By Darragh Doiron
August 25, 2006 12:04 pm
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By Darragh Doiron
The News staff writer
Musicians remember Glenn Wells as an easy-going friend, ready to write a song as soon as he could find a pencil.
Born Glynn Stilwell Jr. he adopted the stage name Glenn Wells and recorded his first music at age 14 or 15. Wells was 62 when he died Sunday at his home in Wimberley.
His band, The Blends, topped the charts in the early ‘60s with songs such as “You’re Mine Tonight,” “ Write Me A Letter” and “Lesson in Love.” He has been inducted into the Gulf Coast Hall of Fame at the Museum of the Gulf Coast.
He had for years been coping with schizophrenia, which family members said “ended his life as he knew it.”
Glenda Durkey, his sister, said she expects lots of his musician friends to attend a memorial service at 6 p.m. Saturday at Clayton-Thompson Funeral Home, West Parkway Drive, Groves. His music may be heard, and others will be invited to speak and sing as the spirit moves.
Gene Bourgeois, known as singer Jivin’ Gene, said if music trends hadn’t changed in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Wells could have gone big time with his song writing and playing.
“The thing that amazed me about him was how good he was at writing songs. He could write with ease,” Bourgeois, of Groves, said. “I think that if I he could have pursued his career, he would have been another Hank Williams.”
“Besides being a soft-spoken, gentle and kind type of person, Glen was real smooth. He was a real good singer, but the thing that amazed me about him was how good he was at writing songs,” Bourgeois said.
David Worthington of Groves played drums with the Wells band and also marveled at his friend’s writing talents.
“When I knew him, he was always having fun. He’d grab a pencil and just start writing. He was a really good song writer,” Worthington said. “I remember the time we went to New Orleans. We’d played a high school prom in Houma and had a good time. We played in Houston a whole bunch when we had our records out. We played three record hops a night.”
Wells’ nephew, Charles “Tory” Canfil of Port Neches, recalls that at family gatherings, the guitar always came out.
“He used to sit there and sing for the family, for the kids. The kids loved his music. He was always writing music, probably up ‘til the day he died,” Canfil said.
Sister Glenda Durkey, of Taylor Landing, said her brother was “truthful to a fault.”
“If you asked him something, he told you way more than you wanted to hear. You never doubted anything he told you,” she said.
He got his talents from their mother, Sara, who wrote “Do I Worry?” for the Ink Spots, she said. He left home when he started a band and played teen dances, then clubs and concerts.
By the time he was a senior in high school he was a local celebrity, his sister said.
“Glynn was performing across the country on live concerts and TV and had been the lead in singer for such artist as B.J. Thomas, Fabian, Brenda Lee, Edgar and Johnny Winter and many others,” she said.
Born Nov. 29, 1943 in Woodville, he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1961. Upon returning to Port Arthur from serving in the U.S. Marines, he attended Lamar University. He married childhood sweetheart Jay Arnold and they had two children. He pursued a doctorate in political science at the University of Texas in Austin, but became ill in his early 20s.
Wells became an assistant professor in the Political Science Department while working on his dissertations. He submitted a proposal to the National Political Science Academy for a paper on how music influences politics. His proposal was the only one accepted by the Academy from UT, Durkey said.
While in graduate school Glynn had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia; this ended his music career, his academic career and eventually his marriage. It ended life as he knew it, Durkey said.
He returned to Port Arthur and for most of the next 35 years he lived with his parents Glynn and Sara Stilwell. He still maintained an avid interest in reading philosophy and analytical psychology. He still wrote music and poetry.
Durkey said he became a strange and complicated man with a brilliant mind and a gentle spirit. He was rarely without his guitar and books.
Durkey said Wells moved to Wimberley to be near family.
Before he died he was able to see his oldest son Trey sing his version of Glynn’s hit song “Write me a letter” at several performances with Trey’s band (The Thrillbillies) The highlights of his later years were the occasional shows that he sat in with the band and performed with his son, Durkey said.
“His time in Wimberley was happy until just recently when his health began to fail,” she said.
Survivors include his two sons, Trey and Kelly Stilwell, his two granddaughters, Sydney and Taylor; his sister Glenda Durkay; his brother, James Wilson Stilwell, and many nieces and nephews.
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