s witnesses, including ones who had gained prominence as rock ’n’ roll musicians. One group, called “the Villagers,” appeared on nationwide television. After the group broke up, several of its members began studying the Bible, changed their way of life and became Jehovah’s witnesses. Some of these were baptized at the Columbia, South Carolina, “Divine Rulership” Assembly last summer.

Awake 1973 4/22  pages 27- 8  "Criminals and Drug Users Reformed"

 Former drug users who become Jehovah’s witnesses often are successful in helping other drug addicts to reform. This is true of a young man who, years ago, had a successful rock ’n’ roll band, "the Villagers" in South Carolina. After this group broke up, and while he was in Hollywood fulfilling a recording contract, he and his wife started studying the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses. Both of them recognized that what they were learning was the truth.
As a result, this man turned down attractive employment opportunities, including jobs with famous “rock” groups, in order to be in better position to grow spiritually. His friends in South Carolina were shocked when they heard about this. They were also shocked to learn that he had shaved off his beard. He explains what happened when one of them visited him in California:
“As soon as he entered the door he asked me where he could get the best ‘dope’ in Los Angeles, and where he could find some ‘chicks.’ I told him: ‘I don’t know.’ This was another shock to him . . .
“We started a Bible study with his wife and others, and he would sit on the couch and smirk and go outside and smoke marijuana. But after a few days we would look over and catch him listening a little. Then he read the ‘Awake!’ on the subject, ‘Why the Hippie Movement?’ This started him to asking questions. He then read the Hebrew Scriptures and the book ‘“Then Is Finished the Mystery of God”’ within about a two-week period. He immediately changed his attitude, started attending meetings, eventually shaved, and cut his hair.
“After they attended their first meeting his wife asked me if I had called up all the Witnesses and told them to be especially nice to those ‘freaks’ that I was bringing to the Kingdom Hall. Her husband was dressed in blue jeans with holes in them, a dirty T-shirt; he had an Indian band around his head, beads around his neck and he was barefoot. I told her, ‘Of course not; that is the way Jehovah’s witnesses treat all people, no matter what they look like.’ She was fed up with false religion, and immediately recognized that Jehovah’s witnesses were God’s people and that they had the truth.”
In a short time these reformed hippies and drug users were baptized by Jehovah’s witnesses. During the past year they studied with a number of others with whom they had worked in their rock ’n’ roll band. Several of these persons were baptized at the “Divine Rulership” Assembly last summer in Columbia, South Carolina, and others with whom they are studying are looking forward to becoming Jehovah’s witnesses.
Many persons have turned to crime and the use of drugs because they are disgusted with this corrupt, hypocritical system of things. Religions that support this world, therefore, are abhorrent to such persons. But when they are shown from the Bible how God views this system—that He, too, abhors it and purposes to destroy it and usher in a righteous new system of things—they often reform their lives to please this grand God, Jehovah.—2 Pet. 3:5-7, 13.