Grammy-winning artist visits Jesse Owens Museum

“Many works I’ve written have been inspired by American icons,” said Daugherty. “Like Rosa Parks, Elvis, Ernest Hemingway, Georgia O’Keefe, Abraham Lincoln, and so forth. And I was always fascinated with Jesse Owens.

“When I was a young kid growing up in Iowa, I remember hearing about Jesse Owens and reading a book about him. It was just a fascinating tale.”

Around eight years ago, Daugherty’s interest in Owens’ story gained fresh wings. During a trip to Lithuania, he visited an old antique store. As he meandered through the shop, he paused to examine an old medal. When he realized what he held, he was shocked. 

“I picked up an original 1936 Olympic medal,” said Daugherty. “It was like a commemorative medal – round and about three  inches high. It said 1936 Olympics with the Olympic insignia on it [from] Berlin. I mean, an original medal!

“So, when I found that medal, I said, ‘Okay, I’m definitely going to write a piece about Jesse Owens’ Olympics.”

He took the medal home. For eight years, it rested inside its case – a reminder to tell Owens’ story. And Daugherty waited. 

When he received the commission from the NIB, the timing felt right.  

“The 2020s seem a lot like the 1930s right now,” Daugherty explained. “The same era with a lot of the same kind of conflicts.”

Throughout his career, experiential research has served as the cornerstone to Daugherty’s creative process. Physically visiting a person or place – like the Jesse Owens Museum – unlocks an empathy to his subjects that is beyond the bounds of books or online articles. 

“It gives you an emotional authenticity,” Daugherty explained. “It just gives me feelings. Then I can start to write the piece.

“Music is not just about technique. It’s about expressing something, like a narrative; expressing a story… I have to find ways to evoke, historically, the time period.”

He compared the process with his Grammy winning cello concerto, “The Tales of Hemingway.”

“I visited where Hemingway lived in Chicago… and I went up north [in Michigan] to where he had a cabin where he wrote some of his short stories. 

“I visited the bullfight arena [in Spain] that he used for ‘The Sun Also Rises.’ It inspired him to write that book about bullfighters in Spain. Then I started to write the piece, and one thing leads to the next.”

Such intense research is uncommon. Among his contemporaries, Daugherty’s method is unique.

“My process is very unusual,” Daugherty admitted. “I don’t know any other composers, personally, who write classical concert music and do what I do.”

But, as it did with “The Tales of Hemingway,” Daugherty's trip to Owens’ hometown provided the inspiration needed for his music. While watching the museum’s film about Owens’ Olympic journey, Daugherty was moved by Owens’ quick friendship with the German Luz Long.

“As Jesse Owens was doing the long jump, he actually befriended one of the German athletes,” said Daugherty. 

Going into the Olympics, Owens was a favorite to win the long jump competition. But during the qualifying round, he jumped short on his first attempt, then fouled his second. With one attempt remaining, Long advised Owens to jump well before the foul line. Owens qualified, then defeated Long to win the gold medal. 

Long, the silver medalist, embraced Owens in front of Hitler. He later led Jesse arm-in-arm around Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. 

“At that one moment, right before Germany and America would become enemies, there was that one moment of friendship between the two countries,” said Daugherty.

In recognition of their unity, his composition will utilize “Deutschlandlied,” the German national anthem, and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” the United States unofficial national anthem prior to 1931. 

“I thought it’d be interesting to use those two themes and kind of interweave them together,” explained Daugherty. 

By the time he left, chord possibilities competed for his attention and music notes raced through his mind. He had spent a full day at the museum. 

“That museum is great,” said Daugherty. “It’s definitely worth a visit. It’s amazing they can keep it going because it’s kind of isolated out there in the country.”

Daugherty will spend time composing and playing the piece; come July, it will be in its final, perfected form, ready to celebrate an American hero. 

Though the music is being created, the composition’s title is settled. It originated from another 20th century American hero: Superman. Specifically, from the 1950s show, “Adventures of Superman.”

“Jesse Owens, when he won the Olympics, was called ‘The Fastest Man in the World.’ Now, that’s 1936,” explained Daugherty. “That’s the same time the Superman character was created by the two young teenage boys in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Superman was faster than a speeding bullet, right? So that’s why I thought of the title, ‘The Adventures of…’ Not Superman, [but] because Jesse Owens was considered like a superman – ‘The Adventures of Jesse Owens.’” 

According to Superman expert and “Super Boys” author Brad Ricca, the link between Owens and the Man of Steel is anything but superficial.

“[Artist Joe Shuster] dressed him in a cape and trunks like those of the era’s popular bodybuilders, modeled the character’s speedy running abilities after Olympic sprinter Jesse Owens, and gave him the bouncy spit-curl of Johnny Weissmuller, the actor who played Tarzan,” Ricca wrote in an article for “The Conversation.” “It was a mishmash of 1930s pop culture in gladiator boots.”

But Owens was more than speed. He was an advocate; an ambassador; a symbol of unity and peace.

Since his creation, Superman has been a model of goodness – a man who makes the world a better place. Maybe Daugherty’s music will remind us that Owens was the original thing.